Translated material
Alien blood
Children are not always joy and happiness. Reception parents talk about what they had to go through when they took the children under guardianship or adopted. Not everyone managed to cope with their problems
We help the school of adoptive parents collect 471,914 R needed 735,000 rThe collection of funds is over
Vyacheslav, 40 years old, engineer:
What happened to our family should probably not happen to anyone. When we took the adoptive child to the family, we were ready for a lot, but did not think that we would feel rejection at some physiological level.
We have two children - ten and five years old. We decided not to start our kids more-after all, we are no longer young. And I wanted a big family. And we decided to adopt the orphan. We took some courses for the preparation of foster parents appointed by guardianship. There we were told about medical problems, about psychological problems of orphans, about legal incidents. The psychologist told us how children who do not form a system of attachments behave. We were taught to overcome this problem, prepared for the fact that the child will have a long period of adaptation in the family.
After about twenty classes, we were given a conclusion that we were ready to become a foster family, and we began to look for a child. They found a half -year -old boy whom the mother left in the hospital. He looks a little like my wife. For three months they went to him, and last week they made out custody and took home.
And then something terrible began - completely unexpected for me and my wife.
It turned out that we are very difficult to adapt to him. No one said a word to us that adults are experiencing an accustomed to the baby. You see, not a word!
Imagine that you spend all day in the same room with a colleague. And some negative energy comes from him, or from it, for example, it smells of perfume that you do not like.
We understand that the boy is an unfortunate baby whom his mother abandoned. He, not us, is in a difficult life situation. It is quite calm - no, of course, there are whims inherent in his age. But no more. Our native children behaved at his age much worse.
And my wife and I sit in the evenings and cry.
At the training courses, we were only told about the rights and problems of the child. And about what difficulties the parents experience when adapting to the orphan, which they accepted into the family, not a word. We have become hostages of non -informality. It seems that everyone wants to quickly “shove” orphans on families and report.
What to do? We will do everything so that the boy is not in the orphanage again.
***
Vyacheslav restrained his word: through the organization “Parental bridge”, the baby was found another family with which Vyacheslav and his wife were able to make friends. They decided to help these people - both financially and physically - to educate a boy, whom they themselves could not get used to. Vyacheslav and his wife left the thought of adopting the adoptive baby.
Comment by Ekaterina Shumilkina, psychologist at the training and support of the foster parents of the St. Petersburg Public Bridge Charity Foundation:
In the process of preparing adoptive parents, work with personal history and resources of the candidate is important. Very often the resources are not enough, and the parent, who is not prepared for his own reactions to the child, faces completely intolerable feelings.
In the case of Vyacheslav, the rejection of the child was at the physical level. It is difficult to say what it was. Most likely, a neurotic reaction to the baby. There is no point in looking for guilty here.
Very often, personality crises or family crisis leads to the reception of parenthood. The child in such cases seems to be a medicine to correct the situation. This is wrong. We pay great attention to the personality of the future adoptive parent, analyze his motives, see if there are unremarkable crises and psycho -traumas. The adoptive child can, as it were, cause all the “dark” that is in an adult, even if the baby behaves like an angel. Sometimes it is better to decide to part.
Marina, 46 years old, psychologist:
When my husband and I realized that we could not conceive a child, we decided to take the baby from the shelter. And they thought: let it be a girl of three or four years. By this age, all diagnoses are “crawling out”. We have finished the laid -based foster parents. They have not yet begun to look for a child when I saw a photo of the eleven -year -old boy Misha on one site in the “I am looking for mom” section. I somehow immediately realized: this is my child.
We arrived at the shelter where he lived at that time. We knew that Misha lost more than a year ago - her father died even earlier. From the point of view of documents, nothing prevented adoption.
And now the child comes to us. I immediately remembered an illustration from a children's book about animals - Gibbon in captivity. The gaze from the sneaky, hands hang below the knees, the back is bent.
Misha reacted negatively to our visit: it seems to me that he no longer believed in anything good.
We began to take him home for the weekend. It seemed (as it turned out later, mistakenly), something moved from the dead point. Misha was a polite boy. He told us: "Sorry, I get used to it for a long time."
He is generally an introvert. He never turned to me - not by name, no way. Then he told me that his mother loved very much, and it seemed to him that at least some feelings for foster parents would be a betrayal of her memory.
