Tweet Chat Interview with Danette Schott ~ Adopting Two Children in Russia

Danette M. Schott:

Danette is the proud mother of two beautiful children adopted from Russia. After facing challenges of ADHD, social skill deficits, anxiety, autism, and more with her daughter she was led to research these topics. Danette founded S-O-S Research  to provide parents with guides with three stages containing easy-to-follow steps to walk them through the problem-solving process on various topics such as ADHD/ADD, Anxiety and Stress, Aspergers, Autism, Play Skills, Social Skills and more. She also maintains Help! S-O-S for Parents, a blog dedicated to providing tips, resources, book reviews and giveaways, and guest posts on special needs issues.

As November is National Adoption Awareness Month, Lorna invited Danette for The Coffee Klatch Nov. 4th Tweet Chat session. The following interview is made up of the best questions and answers brought out during the session…please keep in mind all Tweets can only have 140 characters so the words used in this interview reflect those restrictions. Our goal is to pass along information and tweets fit the bill!

When did you go to Russia to get your two children?

We got our son in 1999 at 21 months (he is now 15) and our daughter in 2001 at 16 months (she is now 13).

Do any of you speak Russian?
No. My son had a toddler’s level of Russian and we were focused on him learning English. My daughter was not speaking at all.

How long did it take for the kids to communicate/speak with you?
It is so strange, but I do not remember a time when we could not communicate with our son. Our daughter had language delays.

Did your daughter require speech therapy?

Yes. We used sign language with her and she had a lot of speech therapy. She said Mama for the first time at 2 ½.

Does your son have any special needs?
No. He came home surprisingly unscathed by his early months of deprivation.

Other than a language delay, did/does your daughter have other special needs?

We have heard autism, ADHD, RAD, PTSD, OCD, tics, dyslexia, other learning disabilities, anxiety disorder, sensory issues, and  now mental illness.

RAD=reactive attachment disorder

PTSD=post-traumatic stress disorder

OCD=obsessive compulsive disorder

Other than speech therapy, did your daughter require any other kind of therapy?

I feel like she has been in some kind of therapy her entire life.

She has received ABA until she was 7. She has had Occupational Therapy, Slingerland tutoring, attended Lindamood-Bell, and a lot of one-on-one help.
ABA: Applied Behavior Analysis

One hears of many parents who adopt, especially from other countries, who end up having kids diagnosed with RAD. Could you speak to that?
Thanks to Barb Dietrich for her quick answer: Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), is usually caused by failure to be cuddled and not having one permanent caregiver in the early years of life. RAD can also be caused by neglect or severe trauma. It is often seen in adopted or abused kids. It is very hard to root out.

I did my form of desensitization. I held her every night. Fed her a bottle. Made her look at me. She SCREAMED for months! I couldn’t comb her hair without her crying. It literally took years for my daughter to bond with me. RAD is horrible. My daughter liked strangers so much more than me. She would run from me to be held by strangers.

Did you find a good resource for dealing with RAD? Many under-served parents NEED a good go-to resource!
I have found the best supports to be online with email groups. Other than that, we go the same route as everyone else for support.

Before adopting, were you aware of the risks?
We adopted 14 yrs ago. Information wasn’t as prevalent. We knew there might be developmental delays and learning issues but what did it really mean?

Do you see other adoptive families?
Over the years we have made long term friendships with many families with adoptive children.

Do you attend Russian cultural events or camps?
We did when the kids were younger. My son has no desire and my daughter’s mental stability makes it difficult. Russia in general tends to be a ‘trigger’ for her, so we try to stay away from the topic.

How did you deal with all your daughter’s various special needs?
I am a researcher by occupation (social science and marketing) so I did what I knew…I researched each of these issues.

What led to you wanting to work with other parents dealing with special needs?
I met many parents who did not know where to start or what to do. I knew I could help.

Why did you start S-O-S Research?
I accumulated so many resources and I am good at finding meaningful information and knowing how to organize it. I wanted to help other parents.

What does S-O-S Research do for parents?
Our mission is to help your child reach his potential. S-O-S Research provides special needs guides with easy-to-follow steps to walk parents through where to start and what to do. They also guide you to appropriate information, support, and comprehensive references.


You also maintain Help! S-O-S for Parents blog. What to you write about?
I provide tips, resources, book reviews & giveaways, and guest posts on these “invisible” special needs.

The S-O-S Support Center  provides the option of talking directly with Parent Coach, Stephanie A. Scott. Tell us about this.
Coaching takes place on the telephone at an agreed upon convenient time and allows you to remain in the comfort of your own home. If you reside in the Seattle, WA area, you have the option to meet one-on-one.

Can you please tell our tweeters where to find these sites?
The website is at http://www.sos-research.com/ and the blog is at http://sos-research-blog.com/

How is your daughter doing today?
She is under the care of a psychiatrist and attends a therapeutic day school. She has been stable. She is doing the best in two years!

What advice do you have for other people who might be considering international adoption?

Be prepared for the adoption to be a special needs child. Read, research, and line up possible resources. First you need to find an adoption agency that will walk you through the US requirements. During the initial paperwork, you have to have a home study completed by a social worker. The speed of that is out of your hands. Then find an adoption agency in the country of your choice.

