[hockeywoman]

As I've posted before, we are in the process of adopting a sib group of 4, ages 6, 5, 4 and 3. Once we complete finalization, we plan to open our home to foster/adopt once again. Our plan is to not take any children older than my oldest. However, we still want to keep working with sib groups. I've found a couple that look to be a good match for our parenting skills and children, however an artificial twinning situation would occur, possibly with more than one child.

What are people's thoughts on this? If we got another (large) sib group, it's likely that one of us would become a SAH parent, or at least drastically cut down work hours to deal with attachment issues and necessary therapies.

Do those thoughts change with kids who have been in a stable placement, so you can get a good history on behaviors, vs. new foster kiddos? What if the children have a different ethnic background?

I'm looking for feedback from anyone who has BTDT, or considered it and decided against it.

[chrisandaaron]

Our situation is a little different, as we adopted my son as an infant. He is only 3 months younger than our bio son. Currently they are only 2 1/2, but they will most likely start school the same year (making them in the same grade). One is CA and one is AA. The boys are very close and you can definitely tell they are brothers when you watch them interact. They are not school age yet, but I can only imagine the questions we/they will get. At this point, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[aclee]

When I told our social worker we would start FC when Ty was a year, she said we would only be able to accept children 3 months old and younger at first. I asked her why and she said, "well that was what we "should" do." She was VERY against the artificial twinning and says there is tons of research about how un healthy it is, especially in adoption situations for bonding etc. She also said that in many situations that the small age difference is enough that it makes the situations MORE difficult that twins because the miles stones are one shortly after the other instead of almost together, like with twins. I haven't really looked into it. That said, once Ty is 12 months, we will be accepting infants 12 months and younger. I do agree that Ty's birth order should be maintained, and he will remain our oldest...unless we adopt a sibling group right off the bat, and then we would actually look to disrupt birth order on advise of the social worker...it would imporve bonding if it went New adopted child, Ty, new adopted child she says anyway

So that's what I know on it. I would google it and I'm sure you will get other professional opinions. I've only read professional opinions against it, but the Mom's that do it say it is fine...I guess you have to decide who knows best.

[crick]

This is just my personal opinion, so don't feel like I'm telling you NO NO NO.

I have 4 kids ages 8,9,10 & 11 and I would not add a similar/same age to the mix. They are extremely competitive with each other and the fight for alone time or special attention from me or dh is unbelievable at times.

It's not just sibling rivalry, but rather a fight to the death for EVERYTHING. Over toothbrush placement in the holder, where to sit in the car, who got one extra corn flake than another, and even the order they go upstairs to bed. I didn't allow our older two to ride their bikes out of our culdesac until they were 10 due to individual reasons and also them not having had as much time with us at earlier ages. I allow my 9 & 8 year old to do this because they have shown safety and are able to follow the rules. I hear almost daily..."You didn't let me do xx when I was that age, that's NOT FAIR".

Because they are all one grade apart in school, it makes for a very very busy schedule. I'm a SAHM and there are days when I need to carpool or very creatively arrange their schedules in order to get everything done. Same age groups (i.e. 9/10 are paired together in a lot of sports and my kids do NOT want to be on the same team. lol. I don't want them on the same team or competing against each other either because it really causes a lot of issues.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that until you really live the life with 4 kids that close together, you really truly don't have any idea how it is in reality. I can say this because I had thoughts of "Oh, it's no big deal" when we adopted them. Well....lol...it certainly does present a lot of different factors I hadn't considered or realized.

Most importantly...once you finalize, you will still likely have another couple of years before things get to the level I'm experiencing now. Things were actually easier for me when they were little. Plus, just a thought..until things are really stable with your kids, I really wouldn't advise bringing in more children regardless of their ages. Personally I think it takes an older child to really understand "We are fostering, I am STAYING HERE FOREVER even if the other child leaves".

Sorry to be a downer, I really don't mean to be. Overall, our life is great and the kids are a joy. Truly, they are. Just not a life without chaos.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by crick

This is just my personal opinion, so don't feel like I'm telling you NO NO NO.

I have 4 kids ages 8,9,10 & 11 and I would not add a similar/same age to the mix. They are extremely competitive with each other and the fight for alone time or special attention from me or dh is unbelievable at times.

