[mckenna]

my firend wanted me to pose this question. she and her husband had a boy (3) girl (1) who were their foster children with the ultimate goal as parental reunification. in the mean time, they got a 6y/o that was foster to adopt. granted there has been a lot going on in their home and the sibs bmom and bdad have been floating in and out but now it looks like all three will be avail for adoption. now the three y/o is going from the oldest to the middle child. everyone always talks about not disrupting bchildren's birth order in adoption, but you don't hear a lot about adopted children's birthorder being disruppted. has anyone had experience with this. her (now) middle son is really testing the waters and trying to assert himself on the much more timid older child as though he is the oldest and continually picks on his older brother.

[nancynic]

Hi,

I'm wondering if the 6 year old child was the oldest in his/her birth family or possibly the only. It makes sense that the 3 year old is trying to get his/her position as oldest back after being in that position for some time. Sounds like there will be some jockeying around for position for a while.

NancyNic

[lambeausam]

I would be less concerned about "dethroning" a 3 yo than an 8 yo. With my oldest son, I didn't worry about taking older kids until he was about five years old. By then he had established himself as the oldest child since he had acted as an older brother for two years. I now have two sons and am not concerned about changing the birth order in regard to my youngest son. While he is the baby of our family, he is actually number three of four children in his birth family. However, he has never lived with any of his siblings - very long, very sad story. I think it's important to consider the personality of a child before changing his/her birth order.