http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3801614.ece
Adopted children: sometimes you can't mend them
==
A third of adoptions don't work out. A parent reveals the trauma of
attempting to raise a disturbed child and failing.
Penny Wark
Modern parenting lore has it that if you are kind and loving to
children, if you listen and explain and give them time, all will be
well. We are all psychologically attuned these days and communication
is the key.
But what if you pour all this love into a child and meet only
resistance? This is the experience of a significant number of parents
who adopt traumatised children, though only recently have they begun
to publicly express their hurt, bewilderment and sense of failure. It
is estimated that a third of adoptions don't succeed, and as a parent
who has experienced this crippling sense of loss, Melanie Allen hopes
that by telling her story in a book, The Trouble with Alex, she can
alert professional carers to the need to give more support to damaged
children who are adopted. Their needs are not always understood, she
believes, and if you have adopted such a child and then realise that
no amount of care and love can heal them, you need expert support too.
Melanie and her husband Rob are professional people who live in a
quiet English suburban street. They decided to adopt when they were
unable to conceive a second baby and, when asked if they would
consider a special-needs child, they happily ticked all the boxes.
Their first meeting with Alex, then 5, was a delight. She was
adorable, angelic and affectionate, and immediately called them Mummy
and Daddy.
She was perfect, Melanie recalls. Though on the second day we told
her that she couldn't do something and I remember the unsettling look
she gave us. She didn't shout and scream. She took hold of my hand and
wouldn't let it go and I thought, 'God, that's strong'. It didn't
quite feel normal.
To protect Alex's identity, Melanie is using pseudonyms and it is for
this reason that she speaks slowly and with care. As they soon
discovered, Alex had phenomenal charm. With their friends and family
she was utterly engaging, yet at home she was remote, mechanical and
disruptive without ever displaying anger. No matter how loving Melanie
and Rob were towards her, slowly they recognised that they were
getting nothing back. Day after day she stared, tapped, shuffled, and
she shadowed Melanie from the moment she woke to the moment she went
to sleep. She couldn't dress herself or distinguish colours.
Initially, on professional advice, the family put her problems down to
learning difficulties and it took Melanie about a year to rumble that
Alex was much brighter than she admitted. Watching her set the table
one day she realised that she was deliberately misplacing cutlery.
Something was wrong, but because Alex never spoke of what she was
thinking, it was impossible to know what it was.
If she had wiped poo over the walls, we'd know what we were dealing
with, she told a friend. With Alex we haven't a clue.
It was some years before Melanie found a reference to attachment
disorder, and realised that this explained Alex's behaviour. If a
child's early life is dominated by fear, she becomes unable to trust
another person, and if she can't attach she can't love, or be loved.
Instead her behaviour revolves around a regime of control: by
controlling her environment and the people around her she feels safe;
by seeking attention in social situations she is controlling them too.
It is a survival mechanism and the more Melanie learnt about Alex's
early life, the more this made sense.
Alex's mother, who had grown up in care, was an alcoholic and drug
addict. When Alex was 18 months old her mother was found unconscious
in a flat that stank of decaying food, soiled nappies, damp and
rot-infested towels. Alex was underweight, malnourished and lying in
her own faeces. Yet after some time in hospital and with a foster
carer, she was returned to her mother, who then had a new boyfriend.
Unknown to social services he was schizophrenic and regularly
responded to the voices that he heard by beating Alex. In her first
three years she knew only neglect and abuse.
This is why she sought negative attention, says Melanie. Because
she was angry she wanted to make us angry. She was on her guard all
the time. The staring was making sure she was in control all the time,
safe. And the child who can bounce from one adult to another, flinging
herself into a new set of arms, displays a classic sign of a child who
can't attach. Yet the more time we spent with her the more she was
worth fighting for.
The Allens fought, seeking help from social services and
psychologists. They believe Alex saw the country's leading child
experts yet invariably their daughter was calm and composed when she
met professionals, and invariably the Allens were told either that
there was no problem, or that the difficulties lay
