Parents forced to send their children back into care have spoken of the emotional turmoil which led to their heartbreaking decision.
Despite thousands of youngsters successfully being taken in by families there are some who are sent back into care by parents who feel they can’t cope.
Social services warned one father that the boy he was adopting could be difficult but he wasn’t prepared for the violent outbreaks, shares The Mirror.
Rob, not his real name, said the boy aged four or five was “violent towards my wife.”
He added: “She got kicked and thumped. There was quite a lot of emotional abuse to her as well.
“My wife now shows the sort of symptoms of someone who’s suffered domestic abuse.”
The couple had children of their own, but decided to adopt three more.
He told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme that one of them had rejected their affections and attempts to love him.
He also said had the family been given more support, then the situation might have been different – but funding for specialist therapies has been cut.
Rob said he ended up with “quite serious” depression, and almost lost his job because he took a lot of time off work the BBC reported.
Eventually the schoolboy was taken back to care.
Rob said: “For us it felt like failure.
“It felt like letting this kid down. And how can you do that to your own son, whom you really love? It’s heartbreaking.”
“We had such high hopes for what we could give,” he said.
“And the saddest bit is that we gave everything we had, but the people we thought were going to back us up just weren’t there.”
Prof Selwyn said children who were older when they were placed with a new family were far more likely to suffer disruptions.
“It’s whether they want to be adopted when they’re older and how long they’ve been exposed to adversity in their lives,” she said.
“What they’ve often learnt is that adults aren’t very caring and that adults can’t meet their needs, so they find it hard to trust new parents.”
With more support these children could be given such better chances.
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