Misha, the very least, finished the fourth grade. He rested in the camp at sea. We bought him a bicycle, and he went with us to a bike trip.
In September, we took the boy home. When Misha realized that he was here forever, he seemed to be reborn.
The scandals followed one after another. In response to my request to put a dirty cup in the sink, this very cup flew into the wall. One morning, I said to Misha that I did not allow him to play the computer-the boy began to tear his torn-to-the-way with his teeth.
And the husband? The husband himself plunged into a computer game. Looking ahead, I will say: he played a year in it, and then went to another woman.
Once in a regular school after a simplified shelter, Misha rolled up on deuces. I did not want to study - I spent a sea of money on tutors in all subjects. In the lessons, the child swayed in a chair and did not listen to teachers. He was friends with even larger dimensions than himself.
Misha never starved in his life, but at the table he did not seem to eat, but ate - he grabbed the cutlets with his hands. And out of the corner of my eye I watched me - how I react.
After each trick, I locked it in the bathroom - in a rage fit, I knocked all the shampoos from the shelf on the floor. I said: "Until you save, you will not go out."
He somehow removed in the end.
I understood: I am checked for strength. I bought Misha a plastic mug, brought him dilapidated bedding from the cottage. For three months, every day I woke up with the thought that I could no longer stand it and send Misha back to the shelter. But then something in me was indignant: how so?! How am I so easy to give up?
The children's psychologist told me: it takes twice as much time for adaptation in the family than what was spent in the shelter.
Once I broke terribly - in response to the next portion of rudeness, I gave Misha Razleuhu. He settled abruptly - not from pain, but soon, from surprise. And suddenly he smiled somehow crookedly. I realized: he thought that the world was actually terrible, and he was not mistaken.
After that, we, oddly enough, talked well, and the situation began to improve.
I told Misha that it was hard for me no less than him. And he suddenly heard me! I do not think that you need to beat children. It just seems to me that a person has the right to break off. After the conflict reaches the highest point, something can begin to change.
We began to talk a lot, discuss what we feel. A year later, Misha began to contact me by name. It was a victory!
Gradually, I realized that I was tired of monitoring his studies. And took off her responsibility for her. And Misha began to organize himself to the ninth grade.
Now Misha is twenty -one. He studies at a university for a social work specialist. Recently I was upset - after three fives in the session I received four.
Comment by Ekaterina Shumilkina:
Often the decision to take the child into the family is painted in romantic tones. When you tell future adoptive parents about the difficulties that they may encounter, they are weak. But life with a foster child is always a great work, the result of which is unpredictable. Guarantees that everything will work out, no.
In this case, it is likely that the decision to take a child into the family was initiated more than a woman, and the man was not ready to encounter problems and share difficulty with his wife. This happens when the family is not harmonious initially. And the child does not bring harmony: on the contrary, violates it.
Children who have survived the loss do not enter into any relationship poorly, do not tolerate intimacy. The child, for example, subjected to violence, even love as violence. And therefore, it provokes the adoptive parent to the expression of “gross” feelings and violent reactions.
Elena, 32 years old, social worker:
We have two of our children - a daughter of two and a half years and a half -year -old son. And two receptionists - thirteen -year -old Zena and eleven -year -old faith.
I work in one of the social services of St. Petersburg. Once in 2009, I went on the case into one of the St. Petersburg houses of the child. And she saw a charming four-year-old cockete girl there.
I really liked her, and my husband and I decided to take her. We began to dissuade us: faith from a family of drug addicts, she has hepatitis C, underdevelopment of bones, problems with the gastrointestinal tract. But we decided: this is our child. And all. We were offered to take a healthier baby. We refused.
We took Vera home. It turned out that all her illnesses are cured. Even the form of hepatitis. Problems with bones and stomach, as it turned out, arose due to insufficient nutrition. It used to be that Mother-Harvesting left three children, the youngest of whom was Vera, alone for a few days. The elder brother of Vera said that they once had to drink their own urine: the water supply in the apartment did not work. What to say now: Vera’s mother recently died from an overdose. Father hid in an unknown direction. Children live in different foster families. Most often, one family takes brothers and sisters, but the offspring of these drug addicts were recognized as problematic that they decided to attach one by one.
We spent a lot of effort and money on the treatment of faith. Health problems gradually faded into the background. But psychological difficulties were not long in coming.