It's not just sibling rivalry, but rather a fight to the death for EVERYTHING. Over toothbrush placement in the holder, where to sit in the car, who got one extra corn flake than another, and even the order they go upstairs to bed. I didn't allow our older two to ride their bikes out of our culdesac until they were 10 due to individual reasons and also them not having had as much time with us at earlier ages. I allow my 9 & 8 year old to do this because they have shown safety and are able to follow the rules. I hear almost daily..."You didn't let me do xx when I was that age, that's NOT FAIR".

Because they are all one grade apart in school, it makes for a very very busy schedule. I'm a SAHM and there are days when I need to carpool or very creatively arrange their schedules in order to get everything done. Same age groups (i.e. 9/10 are paired together in a lot of sports and my kids do NOT want to be on the same team. lol. I don't want them on the same team or competing against each other either because it really causes a lot of issues.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that until you really live the life with 4 kids that close together, you really truly don't have any idea how it is in reality. I can say this because I had thoughts of "Oh, it's no big deal" when we adopted them. Well....lol...it certainly does present a lot of different factors I hadn't considered or realized.

Most importantly...once you finalize, you will still likely have another couple of years before things get to the level I'm experiencing now. Things were actually easier for me when they were little. Plus, just a thought..until things are really stable with your kids, I really wouldn't advise bringing in more children regardless of their ages. Personally I think it takes an older child to really understand "We are fostering, I am STAYING HERE FOREVER even if the other child leaves".

Sorry to be a downer, I really don't mean to be. Overall, our life is great and the kids are a joy. Truly, they are. Just not a life without chaos.

Great Post Crick! I want a large family and THESE are the words that I think of...it will be a slow stead climb to a large family, so everyone gets time to get settled.

I love the chaos too. I do my best when I'm surrounded by 6 kids, they all have to eat and be in 6 different places in the next hour. It's awesome

[HappyHopefulMommy]

I have a bio daugther who is 8 and we are in the process of adopting a sib set of 3 (ages 6, 5 and 3). There is 18 months between each child. We wanted a big family (and we still want more), but I totaly agree with Crick. Our kids fight over EVERYTHING, like who sits where in the car and who takes a bath first (or last) or who gets their dinner plate first . . . We love it all, but life is super busy. Pretty much every day of the week we have therapy appts, social worker visits, dr. appt.s (and my kids are pretty healthy). I am a SAHM and have never been so busy. We considering adopting out of birth order and almost displaced our bio daughter (I am so glad we didn't). I personally will keep birth order in our family. I have read a lot about people who adopted out of birth order and they make it work and everyone seems happy. You might be one of those people it would work for. I would just do research and go with your gut.

[Fran27]

Honestly, I'd say that when it is older kids... it might not matters as much if two have the same age than if it was newborns/toddlers. Like people say, kids will fight, and whether they're 5 , 6 or 7, in the end it wouldn't do much of a difference.

[hockeywoman]

Thank you for all the responses. Crick - it seems like you adopted your DC at the same ages as mine - or very close. Did you even consider additional placements after them, or did your family just feel complete at that point?

It makes sense that life will get more difficult as they get older with more activities, etc. My kiddos love to do things together, so I'm hoping they would like to play on the same teams whenever possible. They do much better than my brother and I did at playing together, and keep asking when they get more brothers or sisters. They talk often about foster sibs they lived with before, and we do visit the one foster family about once a month. Maybe I've got my blinders on, but my 2 oldest really seem to understand the difference between our home and their previous living situations. My 2 youngest are still struggling with the difference between us and the previous home (Where both lived mostly their whole lives). But it helps I think to have FM and I talk with them alot about it.

DH and I love the chaos, and really do want a larger family. Overall, we do feel like we're settling well, even though we are still dealing with therapy for attachment issues for 2 of our kiddos. It's way smoother than I thought it would be at this point - I can't even remember life without them.

We do get fights for DH and my attention, but it's gotten a lot better in the last month. We don't really have fighting over who sits where - we have assigned carseats in the car and seats at the table (well at least booster vs non-booster). I'm a very organized person, so I have schedules planned out in advance, and the kids love that structure.