[123green]

I would be interested in hearing anyones thoughts/ideas on adopting an older child (5-8) through the foster system. We already have a child (8 - female) and are interested in adopting a male. Any advise is welcome.

[DianeS]

Welcome!

My first piece of advice is about posting - you will get FAR more replies about adopting from foster care if you post in the "Foster Care And Adoption" forum. Most of the regular Domestic Adoption people here in the Domestic Adoption forum are adopting infants, so their experience will be different. You can find a link to the foster care forum at the top of the page (at least, it shows up on mine while I'm typing this reply to you!)

My second piece of advice to you is to read. Everything. Read every post in the Foster Care and Adoption forum, do a book search on Amazon for "foster care" and for "older child adoption" and buy all of them and read them. (OK, write down the titles and check your local library first, but you get the idea.) Get informed, learn the lingo, and have a good idea of what you think you're in for before you ever start the process.

You'll find lots of good information in other people's experiences. Both good and bad. Don't skip the bad things, thinking they'll never happen to you, but read them anyway. If things are good for you then you have a bunch of information you don't need - big deal. But if things are bad for you, you won't want to waste time trying to learn at that point, you'll want to already know. Make sense?

I hope that helps!

[123green]

Thanks for your comments, , I'll post it in Foster Care & Adoption.

[shy_bear]

You need to think long and hard about bringing in a child that old. You need to read, read, read and ask questions. The majority of children in fc have suffered sexual abuse. The older the child the more moves or chaos they experienced in the bio home can lead to all sorts of disorders, but the main cause of concern would be RAD.