Ihow many adopted children are abused (after getting adopted)?

Question

Please provide statistics

Answer 1

I don't have the statistics, so I apologize for answering with remarks you haven't requested. I thought, though, they were worth adding:

As someone with one adopted child (not because I couldn't have children but because I wanted to make sure he had a nice life) and two biological children, I can tell you that it is possible for an adopted child to be absolutely the same as biological children when it comes to how a parent feels about them and/or how they are treated. I know my family is only one example, but I know other adoptive families as well.

Adoptive families can have the same things that biological families have. Parents can make mistakes, get divorced, have too much stress or too little money, etc - not because they're adoptive parents but because they're people. Adopted children can get into problems and have "issues" with their parents - not because they're adopted but because they're people. Often when problems come up other people may automatically assume some problems are because the couple adopted their child rather than gave birth to him/her. When adopted children run into problems or get into trouble even professionals have a tendency to lean toward assuming its because the child is adopted.

As an adoptive parent, I have found that the outside world has been far more of an obstacle to overcome than the fact that I wasn't present for the delivery has been. It has so often been - for me and my now grown son - truly a case of "you and me against the world".

Knowing how and when to deal with the facts behind the child's being adopted can be a little tricky. It can be tricky to know how much to say when or whether this particular child would be better off having things handled differently.

I think sometimes, too, adoptive parents make too big a deal out the adoption issue. They tell the children how "special" they are when maybe sometimes a child needs more to just feel "regular"

Having said all that, from where I am as an adoptive parent and from what I have seen first-hand with many, many, biological parents (some who aren't even "officially" abusive), it appears that the chances of an adopted child's being abused would probably be less than the chances of so many biological children's being abuse. Still, while I don't have statistics, I have heard somewhere along the way that abuse can be issue for adopted children. What I don't know, though, is are we under the impression the rate may be higher because when an adoptive parent abuses there is that extra element of rotten in it simply because they chose to take a child under the idea that they would give this child a better life.

There are, though, people who just can't ever quite grasp that it is entirely possible for things to be absolutely the way they should be as far as how parents feel about and treat their adopted child; and if the world could understand that bond a little better things would be even better for adoptive families.

I don't know how these freaks who are abusers pass an adoption screening. I can think of three well publicized cases of adopted parents' being horrific abusers. One was a divorced guy who got a little girl from Russia and kept her in a horrible situation for years, one was the sister of the biological mother (and if you saw her picture you wouldn't need to have a PhD in psychology or an MSW to figure out she was bizarre), and the other was a case in New York years ago in which the father was a bizarre abuser.
In thinking about news stories about horrific abuse, I have heard more cases of biological parents than adoptive parents being horrible to their children.

Of course, you have to figure that many less bizarre cases of abuse go on all the time in all kinds of biological and adoptive families but don't make the news. One thing to consider when it comes to adopted children is that some are over two years old when they're placed with their permanent family. The fact that many children are damaged to one extent or another may contribute to a situation where the child gets to be ten, is out of control and steals or sets fires, and parents may "lose it" and do what they shouldn't to the child. I'm not defending this behavior, but some abuse is not "cold, calculated, abuse". Some is the result of "losing it", and the odds of an emotional troubled child's driving a parent to losing it are better than those for many biological children. This could be one factor in any high rate of abuse if, in fact, there is a higher rate among adopted children.

My point is be very careful about interpreting any statistics. Bear in mind that not all abuse is identified or discovered in either adoptive or biological homes; and bear in mind, though, that while sometimes no social workers follow up, there are times (particularly in the case of a troubled child) when the adoptive parents may actually be more under a microscope than biological parents would be (if they were at all).

Finally, when you have an adopted child from infancy as he grows you start to hear him talk the way you talk, you see things in him that are like you, you see things he does that are like his father - all just the same as happens with biological children. All of my children were slender children, and my two little boys were in many ways the same kind of little boy as far as their degree of emotional maturity or sensitivity or athletic abilities went. As with biological children, though, adopted children also have a thing or two that are very different from their parents. So much is the same, though, as it is with biological children (complete with the seeing their parents in their actions or speech or personalities) the issue of their adopted status goes far into the background and becomes something that only occurs to you once in a while if you're noticing how they have beautiful, curly, golden, hair that isn't like anyone else's.

My point is that if the issue of the adoption can go so far into the background (and only show up once in a while when it comes time to discuss some facts about the child's beginnings), I find it hard to believe that there would be a higher rate of abuse among GOOD adoption situation. The question should really be how many times do adults arrange for a bad adoption to occur. How many times and how often do legitimate social workers and psychologists miss the signs of a potential abuser, and how many adoptions are not handled through legitimate and knowledgeable professionals who will do an excellent and effective screening.

Whatever the statistics may be, I think it is important that people understand that it is not the fact that parents are adoptive parents itself that may contribute to any possible higher statistics, but is, instead, the fact that too many people of inferior emotional stability get past the adoption process for one reason or another.

To the child who is abused it doesn't matter exactly how or why he/she ended up with cruel lunatics, but to anybody analyzing any statistics or otherwise hoping to understand any possible higher rate of abuse in adopted children understanding that the good adoptive bond can be of equal quality to the biological bond is a factor that should be included in the equation.

Answer 2

Yes i would like to know that too. And why are they getting abused by these so called loving families? it sucks. don't they do a background check of these families that adopt these poor kids? it's just so sad.