[jaenelle]

I'm posting this in a few different places to try to get the most response. Sorry if that bothers anyone or is against the rules.


DH and I have been looking on the AdoptUSKids website and there are several children and sibling groups that we are interested in. We are in the process of getting our homestudy completed for a domestic adoption -- we will probably wind up with an infant but we have said we would accept children up to 6, I believe. We'd be able to take a sibling group of up to 3 girls, or up to 3 boys, or a boy/girl set, assuming two of the girls could share a room and the boy and girl couldn't.

I'm sure some of you have experience with adopting older children as I know there are people on here that have done this. Do you have any advice for us? We can't contact anyone about any of these children until our homestudy is completed, because that's the rules of that website. But I am trying to figure out what additional things we might need to do in order to be considered to adopt any of these kids. Would a homestudy through a private agency be an adequate homestudy to adopt through a state agency?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Give me advice? I've had some people tell me that it's a bad idea to even consider older children, because of the emotional issues that they have. But let's face it, couldn't a child that we adopted as an infant have emotional problems?

I guess I'm just rambling, now. Sorry. I guess I'd just like to hear some experiences of people who have adopted older kids -- the good, the bad, the ugly. I keep seeing children on that website that look like they might be a good fit with us, and I think it's a shame that if we could adopt them and make a go of things, to leave them in foster care. But at the same time, I don't want my heart to run away with me -- I don't want to do something that would be the wrong thing for either those kids or my DH and I.

Thanks for any input.

[jackiesbooks]

I noticed that Dh is young. I saw some good advice on these boards that stated you should probably not take children older that you cpuld have given birth to. So in your case, in you follow this advice - Stay around 5 or under.

Good Luck

[sinesadopt]

Kati,

I think we have "talked" before on the boards. I am in Kansas.

Yes, a child adopted as an infant can have emotional problems as well. My son is the perfect example. He was placed with us from the hospital when he was 5 days old. He was diagnosed in September as bi-polar, ADHD, and OCD. In March his psychiatrist added anxiety disorder and sensory intergation dysfunction.

In January we finalized the adoption of our daughter from the state of Kansas. She was two week shy of being two when we signed the Adoptive Placement Agreement. I say if you are interested in older children to contact the state and start the necessary training. I know Kansas requries you to go through 30 hours of MAPP training. There is no cost associated with the training.

Cassandra

[jaenelle]

Originally Posted by sinesadopt

Kati,

I think we have "talked" before on the boards. I am in Kansas.

Yes, a child adopted as an infant can have emotional problems as well. My son is the perfect example. He was placed with us from the hospital when he was 5 days old. He was diagnosed in September as bi-polar, ADHD, and OCD. In March his psychiatrist added anxiety disorder and sensory intergation dysfunction.

In January we finalized the adoption of our daughter from the state of Kansas. She was two week shy of being two when we signed the Adoptive Placement Agreement. I say if you are interested in older children to contact the state and start the necessary training. I know Kansas requries you to go through 30 hours of MAPP training. There is no cost associated with the training.

Cassandra

Can you give me the name of someone specific to talk to that you thought was helpful? I couldn't get anyone to be very interested in even talking to us.

[piglets]

HI I believe we are in same boat..Husband and I are also in the homestudy process..We completed all our necessary paperwork, training etc and are just waiting for our resource worker to complete homestudy. I too have looked on Adoptuskids sight and saw alot of older kids and siblings we would be interested in and we too were told the same thing we need to wait until the homestudy is completed..I just wanted to wish you luck in the process..

Are you doing foster care also??
We are foster care and foster/adopt

[mab_123]

Hello I'm a mother of 3. Sibling group/older children.
Our oldest is 8 and youngest is 2. We adopted them about a year ago. It has been such a blessing. Even though we havent been there with them from the very begging of life it feels like we have. My DH is 28 and I'm 27. At the staffing we had about the children thier concern was our age, but I guess they looked passed it. I'm not saying go ahead and take older kids, but I do agree with the above post about taking children that aren't older than when you may have birthed them. We had a failed placement with a 9 yr. old in the very begging of this foster/adopt and things didn't work out there. I believe it was age b/c I was only 25 at the time.
We have had experience with the adoptuskids website so if you have any question feel free to ask.

I wish you all the best.

[piglets]

did you adopt your children through the adoptuskids and if so was it through a different state??

[mab_123]

piglet--No we did not adopt our kids through that program. We did though put in an intrest on a few kids. One was in our state and the other was out-of-state. We had a good chance of getting the one in state but decided the child was just not for us after finding out info on him. The 2 that were out of state we put inquery in for but was not chosen as a sutable fit.
After about 6 months we did get chose as a family for the sib. group we have now, but it was through our own state/foster care.

[minxycat]

Hi Jaenelle!
I've just registered and this my first post. When I told my husband about your situation he said I really need to let you know about our experience with fost-adopting older sibs. Almost three years ago we were place with a brother and sister, 4 and 6, through state adoptions. They are hispanic and we are caucasian. Honestly, it has been absolutely fantastic for all of us.