As it turned out, Vera does not feel the difference between strangers and his own. Maybe, for example, approach a stranger and get something from his bag.
At the slightest discontent, she fell on the floor and arranged tantrums - anywhere. In the store, for example. She beat her head on the floor so that it seemed: now she would break to death.
Such scenes were periodically repeated for two years. We tried to ignore them. Vera screamed on the floor in the universe - I calmly continued to walk around the hall with a cart.
At the same time, in the kindergarten, Vera struck everyone with judiciousness, smartness. And she went to school - and she seemed to be replaced: she fell into childhood again. All the difficulties associated with study bring faith to the state of dumbbell, and she asks to buy her dolls.
We call her "a holiday girl." Faith loves joy, fun and entertainment. He is happy to participate in various extracurricular entertainments - for example, in school performances. She has a spiritual girl, capable of empathizing.
Our eldest adoptive daughter, we call “Girl Scandals-Irceters” ...
Mother named her Zen in honor of the heroine of the famous series. We adopted Zen at the end of 2011. I could not pass by the story that this girl got into.
Her father is still in prison for two murders. And the mother, while she was alive, drank heavily. He and Zen lived in a communal apartment, in a tiny room - narrow as a pencil case. For the mother, the size of the room was very convenient. She underwent operation on her leg and decided that she no longer needed to walk. She was caring for her littlesk room. And she received cuffs at the slightest discontent of her mother - good, the size of the room allowed to reach.
For several years, Zena cleaned, cooked, went to the store, not forgetting to buy alcohol for her mother.
In the end, an eight -year -old girl was taken from her mother and placed in a social hotel. Once she was released to visit her mother. And it was on this day that her non -pound parent died of cirrhosis of the liver. At night, Zena noticed that my mother was cold and did not breathe. I complained to the neighbors. They said that it seemed to her. So the girl spent the rest of the night until the morning with the corpse of her mother.
I felt so sorry for her. I told my husband about Zen. He said: "Well, let's collect documents for it."
Once at home, Zena instantly forgot about all her previous exploits. I began to steal. I picked up faith. Zena generally loves to push all his foreheads ...
It was difficult for us with faith. But I never thought about sending her back to the orphanage. Zena brought me to such a state that I told her:
“I can't.”
She once languidly answered:
- Do not give me ...
Mother, of course, treated her very badly. But I did not control. Having converted all the cases around the house, the girl was staggering around the city. She has not left this habit so far. After school, somewhere around-the mobile does not take.
I worry - I take a stroller with the younger and look for her in the yards. And Zen - at least henna. Says: "Leave me alone."
Recently it became a little better - she began to help me with the younger ones.
I do not expect gratitude from our adoptive children. For those who are waiting for her, it is better to immediately abandon the idea of taking a child. It seems to me that foster parents have harder than children.
I hope that Vera and Zena will stand on their feet. Will be independent. They will not go along the curve path. They will receive professions that can feed them. Normal families will create. If this happens, then my husband and I coped.
Comment by Ekaterina Shumilkina:
Most of the diseases with which the child comes to the family go in the process of adaptation. As for psychological difficulties, everything does not happen quickly. Theft, sharp mood swings, the inability to independently cope with your emotions, violation of food behavior, increased conflict is only a small part of the list.
Children experience an unconscious alarm to lose the house and new parents, by their behavior checking the foster family for strength. The foster family needs long-term psychological support, even after the end of the child adaptation to parents and parents to a child who lasts three to four years.
Elena and her husband managed to accept the situation as she is, not expecting anything from the girls. Parents simply learned to live with this: not to enter into a struggle or opposition, but to accept and forgive children - as they are. Just love.
To make the returns less, and the adoptive parents are easier for those who decided to adopt the child, it is best to go not to the first school of foster parents, but to the one that is organized by the Parental Bridge charity foundation. The preparation of foster parents has been practiced here since 1997.
The Parental Bridge Foundation receives subsidies from the state, but they are not enough to cover all expenses. Therefore, the “Need help” fund collects funds for a single full cycle of the school of adoptive parents. It includes primary psychological counseling by phone of the hotline of 200 people, primary reception, conducting six installation trainings, and according to the results of these stages - the training of 30 potential parents and support for families at the stage of placement of the child.