[bringingsunshine]

Hi. Not sure if this is the right place to post, but am looking for some advice or perspective. My husband and I are nearly done with the homestudy/certification process for fost-adopt. We have 2 bio-kids, a boy almost 5 and a girl 2 1/2.

I know traditional wisdom says that you do not mess with birth order. That would mean that we would have to adopt younger than our daughter. We are thinking that we would like to consider a sibling set. Possibly an infant and a toddler or preschool age child. The older sibling would probably be the same or possible a bit older than my daughter. Do you think that is a big mistake? My son would remain the oldest.

We feel that we have the support and resources to make a big family work. Looking for some honest advice. Don't be shy about telling me that I am crazy. Thanks

[Lylac]

Some people step outside of the birth order, and have had no problems. While others have and it caused tons of kaos. But for me personally, I wouldn't do it. My reasoning is #1 I have to lookout for my other kids safty first and foremost. #2 I've read enough. seen enough of the problems it could create.

So I'm not setting myself or my family up for any added potential problems. In my opinion, and I did say MY..it's not a gamble I'm willing to take.

[2BoyMama]

Hi,

We're in almost the same situation and frankly, can't decide. Our sons are 3 and 6. We decided we'd be open to considering someone in between if she was part of a sibling set, but we'd have to see how the foster arrangement went. Strange, but we really feel strongly that birth order should be maintained yet didn't want to turn away a potential match.

[sunsetsky]

I am thinking of this myself. I have 2 bio children 12, 4 and an older infant foster child at home. I would like to add to my family and I am thinking about a sibling group of 5 and 2. I am wondering can fostering younger children be just as much trouble as a young school age child. Who's to say a 2 or 3 year old doesn't have unknown issues that can effect my children? I think supervision is key and knowing as much about the child/ren as possible. It is a risk..either way. I think any age child comes with issues that may possibility affect the family. Follow your heart. I haven't made a decision yet. All of the children that I was interested in needed to be younger than my 4 year old.

[afolc]

My husband and I are adopting 2 boys, brothers. They are 11 yrs and 6 yrs old. Our bio kids are 10 yrs and 8 yrs old. Our 10 yr old daughter will be the only girl in the bunch and she is "losing" her first child status. Guess what, she doesn't care about either "issue".

Maybe it's because we have always been very open with our kids about the adoption, and they knew right from the start that there was a slight chance we might adopt older.

All the kids get along well. Just like most siblings they have their spats, but they really do get along much better than we had even hoped.

No we didn't foster before we adopted. Yes there has been a long transition period, which I would always recommend.

I do have to say that if their had been any sex abuse or acting out on the part of the 11 yr old, we would not have considered the brothers for even a minute.

[tinatyme]

IMO I wouldn't. I have twice in emergency situations and both times my children responded negatively. There was so much jealousy, fear and confusion. I think keeping the birth order in tack allows the children to be comfortable and helps them to welcome new siblings into the family. With our last child who was reunified, she was 4 and a sweet child but her and my two older toddlers clashed constantly. They couldn't understand why she could do things they couldn't (like stay up later), they were jealous and showed that in possesive behavior over toys, food, parental attention, you name it and they would often exclude her from their activities and band together against her.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have never had a problem with them I bring the babies home. They are very protective, love to entertain, and miss them when they go. Even when we brought M home they were fine though she is only a year younger than L. L has taken her in hand and they brush their teeth together, she climbs in her crib and plays with her in the morning, and she has taken on a real big sister role.

You know your children better than anyone and how they might handle this but I was very surprised by the reaction of my children and how threatened they felt.

[ranoutofnames]

I've hesitated to post because the moment you post something of a different opinion you run the risk of everyone jumping on you!

Anytime you introduce a child into your family you are upsetting the birth order. When you bring in an younger child the prior youngest looses the "baby" status. Older kids loose the oldest pecking order.

It seems that usually not parenting out of birth order is more because of the parents than the children. Are you prepared to parent an age of child you've never raised?

For my kids they think babies are cute, but they don't like my attention diverted from them to care for a baby or little kid. There is also the sharing of the toys issue. They truly prefer children come that are older so they have another person to read them a story or to look up too. My daughters loves when an older girl is placed because that older girl will often do hair or put makeup on them. They like older boys who will push them in the swing and make snowmen with them. In return I find the older kids change because all of a sudden there are these little girls looking at them and they want to set a good example.

Many of us on this board have posted how our first placement was hard when we went from 0 children to suddenly have 1-3 children overnight. It's a big transition.

The first time I took "older" children (ages 6yrs and 10yrs) was a mixture of success and failure. I wasn't as prepared to deal with the dynamics of older kids and on top of that the emotional and social dysfuntion the older kids can come with. They were with me for 2yrs and are still a big part of my daily life. The 6yr old is now 11yrs old and is with me EVERY weekend.

I like to have a mixture of ages. I find my home is more successful when I don't have several kids in similar age groups. I'm more experienced than when I first started foster care and to be honest if I had started out fostering the kids I can now take "success" would not be in my vocabulary. I had to work up to this point.

Now, I wouldn't hesitate to adopt one of my older foster children, I just haven't because all of my older kids have RU.

I am also PICKY about the kids I take in, although if I told you about the most recent boys you might not initially think I'm picky.

I watch closely for signs that any new child into the home (regardless of age) does not pose a threat to the other children in my home. I once had a barely 3yr old girl try to show my then 4yr old daughter the "special tickle". I did have her moved because I couldn't provide enough supervision to prevent further harm.

I also look to see if their needs are beyond what I can provide and if they are I immediately ask the worker to find other placement before the child becomes settled in my home.