I know of some people who visited their soon-to-be adopted child, came back home and finished more paperwork to finally returned to get the child. Is that common?

Each country has their own requirements. We did not have to do that, but now I believe Russia requires it. For our son we were in Russia for about 10 days. For our daughter we were there for 21 days!

Eh! 21 days is a long time. I can see international adoption is out of many families’ reach because of the expenses.

It is very expensive. I was consulting at the time and had to keep working in order to pay for both adoptions. Mary Beth Chapman has an organization called Show Hope that helps people with the cost. I have it listed in my review of her book co-authored by Ellen Vaughn: Choosing to SEE, A Journey of Struggle and Hope

How did you decided that adoption was a good choice for you?

My husband and I always wanted to adopt one child and have one biological child. After our first adoption, we changed our minds. We felt in our hearts that our daughter was in Russia waiting for us.

Thank you Danette for sharing your touching story and thank you to those who joined us.

How is your community/province/state  promoting National Adoption Awareness Month?

Related post:

Our Second Adopted Child From Russia Changed Our Lives Forever

Follow S-O-S Blog Carnival Started by Danette Schott

Our Second Adopted Child From Russia Changed Our Lives Forever

November is National Adoption Awareness Month This year's National Adoption Month initiative targets adoption professionals by focusing on ways to recruit and retain parents. The 2010 theme is:

"You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent."
Join Danette and Lorna Thur. Nov. 4th on The Coffee Klatch Tweet Chat at 9am Eastern Standard Time to discuss issues brought out in the following post.

This guest post was written by Danette M. Schott.
Danette  is the proud mother of two beautiful children adopted from Russia. After facing challenges of ADHD, social skill deficits, anxiety, autism, and more with her daughter she was led to research these topics. Danette founded S-O-S Research to provide parents with guides with three stages containing easy-to-follow steps to walk them through the problem-solving process on various topics such as ADHD/ADD, Anxiety and Stress, Aspergers, Autism, Play Skills, Social Skills and more. She also maintains Help! S-O-S for Parents, a blog dedicated to providing tips, resources, book reviews and giveaways, and guest posts on special needs issues.  This post originally appeared on S-O-S Research blog. 

 The Moment We Saw Her We Knew It Was Going To Be Different

There she sat, in the corner, under the table, behind the desk, against the wall. She hated us to pick her up, but we tried anyway. She hated to be held, but we continued. She actively avoided our eyes, but we insisted on gazing upon her. She was a beautiful, green-eyed blonde, 18-months-old, and not yet walking. She did not utter a word, barely a sound. She was our new daughter, brought back home from her Russian stay. That was over ten years ago.

Our Experiences
Our first adoption from Russia was in 1997. We traveled to beautiful Yaroslavl and stayed with a family in their home on the Volga River. The wife was very proud of her home and put us in the master bedroom, canopy bed and all. I can still remember the day we picked up our son at 20-months of age. While I was holding him, he was speaking Russian, admiring my earrings, and commenting on the light in the room. As we left the building for the final time, all the attendants had formed a circle around us and were crying. They knew this was for the best, but he had been loved and would be missed. He basically hit the ground running and he has never looked back.


Our second adoption was in 1999, and we traveled to Moscow to pick up our daughter. We stayed with a family in a typical communist-era apartment. The first time we laid eyes on our daughter, we already knew this was going to be a different experience. She was not the healthy, almost walking toddler that had been described. She weighed but 14 pounds at 18-months-old. She arched her back as I held her, pulled her head away from me, and avoided my eyes like the plague. The day we were to take her, she was all but shoved into our arms as we were pushed out the door. As we left the director’s office, a guard stood watch to ensure we exited the building.


Before our court appearance a few days later, we learned more about our new daughter. She could only go to sleep if she was up on all fours and rocking from front to back. I remember one night we tried to hold her and soothe her to sleep, but she just cried. We figured we could deal with this when we got home. We just placed her down and put her in motion to rock–rock so we could all have peace.


When sleeping, she also violently rocked her head from side-to-side. I would sometimes put pillows against the wall so that she would not bang herself. There was very little response coming from her and while in Russia we were already formulating our game plan. I remember saying to my husband that this was going to change our lives forever. And it did.


We were not naïve; we knew that love would not conquer all. We knew that we had hard work ahead of us. But during our journey, we were destined to discover that no amount of reading, no amount of experience, no amount of research, could have prepared us for what we were up against. But it would have been helpful to have more support than we found.


What Can Go Wrong?
We are all familiar with the horror stories surrounding international adoptions. I am aware of 15 Russian children who have died at the hands of their U.S. adoptive parents since 1996. Then there’s the most recent story surrounding Torry Hansen, the mother of a 7-year-old boy adopted from Russia. She sent her son back to Russia this past April. He traveled alone, except for a note from his mother stating that she could no longer care for him.


On the surface it is very easy to judge these parents. How can they commit these acts? How does this happen? But we need to take a closer look at what may contribute to these situations.


