Adopted Russian boy sent back

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She probably figured as soon as he was in Russia, he was the Russians' problem.



All that is being claimed is that he drew pictures of the house on fire, and that he threatened to set it on fire. There is not a single claim that he was actually violent (as in performing violent acts) or any indication that he posed an actual danger. Those of us that remember our childhoods know that kids fantasise a lot about violence, especially boys, which doesn't mean they will actually perpetrate it. I remember songs about murder and so on, yet those that sang them were not actually violent, much less murderous; I remember competitions as to who could come up with the most gruesome method of execution, etc. Sometimes it seems children are actually better than adults at distinguishing reality from fantasy. Worry if a kid starts torturing small animals or hurting smaller kids; if he has violent fantasies, that's perfectly normal. Think Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes (yes, Calvin is strange, but in this respect he is perfectly normal) - he draws about people getting eaten by tigers, makes snowmen showing gruesome execution scenes, etc - yet the most actual violence he engages in is throwing snowballs at the girl he has a crush on.

I don't think it's just the woman here who is at fault; didn't it occur to any of the powers-that-be that if the boy was going to be sent from the Russian Far East to the US (where, I presume, he had never set foot on before) wouldn't it be a good idea at a minimum to have him and the prospective mother meet and see if they could develop a good rapport before finalising anything (this is a seven-year-old we're talking about, not an infant)? Didn't it occur to anyone the uprooting could make it a particularly difficult case? I think the Russians really did just want to get rid of him, and that, not being an American child, the US authorities weren't too bothered.
While I do not see a problem with international adoption of infants, I think international adoptions of older children should be more tightly monitored and have more stringent requirements, as the uprooting is bound to make things more difficult, especially when between radically different cultures (for example, Spaniards adopting Latin American kids seems to me less problematic than Americans adopting Far Eastern Russians). And surely with adopting older children, whatever their origins, it would be a good idea if the prospective parents and the child built some rapport first?

Damien or not, international adoption isn't really an issue, nor even adopting "damaged goods" or any other shenanigans on the part of the adopters or the adoptee. What does strike me as a monumental issue that nobody seems to care about is the fact that you can put a child on an international flight to RUSSIA so easily, without anyone raising an alarm or even an eyebrow. At what point exactly did anyone realise that the small boy in the arrivals lounge was flying solo? With all the super-top-ninja security going on, all the regulations about only bringing tiny bottles of fluids on-board, sky-marshals, shoe-bombs and 3D atomic x-ray future viewers and NOBODY thought.. "small child alone, somewhat curious, no?" Did he not fit the profile or something? Is it just Russia, or can you post your children to other international destinations via UPS? If my 9 year old son fancies a day-trip to Kazakstan can we just book him a budget flight for a pound on Easyjet and then away he goes? The "mother" might be bobbing around on a sea of fail, but nobody else in this process has anything to be proud of either.

Apparently it wasn't that drastic. Airport personnel were made aware of his presence and made sure he was OK and was where he needed to be. I couldn't manage an airport by myself when I was 30, but I don't fly much. He was traveling without company but not without supervision. I had an emotional reaction to the story, particularly because the press painted the situation as a child simply put on a plane alone with a note pinned to his jacket. Have you seen a picture of the boy? He looks overwhelmed and somewhat shutdown.


If he didn't have problems before he sure as hell has them now. Being rejected by a parent has to be the most traumatic thing ever.

@ Aimless: Its a child being sent to Russia on his own.. No part of that is a good thing, and if it happens to be commonplace in the US then it says more about American concepts of child welfare than anything else.

I agree, it was a terrible thing to place on a child that has already suffered greatly. I didn't intend to make light of it. The adoptive mother I think did not understand that children sometimes speak in dramatic terms because that's the limit of emotional expression they have at their disposal. I don't believe a second grader should be held responsible for that.

I saw this on my local news and it was different. They also talked about a place in Montana where troubled adopted kids go and it's a ranch. Parents spend $3,500 a month for their children being there where they get help. Some don't even want them back. I don't think I am going to be judging people anymore when they get rid of their adoptive kids because I don't know the whole story. This kid that got sent back to Russia, it sounds like the parents have tried everything. The boy even threatened to stab them and kill them and the parents had to hide everything where he couldn't get to it. Then they decided enough and they sent him back. The boy had psychological issues.

Apparently the people who wanted to adopt this kid did not vet the kid thoroughly enough. The kid presented some very psychotic symptoms and behaviors. Perhaps he was a fourth generation descendant of Rasputin.

Even so, the kid should have been taken back under adult supervision and not sent back alone.

ruveyn

This adoption was set to fail from the beginning. the adoption agency placed a very sick boy with a single mother who was adopting for the first time. Many adoption agencies don't recommend adopting children with severe attachment issues as first time parents let alone as a single mother. From what I understand it is very common in foreign adoptions to brush the child's issues under the rug so you could adopt and being told your child is fine and your child is severely disturbed. After you adopt many adoption agencies tell you that you are on your own and you are basically SOL because there are very few therapists and residential facilities equipped to handle children with severe issues like attachment disorder and those that do the waiting lists are years long and costs thousands a day that insurance most of the time will not pay for.

So getting help and support isn't as easy as it seems so when you have a severely disturbed child and you are getting no help and have no where to turn your options are very limited. Adoption agencies need to start being held accountable because these kinds of situations would be very few in between if adoption agencies fully disclosed the child's issues and if there were more facilities that are equipped to handle children with severe issues that children can afford. Some parents are forced to surrender their child to the foster care system because in doing so the children are registered back in the system and are eligible for services that usually stop once adopted including hospitalization if needed. Reform needs to happen and adoption agencies need to hold up their end of the agreement because I think it's pretty crappy that a parent has to surrender their child to get them the help that they need that the agency usually drags their feet on.

For those who have no idea what RAD is like I recommend you watch this video series they did on a little girl with it. Please be warned this isn't pretty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME2wmFunCjU

For most families $3500 a month can add up and with no insurance these programs are very hard to afford let alone be accepted into with waiting lists sometimes months or years long. It's a shame that a lot of these places have sky high costs that most families can't afford.

Why send the kid back if he has problems, he is better treated in the US anyway.

They just said on the news that the "mother" of this boy was in the process of trying to adopt another child from another Russian orphanage. As in, right now.

PS The boy was escorted to the airport by his grandmother, placed in the care of the Airline Staff (the airlines do allow unaccompanied minors to fly like this, my daughter did so many times) on a direct flight to Russia. The grandmother apparently paid to have a driver meet the boy at the airport (not telling him until the last minute it was a child), and then take him to a ministry there. Apparently also she did NOT tell anyone at the ministry that the boy was coming, so the driver sat with the child all day to keep him company until the social services people came for him

So sad. And she should be prosecuted for SOMETHING... I'm just not sure what the charge would be.

This woman's behavior is totally incomprehensible to me. What does she think she is doing - buying an exotic pet?

The poor driver. That was really kind of him.

It was damned decent of him - bless him for caring. He was apparently horrified once he learned what was going on. (According to the news report I saw.)

Here's another article about it.

Among other things:

So no matter how threatening she thought he was, she also clearly never tried. She wants a pet rock, more or less; one who will look cute but not require any sort of attention or care.

I heard on NPR today that Talk of the Nation will discuss this tomorrow Thursday 4/15/10 (call in show).