Question by alpine_1: Is it possible to have someone adopt your child? (mental health)?
I am looking for both the answer to this question, and help with the process if possible. We have a 15 year old daughter who basically needs to move out of our home. From what I understand, she would not qualify for Emancipation as I don’t believe a judge would grant it. If we can’t find a positive way for her to leave home *AND* not be stuck with both parental/legal responsibility for her, we are concerned she may eventually become “a ward of the court” and/or get pulled “into the system”. She has already had a few brief run ins with “police” (for running away) and due some some “unhealthy” actions she was taking on herself, ended up in a “crisis mental health clinic” for a few days. She has always been a challening person, so this is NOT a simple case of a “troubled teen” or “teenage issues”. She wont accept counseling(psychiatric) and you can’t FORCE a minor in California to do so unless we declare her a danger. If we do the we (and herself) lose control over the situation.
Bozema, thank you for your input. This situation is very complicated, I am in the process of seeking professional guidance regarding this matters, however each professional I come into contact with thus far “doesn’t handle this particular scenario”. We aren’t trying to just “getting rid of her”. We want to help her, but as we are in California, and she is a minor, she has more rights than we do as far as geting her care. She litterally will not do anything we want, and believe me it’s not an unreasonable what we are asking, nothing different from what OUR parents asked for and she has made it very clear “she doesn’t have to do anything we say” This has been stated in calm and clear discussions and in front of “psychiatric professionals” when she was in the crisis clinic after being picked up by the police but since that was only a crisis clinic, they couldn’t pu her into a “program” and when she got out of that clinic, she declined further therapy and we can’t do anything abot it.
“giving her away” is not going to fix the problem, but if there is a chance that she will somehow “cooperate” with the other family, and go in a more positive direction, because she thinks/feels that she is now going to happy, that is better than court/system related choices we are aware of at this time.

Yes there is someone who would be willing to do this, a family of a friend of hers thinks they can take care of her
The reason we are now willing to see abot getting her out of our house is because of our 3 year old daughter. She of course is a sponge and she has been seeing and hearing things from her sister that you wouldn’t want any 3 year old to go through. For the last year, we basically have not been able to leave ou 3 year old, with our 15 year old due to her actions and lack of concern/care for responsibilty and/or family life. She talks and acts in ways that you not want anyone to witness when we are “present” so it’s not hard to imagine what she may be doing when we are not. This is NOT a decision we came to quickly/lightly. We have looked into boarding options, however we are not in a financial positiion to pay 30K and up, per year, simply because she doesn’t want to cooperate with the basic “game plan of life” We are still looking for options such as boarding programs.
Mandy, I greatly appreciated the majority of your input aside from the initial paragraph, but I understand where you are coming from. In this forum it is not possible to lay out the years of problems and attempts to correct and parent her properly. Unconditional love runs a little thin after years of abuse and anger thrown your way when you are doing everything within you means to better and benefit someone you care about. We have a lot of family and close friends who have been supportive over the years and have each contributed both directly and inderictly to/with her and have just come away in shock and as distressed as we are.
Some general additional info here, I have asked this question in 3 different areas in order to get a broader range of input (aside from the negative B.S. / Attacks on us) and the reason for this as we have several different “issues & concerns” from various angles.

There are legal concerns in several directions, us, her, and the family which wants to do this.

There are adoption concerns as to if you can, or not and if so how do you go about it.

Then there is the fact that she has had MentalHealth issues/crisis, and is currently taking Zoloft.

Each one of these is a serious concern and has special needs.

There has been a slight decrease in the negative attacks on us, and more support for the scenario, and that is greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for all positive/helpfull contributions to this situation.

Best answer:

Answer by Bozema
You can have someone adopt your child but it doesn’t sound like you have anybody lining up willing to do that or to take responsibility for her until age 18. I’d be concerned that taking that action would alienate her from you even more and make her feel like you abandoned her, which would almost certainly make her situation worse.

It’s interesting that you won’t declare her a danger to get psychiatric care for her because “you would lose control of the situation” but you would be willing to lose control by having someone else adopt her. To have someone else adopt her is giving up all control of the situation to someone else.

The reality is you have responsibility for her unless you terminate your parental rights. Have you sought counseling for yourself to get tools you need to help you deal with her better?

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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