Adopting the Hurt Child: Hope for Families With Special-Needs Kids : A Guide for Parents and Professionals

Fewer and fewer families adopting today are able to bring home a healthy newborn infant. The majority of adoptions now involve emotionally wounded, older children who have suffered the effects of abuse or neglect in their birth families and carry complex baggage with them into their adoptive families. Adopting the Hurt Child addresses the frustrations, heartache, and hope surrounding the adoptions of these special-needs kids.

Children who have endured emotional and physical atrocities, failed reunifications, and myriad losses associated with multiple moves in the foster care system not only present unique challenges to their adoptive families but also impact greater society in significant ways. Integrating social, psychological, and sociopolitical issues, Adopting the Hurt Child explains how trauma and interruptions affect these children's normal development and often severely undermine their capacity to function in a loving family and in society.

Written in a non-technical style accessible to a diverse audience, Adopting the Hurt Child brings to light grim truths, but also real hope that children who have been hurt can be healed and brought back into life by the adoptive and foster parents, therapists, teachers, social workers, and others whose lives interact with theirs.

"This book is filled with relevant, timely, and specific information for adoptive parents: How are children damaged? What are the age-specific problems, and most important, what are the solutions? Dr. Keck and Mrs. Kupecky clarify issues of parenting, treating, and working with abused or damaged children. All parents who adopt children at risk should make this a 'must read' book!"-Foster W. Cline, M.D., coauthor of Parenting with Love and Logic

"In the 18 years I have spent advocating for children and their families in the child welfare and legal system, Adopting the Hurt Child is one of the finest and most helpful books I have ever read. It should be required reading for anyone contemplating adoption-special-needs or not. It should also be required reading for all foster parents, child welfare professionals, and policy makers. Keck and Kupecky's book is a scathing indictment of a system that often treats children like objects. It is, however, an indictment that offers solid advice, guidance, and hope."-Barbara J. Ruhe, Esq., attorney and adoptive parent

"Adopting the Hurt Child thoroughly and realistically examines many issues affecting adoptive families. Through readable prose interspersed with actual case histories, the authors clearly outline the challenges of special-needs children, but also suggest ways in which parents can work with children to help them make sense of their past and build a better future."-Joe Kroll, executive director, North American Council on Adoptable Children

"Keck and Kupecky's profound and compassionate understanding of attachment-strained children and their adoptive families brought me to tears throughout the book. The poignant insights into a child's needs and the development-enhancing parenting techniques in Adopting the Hurt Child will benefit any parent."-Martha G. Welch, MD, author of Holding Time

"Adopting the Hurt Child should be read by all adoptive parents, adoption workers, and clinicians who struggle to meet the need of deeply disturbed children. Keck and Kupecky advocate the importance of accurate diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder and offer pages of advice and clear examples of the ways parents and therapists can become effective helpers in a child's struggle to make significant connections."-Kenneth W. Watson, MSW, LCSW, former assistant director of the Chicago Child Care Society, and coauthor of Adoption and the Family System: Strategies for Treatment

"Each year, more than 13,000 children come to their families in the United States through intercountry adoption. I am pleased that this revised version of Adopting the Hurt Child includes a chapter on intercountry adoption and the issues that it involves. As international adoptions increase, it is helpful to have the thoughtful, sound advice that is presented with such candor in Adopting the Hurt Child."-Susan Soon-Keum Cox, adoption advocate and adult adoptee from Korea