To date I've only had 3 failed placements so when I tell my agency the issues and needs are beyond my capability they do listen. In ALL 3 of those failed placements the children were moved to a home where they were the only child and it was a specialized home to meet that child's unique needs.

[Lorraine123]

I would not.

This is not about upsetting the birth order of your current children. Its about bringing in a child with an unknown background into your home. You may be told that you will get "full disclosure" on the child's history. First, that isn't always the case, many times the history of the child isn't known, and often the issues of the child aren't seen until they are in a forever family.

Older foster children are in foster care because they have seen and experienced much more than other children. They are wise to worldly ways. Yes, you can claim to watch them at all times, but do you really? It only takes less than a minute for one child to sexually abuse another. You think your child will tell you? Nope. These children may have been trained to manipulate your child.

I know I'm painting a bad picture here, but do you want to take the chance. Safety of your current children is paramount.

[DianeS]

Lorraine is correct. The biggest reason to always adopt younger than your youngest child is for SAFETY.

You know your own children will not be dangerous to a new child. You've known them their whole lives, you know what they will and won't do in different situations.

However, you do not know that about a new child. Will the new child hit? Bite? Talk about sexual activity? Push? Push while on stairs? Threaten? Touch another child's privates? What will they do to a sleeping child of whom they are extraordinarially, insanely jealous? And how many seconds of time do they need in order to do whatever they are going to do? Many children can accomplish what they want to do in the amount of time it takes an adult to use the bathroom. Many others can do it while seatbelted in next to another child.

When bringing in a child about whom you know very little, it is important that you children be big enough, strong enough, and old enough to defend themselves against whatever happens - and that means they need to be bigger, stronger, and older than the new child.

Of course not every child will behave in ways dangerous to other children. But the problem is that not even the experts can tell the ones who will do these things from the ones who will not. Of course some are obvious - those children who have already been caught doing them. But many children do these things for quite a while before being caught. And even then sometimes it is just suspicion.

And nobody wants to believe suspicions about a little 2 or 3 or 4 year old child behaving that way! So simple suspicions may not be passed along to new parents.

If it were me, I wouldn't want to take the chance. Adopt children younger and smaller than the ones already in your home, and you have the greatest chance of all the children remaining safe.

[aedems]

I can only tell you about the one experience I had, and it really wasn't even out of birth order.

I had two fc, one age 5 and one almost 1. I have three biochildren, 13, 10 and 7. My 7-year-old is very tiny for her age, about the size of a 4 year old. It was my first foster care placement when they called and I said yes, of course. The back story to this is we were only going to do foster care for one child under 2, maybe 3 (because of birth order, size and safety).

Things were not awful, but it was not the best scenario either. My daughter was shorter than the 5 year old and BD did not like that at all. They also wanted to play the same things, which was great usually, but as siblings too, they generally wanted the same things at the same time. We had the kids only a month, which in perspective is a very short amount of time, so how they would have done down the road after the acclamation, I don't know.

I also found myself to be very worried about the fd doing something to my smaller biodaughter. Not that there was any history AND no displayed behaviors, but the classes had burned that into my brain, which is why we had chosen younger children to foster for now. I regretted possibly putting my daughter in that possible scenario.

We now are very strict about age, just so that we feel comfortable. No use in getting burned out right away, we are in this for the long haul!

[emcal]

We have had foster children older, in the middle, and younger than our bio children. I agree with ranoutofnames, I think has more to do with the childen and the behaviors than the age. my children have done great with the older and the younger children they seem to have more issues with children in their close age group. that goes for the foster children and the bio children. our last two placements have had girls 11 months younger than bio daughter, and she is over it. when our T goes home we are going to give emma a break and not take any girl close to her age for a while.

[piglets]

I think in my opinion this turned more into a dont foster an older child topic then birthorder
For our family I dont think I would use that as a factor in deciding I believe every child should have a chance We are currently thinking of a sibling group with only older 9 and 7 yr old. I am not going to deny them because they dont fit in our order for our family the more the merrier. Yes again want to stress this is MY opinion for MY family which I truly understand does NOT mean I expect this to work for everyone Yes I also feel transition is extrememly important but I would not turn away a child because of his or her age>again JMO

[tinatyme]

Originally Posted by piglets

I think in my opinion this turned more into a dont foster an older child topic then birthorder
For our family I dont think I would use that as a factor in deciding I believe every child should have a chance We are currently thinking of a sibling group with only older 9 and 7 yr old. I am not going to deny them because they dont fit in our order for our family the more the merrier. Yes again want to stress this is MY opinion for MY family which I truly understand does NOT mean I expect this to work for everyone Yes I also feel transition is extrememly important but I would not turn away a child because of his or her age>again JMO

I would consider fostering and adopting a child that older when my children are older and able to be part of the decision making and let me know if they have a problem, what their fears are, etc. I actually think it can be a very positive experience then. Still, even at that point, I will probably keep the birth order intact. I have seen negative dynamics play out in my family when I don't respect that.

[Scrapsathome]

We haven't had a placement yet, but our entire plan from day one has been to find a group of kids close to our kids' ages and not to worry too much about birth order. Right now we have our fingers crossed for a group of four kids ages 8, 5, 4, 3 and our current bio kids are ages 7, almost 6, and 1.

I guess we'll find out if birth order or kids close to the same age is an issue. Our only firm rule was not getting a boy older than our oldest daughter. She's excited about sharing a room with an 8 year old sister.

Jess

[bringingsunshine]

Really appreciate everyone's response. I think we will stick with birth order and just look for a single placement rather than siblings. I have to consider my current family and what would be best for the little ones I already have.

Our homestudy should be complete in the next week or two and then we will see what happens. All very exciting and scary at the same time. Everyone at the agency has led us to believe that we won't wait long. Hoping for the best.

Thanks again