I've adopted six times and twice it didn't work out. One kid was just too dangerous and the other was impacted by that kid. My observations are that adopting an older child and expecting that child to love you and appreciate you is a stretch. These kids are often, if not usually, so damaged by the time they are sometimes even two years old that they often have no idea how to love and many times just dont even WANT to or feel comfortable being loved. Also, if there was prenatal drug or alcohol abuse, the child could have organic brain damage from that (like alcohol spectrum disorder). The child who was so dangerous that we adopted was 11 and we gave him everything too and he acted like he adored us, but was secretly sexually and emotionally terrorizing our younger two kids (who were adopted, but at very young ages). We also adopted a six year old boy from Hong Kong. He was and is BRILLIANT. He was so easy to raise too, never did anything wrong and is now 30 years old and almost a millionaire. He doesn't see us anymore. He married and is going through tons of identity baggage, and, to be honest, I doubt he ever bonded with us. The infant adoptions and our two year adoption worked-- they bonded right away. I must add that the little boy who came to us at two only had ONE foster home, and had been very loved there, so he didn't have attachment issues. However, due to prenatal substance abuse and/or heredity, he is on the autism spectrum. The much older kids that we adopted never bonded. It seems logical that we give them the world and they love and appreciate us, but these kids don't think that way. They are unable to think like "normal" kids who were loved from birth. They also often have undiagnosed psychiatric problems that are hard to diagnose if there is no birth history. ODD rarely ever stands alone. Most likely other things are also going on and also most likely there are attachment issues too. You may want to look up Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). I think that there's a link on this site. However, to complicate matters, it's rare that Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) stands alone too. The child we adopted who abused our younger kids was diagnosed with "Severe Reactive Attachment Disorder." He had never been caught abusing until he'd been adopted by us. His foster parents hadn't suspected, but he admitted he'd been doing it since he was five years old. Somewhere, although he has no memory of it, he must have been abused too and that's another issue. The social worker told us at least 90% of the foster kids are sexually abused. in my opinion it's pointless to be angry at a child with this background for not appreciating his advantages. I truly don't believe he CAN. If he talked to my oldest son from Hong Kong, the smart one, my son would tell him, "I never could love people the way others do." He lived in an orphanage for six years. He tried hard to love us, even hugging us, but we could tell that he was detached. You're doing the right thing by treating this child like one of the family because he IS. But your brother may love the boy more than the boy can love him back. by the way, all my kids are different races from us. The issue didn't seem to be the race. It seemed to be the age that the child came into our lives. I'm very close to the kids who were adopted as infants--as close to them as to my biological son.
An adopted child should not have to act grateful. JMO
