[melissa_bear003]

My children at home are 10, 3.5, and 2. Dh and I are planning to adopt via CPS, and are looking at preschool age, roughly...as young as 2.5, as old as 5 as a reasonable age range. Part of it is that due to an injury, an infant would be very difficult for me to manage 1 armed. The other consideration is, we are homeschoolers, and figure that it would be one less transition if the child had not yet begun school.

I'm wondering what experience or advice you can give...we've been talking and wondering if it wouldn't be better to wait until our 2 yo is 3, or even 4, so that she can better understand some of the behaviours that may occur when a child is welcomed into our home and making that transition. I'm thinking at her age now, the potential temper tantrums, etc would scare the crud out of her, but in a year or so, she would understand an age appropriate explaination (basing this on what my 3.5 yo is able to understand)

Anyone?

[shy_bear]

When we first started fostering years ago with the hope to adopt we knew right away that is was not for us and our kids were way too young. They were 5 and 3 at the time. Our 3 yr old did not understand why all of the sudden there was a stranger in our home wanting to play with her stuff and share her mom and dad. We had one short term placement and one that was going to an adoptive situation. It was just too much for us...we waited until she was 6 and we went into f/a adoption again and ended up with a gorgeous newborn. I really think it all depends on your kids personality and how flexible they are; our girls are very routine oriented. With kids who are in care a lot of time there is more appointments they you are use to, therapies, cw's, casa workers, GAL visits, etc. Go with your gut and you will know when the time is right.

[Withay]

Another thing to consider is your injured arm would have that much more time to heal and stabilize.

Also, you may want to keep in mind is maintaining the birth order of your biological children. Waiting until your youngest is a little older will enableyou to consider a wider age range (based on the range you mentioned).

Like shy_bear said, go with your gut and you will know when the time is right.

Good luck.

[melissa_bear003]

Unfortunately, my injury is to the sympathetic nervous system, and unlikely to recover further than it has already.

I don't know if its a reasonable concern or not, but I also worry about displacing my youngest as the 'baby'.

Definately lots to think about.

ETA: The one decision we have made is to go for a straight adoption via CPS, not foster to adopt at this point. Fostering/foster to adopt will wait until the children are much older.

[jeni-b]

I have a 4 yr old and honestly I wish we hadn't waited so long. She was too used to being the only and having things just so, and the transition has been really hard for her. Of course we have 3 new kids, so just one may have been an easier pill for her to swallow. to me a younger kid will have the ability to adjust more easily since they are in a constant state of growth and development.

[melissa_bear003]

My youngest 2 are 19 mths and 7 days apart...and that's why I was thinking about bringing an older child in sooner, because there was no jealousy or sib rivalry with them so close in age. Its the behaviours (potentially) that have me rethinking it.

Its not something we have to decide today, I dont have a 'best before date', but I hate indecision, lol!

[jbee]

ours were about 2 and 3 when we started fostering. they were fine with it. we have only had older children, the youngest being 7 when our dd was 3. now we just have older boys. the bios understand, our 2.5 y.o. seems fine with things too. sometimes i think it is easier to have a huge age gap when fostering and you have younger children already.

[joskimo]

boy every family is different. Biodaughter was 10 when H was born - domestic adoption. That big old age gap worked well, no sibling rivalry - then agian I wonder if they'll ever have a close sibling relationship because of the age difference. Now H is nearly 4 and we just brought in a fosterdaughter who is nearly 2 (their birthdays are 2 years and 1 day apart). The first month was a doozy. H was very used to being the baby, the attention getter. Then she had to share mom and dad and toys and..... you see where this is going. I think we're in a good place right now, but I don't know how H will take it if we're not able to adopt N. EVen though it's a pre-adopt placement, and I try to remind H of that, at her age these concepts are difficult to comprehend.

You have to decide what's right for you, for our family I'm still unsure if this was right for us, we'll have to see where things go. TPR is Jan. but I"m not holding my breath.

That being said, if we lose N, I don't think I want to bring another one in the house while H is so young.

[Scrapsathome]

My youngest (BS) was 16 months old when we started fostering and got our first potential adoptive placement. He did really well for the most part with it. He loved playing with the babies we had. I, on the other hand, was a bit overwhelmed sometimes with the added effort of trying to deal with two kids under the age of two while also going to all the foster children's appointments and trying to homeschool my older kids.

For us, the ages that have worked best fitting in with our bio kids were anything between 4 and 6. There've been occasional exceptions to that, but for the most part those ages seem to work well for us right now. The hardest has been kids ages 8 and up and 2 and under. I've learned that I really like having kids that are old enough to understand me.

You are right to think that school age foster kids can cause difficulties when you are homeschooling. Some of what we've dealt with is 1.)The school's schedule and events interfering with our homeschool and 2.)The attitudes of the kids either being angry that our kids are "smarter" or know more than them OR feeling that it's unfair that they have to go to school and deal with bullies, mean teachers, and excessive amounts of homework while missing out on the fun stuff we're doing at home with the other kids.

A funny comment made by one 8 yr old FD we had, "In California everyone says that homeschoolers are all just a bunch of gangsters." (meaning gang members, lol)

In the past week I had to deal with a brand new dilema. My Kindergarten age FD (who we hope to adopt) had a parent/teacher conference I attended. Her teacher basically told me during the meeting that she was "very concerned" that I planned to homeschool FD because although she understood that people homeschool because it's meaningful to their family, FD won't be able to get the educational and speech help that she needs outside of public school. I assured her that we planned to have FD receive speech therapy weekly. "What is the essential help FD is receiving in her Kindergarten class?" you may wonder. She gets 10-15 minutes a day of one on one time learning to recognize and pronounce the names of shapes and letters. I've already got her on a waiting list for a much better program at a Children's Hospital.

I think having kids close to your own kids' ages can be really good. Especially in a homeschooling family since then they can work on certain subjects at the same time. I also agree that it's a really good idea to have someone close to your youngest's age before they get to used to being the baby of the family. Our 2 year old BS is advanced for his age and acts more like a 3 1/2 year old. Our 4 1/2 year old FS is behind for his age and also acts about 3 1/2. So it works out very nicely and they play together well most of the time.

Good luck!
Jess