After disruption, some of the children entered long-term residential treatment facilities. After a period of counseling, others were eventually adopted by families better equipped to meet their special needs. Each family expressed frustration with social workers and the system in general, often feeling that agency workers neglected to disclose vital background information regarding the children and at times turned their backs on desperate families, ignoring pleas for help. In most cases, the children involved became abusive to other family members, including other children in the household. In an effort to protect the entire family, both physically and emotionally, most of these families felt that disruption was their only choice and have never regretted their decisions.
Families do grieve after an adoption disruption.
One mother recalls feeling relieved, then feeling guilty for feeling relieved. At least two mothers remember agency workers playing on the parents' guilt, making them feel even worse about their decision. Remember, choosing to disrupt an adoptive placement is no indication that the adoptive parents are failures or are bad people. It simply means that they have done all they feel they possibly can and have no other choice. Most of the families I spoke with eventually experienced successful adoptions.