[mommamarci]

Hey all!

My husband and I are interested in becoming foster parents. It is something we have felt led to do for a while, but did not feel we could while we were both working full time. I recently quit working and am in the process of starting in home child care. So, we are talking about it again. We have one son who was adopted at birth. (Through an agency, not foster.) He just turned one. We think it will probably be about 6 months before we are financially set up with my in home child care to begin the foster process. Then I have heard it takes a while to complete everything. So, my son would probably be close to 2 by the time we were ready to accept kids.

Here is my question: How important is it to preserve birth order? We originally were talking about fostering birth to age 4. However, now we are wondering if we should limit ourselves only to children younger than our son. We are planning to do straight foster with no intention of adopting the children in our care. However, if we one day had a child become available and we felt it was a good fit, we would adopt. Since the kids would (most likely) be 'temporary' members of the family, does birth order matter a lot? I have heard a big reason for preserving birth order is to protect the younger children. That is a large part of the reason we are only comfortable going to age 4.

I fear if we limit ourselves to only younger than our son we won't be utilized as we should. However, my son is my primary responsibility and I need to do what is best for him.

Sorry this is so long and thanks for any input!

[Boulderbabe]

Before you get too far down the road with your agency, check with your homestudy worker. In our county, you can't foster and do home daycare both.

[HappyMommy106]

In my state, you can't do home day care and foster either. Better check this out with someone who knows your state. I found my state's regulations just by googling!

[DianeS]

I have heard a big reason for preserving birth order is to protect the younger children. That is a large part of the reason we are only comfortable going to age 4.

Yes, one real concern is the safety of your son. And unfortunately, even young preschoolers have been known to act out in violent or sexual ways.

Your son will only be young for a couple of years. So if providing foster care is something you enjoy, you will have many years after your son is older to foster children up to age 4 as you hope to. But you will not enjoy providing foster care if your son gets hurt by one of the other children. It will indeed be safer for your son if you foster only children who are younger than he is.

[Mishagreen]

We're also not allowed to provide home day care and foster in our state.
I don't know much about the whole concept of birth order, however, we only foster infants from 0 - 6 months, so the newest child coming in is always the youngest. We have a 3 1/2 year old son, and 22 month old daughter, both adopted. It works well for our household, and we don't have to worry about protecting anyone from being victimized by an older child.
The age limit we've selected hasn't prevented us from being utilized. We've never had to wait longer than a few weeks for a referral. Matter of fact, we're usually called within a day of having an opening in our home.

[mommamarci]

Well, maybe we will look into birth to age 2 instead. think my son will be about 2 before we are ready.

I checked with a friend who works for an agency that used to palce foster kids and she said there is a limit of the number of kids you can have in your care at any one time, but foster and daycare are allowed as long as you stay under the number. (In one local county, it is 8. I have one son, want to watch max of 5 daycare kids, so I would have room for 2 foster kids.)

Thanks for the thoughts. We will have to do more research on this.

[mijojosmom]

I would advise against disturbing the "birth order".

It has been our experience that generally having children in your home who are older than your own doesn't work out for a variety of different reasons.

I would ABSOLUTELY stay away from accepting much older children. We have had very traumatic and potentially fatal experiences with older children abusing our younger children.

That is not to say that every older child is like that...many are not...but why take the chance when you are concerned about it already?

Also...there will be plenty of opportunity to foster younger children. Our home has never been empty and we only take age 3 and under.

Good Luck.

[StephanieMB]

This has been our experience so far.

Our youngest son is 4.5 years old, but we said we would take up to 5yo.

Our first placements are 18 months old and almost 4. There's only 6 months difference btween our youngest and the fs, with my son being the older, but we've had soooo much fussing and fighting between the two boys. It hasn't been very pleasant at all!!!

We've decided that we will never take another boy so close in age to our youngest again. The foster children will have to be enough younger than our youngest, so there won't be the constant fighting to be top dog or whatever.

We don't plan on having our foster sons moved because of this, (because of the insecurity issues) but we are learning some lessons for the next time.