Disruption (adoption)

Disruption is ending an adoption. While technically an adoption is disrupted only when it is abandoned by the adopting parent or parents before it is legally completed (an adoption that is reversed after that point is instead referred to in the law as having been dissolved), in practice the term is used for all adoptions that are ended (more recently, among families disrupting, the euphemism "re-homing" has become current). It is usually initiated by the parents via a court petition, much like a divorce, to which it is analogous.

While rarely discussed in public, even within the adoption community, the practice has become far more widespread in recent years, especially among those parents who have adopted from Eastern European countries, particularly Russia and Romania, where some children have suffered far more from their institutionalization than their parents were led to believe.

Despite the intense and careful screening that most who wish to adopt children must go through, sometimes the adoption does not succeed. The child may have developmental or psychological issues that the parents cannot handle, had not been informed of prior to the adoption, or both. Or the parents may have had unrealistic expectations of the child, and they just may not get along. The adoptive parents themselves may have psychological or family issues themselves that led them down the path to adopt. These adoptive parents adopt thinking that the new child in their life will somehow enhance their life.

A child who is disrupted is usually put first into foster care, pending placement with a new family, unless they reach the age of 18 and legally become adults before this happens. In more and more recent disruptions, however, the disrupting adopters have been in direct contact with a family wishing to adopt and the child can be directly adopted by the new family.

Some adoption agencies and facilitators have even begun specializing in post-disruption placements.

If the child was placed privately, either through a lawyer or an adoption agency, that party is usually required by law to ensure a second placement of the child. However, that requirement is not always enforced, and many parents of Eastern European adoptees in particular have found their agencies to be of no help in finding a new home for their children.

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Wikipedia