Anyone with various "issues" in their children can you help?

We read up on the heritability of various mental health problems while we were waiting for a match. As far as I remember the heritability of schizophrenia is about 18% but doubles if both birth parents have it. For severe personality disorders the percentage is between 20 and 30%. For most mental health problems, environmental factors are much more important - i.e. trauma and neglect. I guess the combination of having risk factors including both heritable mental disorders plus trauma and neglect is where many adoptive parents end up - and where you have to make some difficult decisions about the risks you feel you can take.

Starlet has a question mark over FASD when she came at age 6. In her case, the only signs I have really seen are:

- some minor issues with gross and fine motor skills. She couldn't throw or catch a ball at all, couldn't swim and her penmanship was truly dreadful
- huge issues with Maths. She couldn't sequence the numbers 1-10 and had no concept at all of money, time, dates etc
- aggressive outbursts out of nowhere and problems expressing emotions

The problem is it's very difficult to separate these things out from attachment, neglect or missed schooling.

Three years on, Starlet swims for our local swimming club, has graded twice in the four months she's been doing karate, plays for the school netball team. She was one of the first in her class to receive her "pen license" because of the consistency of her handwriting. She is almost back to age appropriate Maths skills. With the introduction of sensory techniques, the violence has dropped dramatically and her concentration has improved.

I know the future could be very different, and that puberty is often a trigger for symptoms and behaviours in FASD but I'm glad I didn't let the question mark put me off. Incidentally, it's also a big tick in favour of older child adoption, because I was able to weigh up what the actual problems were that had shown up (or in our case, really hadn't!) rather than just worrying about possibilities.

Agree - not all things are apparent when you are matched for a child.
We ticked many things on form E that we didn't want to deal with.
So far, 11 years in,we are having to deal with 3 incurable conditions that we had previously said no to.
At time of placement, none of the conditions were evident.

Since Incy is the only child and we have not really been "around" other children too closely to know what is "normal" for the age etc I tend to try to look at other children about the same size in places like parks and on the beach and assume that is "normal" an wish Incy would just sit nicely and build a few sandcastles etc!  I think at first we hoped that he would "catch up" and after a few years be as near "normal child" as he would have been without his history but now, nearly 3 years in we are thinking that no matter what we or anyone else does as "input" to him makes any real long term difference and so we have lowered our expectations and just have the base hope that one day he will get through it enough to at least hold down a job, be able to get married and live independently etc.  I generally take the advice of school now since they deal with all the age ranges and some have children of their own who are for eg aged 3 and they often tell me that Incy in many ways is like their own 3 year old child.  Mostly they seem to think he functions generally as a 3 or 4 year old but in a 7 year old body which makes sense since he "lost" his first 3 years with his birth family.

I have read all too often though, and know some adopters personally (including us) whose child has not "presented" with a lot of their "stuff" until wayyyy after they have been settled in their new "forever home" so even a child who appears "straight forward" may turn out to be more complex than expected. 

I might find that if we get accepted for a 2nd child who is already presenting as "complex" they may turn out in the long term less complex than Incy, maybe it works in reverse!

Autism diagnosis before 5 is different to 5+. Only know this as one of Sqk's school friends is on route to diagnosis and it has been slowed down till he turns 5 in August when he will hit more of the tick boxes. My own experience in our family is that out of 3 siblings one is diagnosed autistic (my brother) and I almost certainly would be diagnosed on the spectrum somewhere but the sibling between us is fine. So yes it can run in families but not definite and if they are not worried about child at 4 then probably not too likely - Sqk's friend was picked up due to nursery issues before he turned 4.