Just to give you some background, we were originally placed with two sisters 4 and 6 also. We had told social services that we wanted above intelligence kids but without serious emotional problems. The social worker at the time hid a lot of the info. on the kids, such as multiple foster home placements and the degree of abuse inflicted by birth mom.Well let me tell you the older girl was above intelligence, and had our heads spinning. She was extremely sophisticated and manipulative to the point that I was afraid of what would happen to us. Now of course I know it was all classic RAD, but back then I was naive to all that. Anyway, the adoption was terminated after two weeks, leaving us feeling guilty and discouraged. We doubted our ability to be good parents. After we let things settle for about a year and read a lot about older adoptive kids and we learned about RAD. Fortunately, the social worker we had was demoted because of our case and we got a new decent sw. When we first learned of our kids the social worker explained that our daughter may be very low IQ and could we handle that. After our experience with the "smart" child we decided smart wasn't so important after all. We met the kids and over the course of a couple of months of weekend visits, they moved in with us. We decided to go for it with these to because they seemed sweet and loving. At the time our daughter seemed slow and unattractive. You should see them today. I am here to tell you LOVE can make it all better. Because they were able to bond they have taken off. Our daughter is almost unreconnizable from her former self. Academically she is at the top of her class. She's way above grade level in reading, plays Beethoven on the piano, is very popular at school and is very pretty. Our son is as cuddly and cute as they get. He too is adored by his teachers and has lots of friends. Our lives are wonderful because of these great kids. There were people that tried to discourage us from adoping special needs older kids. I'm so glad we went with our hearts and didn't let fear hold us back from knowing true happiness.

We are so happy as adoptive parents that we have decided to adopt two more kids! My advice-don't worry about smarts, looks, or race, go for the loving, sweet, bondable kids and it will work out.

Best to you and your husband
Janice

[sincerely]

Janice thank you so much for your post, it is so encouraging. My dh & I are in a similar boat to those who've posted above - and our homestudy is in 2 days on tuesday! We are also foster & foster/adopt. Your post is very uplifting! thanks !

[AmyAnne]

I am 30. DH is 28. Last year we adopted from Foster Care.

I am not going to pull any punches here. It's hard. Harder than you can imagine. Harder than your training prepares you for. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying get ready.

Get ready for the things you've read about that may be "problems" to happen. Daily. Sometimes hourly. Over and over and over. Get ready to not get any sleep for a couple weeks, to wake up at the slightest noise, and to lose most of your "Couple time".

If your child has a lot of the issues kids from foster care have: Get ready to restrain them during a tantrum. Get ready for the reality of having to drag oyur child kicking and screaming from the neighborhood pool with all your friends watching. Get ready to be blamed. Get ready not to know why your child is acting the way they are, and be at a loss for how to stop it. Get ready to have your emotions manipulated, and life as you know it altered forever.

Sounds fatalistic, doesn't it? It does get better. Be open to therapy, to rethinking your discipline and reorganizing your priorities. Be ready to look at the emotion, not the action. Get respite care established. And keep coming here for support.

[Lorraine123]

couldn't a child that we adopted as an infant have emotional problems?

While that is true, a child adopted as an infant will not have Reactive Attachment Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sexual acting out behaviors, etc. The more serious behavior issues are caused by abuse, neglect, and frequent moves from home to home. This doesn't happen with an infant. The child you adopt as an infant is a whole difference experience than adoption of an older child. You know the past history of an infant, but you know very little history of an older child. The two types of adoption cannot even be compared. If you are not pulled to adopt an older child and feel capable of handling their protentially serious mental health problems, don't. If you want an infant, don't go for older children. However, if an older child is the direction for you, educate yourself thoroughly, be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best, and go for it totally.

[carriewoman]

Hi,

We foster adopted 3, and like Amy said, it was hard. But, totally worth it for us. We have had the kids for 2 years now. They were adopted September 30th, 2005.
Hubby and I are 29 (I just turned), and when we got the kids placed they were 3 months, 2 years, and 4 years. Tough ages!! Just having 3 more people in the house is a big enough change, but they do usually have some emotional issues to work through. And emotional problems and behaviors can be temporary or permanent. And a lot of the behaviors and emotions don't pop up until after the children have lived with you a while. Things are still popping up after 2 years.
If you are dedicated and willing to totally devote your lives to your children, trust me, a sibling group is very rewarding. But it definately isn't the easy road, lol.
I agree with the post about the age too. You are opening your home to a big change, and I know with my husband and I we had a lot of experience with infants and toddlers, and I had a lot of experience with young children too, but having a 4 yr old (she was almost 5) was a lot different than I thought. My lil girl is extremely smart and mature. It was a lot like having a 12 yr old placed with us in a 4 yr old's body.
I definately don't want to scare you off from a 3 sibling group, I absolutely love the kiddos and truely wouldn't change a thing if I had to do it all over again, just remember the reality is it will be a huge adjustment with more hard times than easy times at first.
As far as the private home study goes..... we had a private one done and it did us no good. The state referenced it, but they still conducted thier own. Basically is was like $1100 wasted. Yeah he did a great home study, but the state requires their staff to personally conduct the home study. We are in the state of WA, so it may be a different story elsewhere.
Sorry this was so long! Wish you the best of luck with your placements! :-)

Keep in touch,
Carrie

[carriewoman]

Forgot to add.....

Lorraine is totally right about the effect being different for a infant over an older child. Our now 6 yr old shows reactive attatchment disorder, the now 4 year old shows it also, but more agressive than emotional like our daughter. The baby (now 2) on the other hand, has absolutely no emotional or mental or physical problems. That isn't to say things may not show up later in development, but it's a different story completely between the three kiddos.

:-) Carrie