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Rating: Summary: You Can't Change a Miller Into a Butterfly Review: Mrs. Bosley presents this small,but remarkable book to help others.Mainly parents who may not be aware of certain difficulties encountered when adopting an older child,or one who was hard to place in a family. Rather,than scare adoptive parents,I think this will enlighten them.They will be quicker to ask for help with a child with an Attachment Disorder,and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Mrs. Bosley regrets some of the old-fashioned advice regarding her daughter.She wishes she listened to a Mothers instinct and held her during tantrums,although she was told to let the chid work it out. Education was stressed,and the importance of a diploma. But a child who never develops social skills is at a total loss in our society,where first you must communicate and understand other people. Anna was probably given more than her adoptive mother realizes. I thought it was miraculous Mrs. Bosley's marriage held together,and her older sons remained unscarred by the upheavel of bring Anna into their midst. Futher,I commend the telling of this story,so another family will not feel they have failed.She continues to be an advocate and facilitator of a support group for other parents whose chidren have this double diagnosis. I hope she lets us know how Anna continues in her Adult life,if there is progress with age and training.
Rating: Summary: Admire These Parents' Tenacity RE: Older Adopted Kid Review: See those maudlin TV movies where someone adopts a rejected, older kid and flowers bloom at the end? Any parent in the real world, battling the real issues, knows what a lightweight farce those kind of scripts are. You're literally in the trenches, under siege. Older adopted kids can be a godsend, as any adopted child can be -- but if they come from troubled, dysfunctional homes, with bad genetics, you are on a collision course to heartache. I bought this book to affirm my own journey with a disturbed teenage girl, who has lived with us for three years, and now is transitioning to a new home. If the disturbed child is a good actor or actress, other adults like sympathetic counselors and teachers will be completely bamboozled. They will assume you're the problem. Charges of false abuse can happen, too. You may feel isolated and alone, especially if you don't have access to superior attachment therapists who see beyond the manipulations of such disturbed children. If you're seen the movie, "Primal Fear," and Edward Norton's performance as the meek, accused murderer, who finally unveils his true calculating self at the end -- that's a disturbed child in a nutshell. What prospective adoptive parents need to realize, is that emotional and psychological damage within the first three years of life, to a developing, vulnerable baby, can ruin their soul. Neglectful, abusive parenst can do so much damage. Know what you're getting into. Be optimistic, trust God, but buy this first-hand account of what can happen, when the child refuses to attach to a parent. I admire the parents of this story a lot. They kept trying, no matter how hellish it got. Their stories echoed what happened to my family when we tried to help a disturbed child. It is an incredible commitment. Even with all your love, your Herculean efforts to help, to heal, to emotionally connect, unless the adoptive child wants it, it will not happen. I do not mean to be so pessimistic. This book hit a nerve because it sounded a lot like our experiences. Good luck if you're adopting, read a cautionary tale or two, like this one, in addition to the sunny portrayals of life headed toward the sunset. Abide by the cliche, "prepare for the worst, hope for the best."
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