Who Are These Children?
In Eastern Europe, times have been tough for years and many birthparents can not afford to care for their children. But if we are honest, it goes even deeper than this. Sure, some of these birthparents have fallen on hard times in countries that are struggling economically. But others are struggling due to issues closer to home. Some of these women have their own set of learning disabilities and/or their own behavioral disorders that have contributed to them experiencing hardships. For some, these problems also have been compounded by drug or alcohol abuse and/or mental health issues.


Many children who are adopted from Eastern Europe suffer deprivation and trauma in their early lives in the orphanages. They experience huge amounts of neglect along with lack of physical contact and warmth.


This lack of initial maternal nurturing always makes me think of Harry Harlow’s experiment with rhesus monkeys. He varied situations, but basically monkeys were reared for various amounts of time with different levels of care to complete isolation. The experiments illustrated the importance of early nurturing and bonding between a caregiver and infant. Without this, some of the monkeys ended up being severely disturbed.


It really should be no surprise that these children are at an increased risk for problems in the following areas:
• medical: e.g., tuberculosis and hepatitis;
• physical: e.g., delays and/or permanent problems in both fine and gross motor skills;
• developmental: e.g., delays and/or permanent problems in speech and cognition; and
• emotional: e.g., difficulties forming attachments, post traumatic stress, and behavioral problems.


In reality, this is a very short list of problems that many adoptive parents actually encounter. These problems can be particularly hard for U.S. doctors to assess. First, there isn’t a lot of available information on post-institutionalized children, because research is limited. Second, parents are typically provided with very little to no medical history. If any medical history is provided, the accuracy is usually in question. Finally, many western doctors have minimal to no experience with these children.


What Kind of Support Do Parents Receive?
Prior to the adoption process, parents work with an adoption agency that is responsible for conducting a homestudy. We attended a number of classes provided by our adoption agency. We also worked with a social worker who conducted our homestudy. We completed questionnaires, were interviewed by the social worker, and had our home inspected. After that, we moved over to another agency who worked directly with officials in Russia. There were many more papers to complete that were specific to Russia.


I researched international adoption and we visited with a couple of parents who had already gone through the process. Neither the adoption agency, social worker, nor Russian agency prepared us for even possible minor special needs.


After the completion of the adoption, Russia required that three follow-up visits at designated intervals be conducted by the social worker and that a report be submitted. Since it was apparent very early on that our daughter had severe issues, we discussed it during our first follow-up visit with our social worker and the Russian agency. Surprisingly, we were never contacted again for another follow-up. We never heard from our social worker or the Russian agency after that first visit. (Note, we had been through the adoption process two years earlier to bring home our son. We were required to complete all follow-ups.)


Our adoption experience occurred more than ten years ago and is the experience of one family. But this one family received close to no education prior to our adoption regarding the truly significant issues. Once home and aware that we were facing major problems, we were truly on our own.


In Conclusion
It is obvious that changes need to be made, so that parents do not find themselves so overwhelmed and stressed that they harm their child or put him on a return flight to Russia. I do not condone any of the actions of these adoptive parents. How could I? But I do wish there would be more education prior to the adoption and support services and resources after the fact.


Individuals wishing to adopt internationally should proceed on the premise that any child they adopt will be special needs. Prepare yourself: read, talk with other parents, join mailing lists, and do your research.


If your child arrives home unscathed, then you are one of the lucky ones and you’ll never have to look back. But if your child has developmental delays or more, your preparation and jump start will be a blessing. It is important to know what the future may hold—the impact on your family, the impact on your finances, the impact on your marriage, and the impact on you.


Adopting internationally is not for everyone, but it is for some. For those of you who educate yourselves and decide to continue with an adoption, your lives will be enriched in more ways than I can describe. You will increase your compassion for others and admire your child’s accomplishments, no matter how small. You will learn to appreciate what is truly important in life and you will never judge others like perhaps you did before. And you will love a little being like you never thought possible, until you become a parent.


Below are a few support services and agencies for parents who adopt internationally. This is by no means comprehensive, but it is a start.


Adoption Doctors

Dr. James Reilly

Dr. George Rogu

Dr. Nicholas Rogu

(631) 499-4114

Adoption Medicine Program and Clinic
University of Minnesota

Dr. Dana Johnson

(612) 624-1164
Association for Research in International Adoption

Dr. Teena McGuinness

(205) 934-0630

Center for Cognitive-Developmental Assessment & Remediation
Dr. Boris Gindis

(845)694-8496

Dr. Ronald S.Federici, Psy.D. & Associates

(703) 830-6052

Eastern European Adoption Coalition (EEAC)

Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption

Orphan Doctor

Dr. Jane Aronson

(212) 207-6666

Post Adoption Information

Harriet McCarthy

Related post:
Tweet Chat Interview with Danette Schott ~ Adopting Two Children in Russia Follow S-O-S Blog Carnaval Started by Danette Schott

November is Adoption Awareness Month. There are many children waiting to be adopted and there are many parents wanting and waiting to adopt. What do you think is the biggest obstacle that must be overcomed for successful adoptions to take place?