More on the 11 Year old Boy Needing Respite

Here is a write-up about 11 year old Sam written by his Mom. Hopefully this gives a much clearer picture of the situation that lead to his Mom needing some respite. If you are interested in providing a safe and loving home for Sam over the summer, please let me know. Respite is an agreement between the adoptive family and respite family-- and normally details are worked out between the two of them. When we have done respite in the past, it is like one long sleepover-- and the adoptive family usually pays a small stipend to cover food and activities. Can someone else elaborate??
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If you saw my son on the playground kicking ball and laughing with other kids, your heart would melt. He has the greatest smile and a bright sunshiny face (blond/blue). He's athletic, full of life, handsome, agile, independent and can figure his way out of every situation. He's got such a good sense of direction, I call him the human GPS. And you have no chance against him at a game of Connect 4. He also loves animals and has has an artistic strand. And yes, during the best of times, he can be very affectionate. I'll always treasure the wonderful bear hugs I got from him over the years, no matter what happens to him.

Needless to say, this is not the full story or you wouldn't be reading this. There's a side of him few people see. He's a very depressed little boy and as he gets older, an increasingly angry child, who occasionally explodes in big tantrums, and lately worse. Things have escalated badly recently, in spite of extensive therapy and every form of attachment parenting that I tried.

My son never wanted to be adopted. He fought it all the way, but at the time I believed he was simply afraid of strangers and the unknown. Everyone told me to go ahead, that all will be well. They were wrong. Even during the best of times this stood between us. My son tells everyone that he's Russian, not American, and he keeps reminding me that I had no right to take him away. He remembers and loves his birth mother, and at times he's told me plainly that I'm not his mom. Then he'd go on and laugh and play with me and absolutely everyone believes he's so attached to me. But I believe at the heart of our problems was always his unshakable resentment that I took him away from Russia — and, in the process, shattered his crazy fantasy of someday being reunited with his mother (an alcoholic who utterly neglected him and abandoned him at the age of 6).

There are other reasons for his anger. My son has a serious language disability. You can't tell right away now, because after three years here and intensive therapy he's able to express himself and speak pretty normally at a simple conversational level. But he can't communicate on a level with other 11-yo's, nor understand a lot of what goes on around him, especially in a classroom or group situation. He's very social by nature, but the difficulties communicating and making friends are getting worse as he gets older. He has other learning issues as well, although it's hard to tell if it's all language related or not. All this probably contributes to not fitting in and his hatred of everything American.

Until recently he either wasn't so angry or suppressed his pain, because most of the time he seemed like a very sweet kid. He went to school, played with kids, did his homework, his chores, and caused no trouble. All his teachers loved him a great deal. But it's at home where he explodes.

He's also often expressed to me that he wants a father and siblings, and there's a good chance he'd do much better in a larger family, and especially one he won't hold responsible for yanking him away from Russia.