I keep running some of the things the AT said yesterday in the IEP. When she was describing Patches she said on a scale of 1-10, she is an 8.5 -9. The abuse they suffered was the worst they have ever heard of or treated. Their struggle will be life long. They would surely have been institutionalized without us.
I agree with what she said. I have said most of it myself. Somehow, it seemed more real hearing her tell a room full of professionals. I am a little sad today.
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I've been wondering lately... does anyone have any idea how these kids might have been without the physical/sexual abuse?? Mental illness runs in the family, yes? What about the IQ?? Nature vs. nurture... the exact reason I didn't pursue a psych degree!! =)
It is my understanding, their IQs are what they are. They can be improved upon by working on their processing issues. Both the processing issue and IQ seem to be genetic. Their general knowledge is something calculated in the GAC score. They all have poor levels of general knowledge. That comes from lack of exposure, trauma, and abuse, in their case. It can be expanded.
If I have misunderstood any of this, please correct me.
I can only imagine how hard it must be to deal with the realization that there is no easy fix. As parents we are 'supposed to be able to fix it'. I know you must feel helpless. ~HUGS~
You're wonderful. I've learned so much from you already and look forward to hearing about how the kids continue to improve under your loving care. Thank you so much for sharing your life.
Even with things like bipolar disorder whether a person gets it or not is not 100% in identical twins. I think my children have a genetic predisposition toward it but that must be combined with a certain type of personality.
Both my kids have normal IQs, but I've been told that when they are under stress (which is most of the time) they work at a 3-5 grade levels below the grade they're in. Do that long enough and they're so far behind I wonder if they will ever catch up.
Mary in TX
http://marythemom-mayhem.blogspot.com
I'm an online mentor at: http://rad-online.org/
Mom to biokids Ponito(10) and his sister Bob(13)
Sibling pair adoptive placement from NE 11/06
Finally finalized on Kitty(14) on 3/08 - 2 weeks before her 13th birthday!
Finalized on her brother Bear(16) 7/08. He turned 15 the next day.
" Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain."
Tudu,
You have my total empathy.
My therapist (who has worked with my daughter and is an expert in trauma work) told me last week that our daughter's case is so complex that she will most likely never heal and our daughter's eminent visit to residential treatment is most likely the best thing that could happen, not because it will help her, but because it will give the family a break. In other words, I'm probably just seeing what I want to see when it comes to progress. *sigh*
Mary in TX
http://marythemom-mayhem.blogspot.com
I'm an online mentor at: http://rad-online.org/
Mom to biokids Ponito(10) and his sister Bob(13)
Sibling pair adoptive placement from NE 11/06
Finally finalized on Kitty(14) on 3/08 - 2 weeks before her 13th birthday!
Finalized on her brother Bear(16) 7/08. He turned 15 the next day.
" Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain."
The thing that still amazes me is something you wrote in your open adoption post a few days ago -- that this family came into your care really with just the story that the parents were mentally retarded and couldn't handle the kids. And nobody knew about the abuse until things started to come out about 6 months later. Given how horrible the abuse turned out to be, and assuming the kids had social service involvement for a while before they became available for adoption, I am just amazed and saddened that they continued to go through abuse so long and nobody knew about it.
DD
DD, something we noticed right away with the kids is that you have to ask the right questions to get them to answer. It still baffles me that no one realized the extent of the abuse, much less than that was even to acknowledge that SOMETHING was wrong. I guess they never asked the family, does anyone in your family hear voices or see people? They happily would have answered, "yes, we all see dead people." We would have then known that Schizophrenia was a possibility. Instead they asked, "Is there any mental illness in your family?".
I guess, no one asked the kids directly if their mother inserted things into their privates and we all assumed "scary movies" were scary not porn. By the way, almost all of the significant sexual abuse happened during visits WHILE the kids were in foster care.
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