[travisg]

Hi,
My wife and I are about halfway through the process for adoption/fostering. We have understood that the county we live in is very fast completing the homestudy (we are going through our local social services) and wanted some information to help us decide which way to go. We are going through all the motions for fostering and adopting. We fell stronger about adopting right now but thought since we were in the process we would go ahead and get our cert for fostering too. Long story short, we are looking at possibly adopting and older child from our state. Most kids that have our attention right now are at least 10 to 14 years old. I was wondering what experiences others have had with this age group, good and not so good. Most of the kids have minor emotional/behavioral issues and no real massive health concerns. Some are obviously a little more “high strung” than others but nothing out of the ordinary for kids in this situation according to what I’ve learned from all the info I have dug up. We are just wanting to get some realistic feedback from folks who have been down that road before. I’ve been lurking on this board for awhile and looking though old post and it’s been a big help. We are so excited about what will hopefully happen in our lives soon and just wanted to finally to share.

Thanks so much for time,
T & N

[JuliannaTeresa]

I would start doing a lot of reading and educating yourselves with the emotional issues of a Pre-Teen and Teenager who is or has been in Foster Care. The issues when your homestudy is submitted are not minor. Photolistings due to confidentiality are unable to reveal a whole lot. Yet they want to see the child Placed in a home.



Kids in this age range hold a lot of "the reins" of say in where they are placed and what specifics they are looking for in both a Foster and Adoption Family.

With Teenagers also in Foster Care until they Emancipate from the System at 18. You still also need a 'Qualified Substitute' who has been background checked. They are not allowed to be left alone like a "normal Teenager" when you go out for the evening.

[Holly5]

My kids were adopted at age 12 & 10, and now they are 14 & 12. We are now in the process of adding a 13 year old as well.

Definitely they need more attention and supervision than other kids their age. I became a stay-at-home mom to give them the support they needed, and I don't anticipate going back to work anytime soon! Though they present very well on paper, they react to situations as if they were at a lower age level. The longer they are with me, the better they seem to do. A lot of it also seems to be that they have not been exposed to as much either. With me, they learned how to use the microwave, and how to answer a ringing phone - things you would expect a teenager to know how to do already.

We have had a very positive experience with this age group.

[Sylvester]

Hello, we did not have a positive experience doing an older child placement. We brought a teenage girl into our home who has been in the system for years. We felt very strongly about adopting her and giving her the family she never had. She stayed with us for 2 months. All was well in the begining, then the honeymoon ended. She would say false things about us to our neighbors. She would lie all the time, we were told this stemmed from her past and her need to survive. She was in therapy, but the issues surrounding her birthfamily were so complicated it was something we could not handle. I am by no means saying that you should not follow your heart, but be cautious. One tends to become overly excited about the thought of adding a new child to their family. Find out as much as you can about the child's past, one of the problems we had was our state allows a child over the age of 12 to decide what a family can see in their case history, so we were left in the dark about alot. Good luck to you.

[travisg]

Thank you for your replies to this post. They have been helpful to us. Keep them coming. We have 2 more MAPP meetings left then the wait for the homestudy to be completed by our worker.

Thanks again,
T & N

[achap3]

I was going to adopt a 13yo. I do admit that I made the #1 mistake, he was 2yrs older than my oldest. I agree with the post make sure you read their file thoroughly and talk to all who has dealt with the child. I talked with his old foster mom and aids at the group home he was now living at and they said his mouth sometimes got him into trouble with the other kids. He was in the 7th grade he was academically on 2nd grade level and he had some mild health issues. He basically felt that since he's older, he's the boss and my bio son basically dug in and stood his ground and since bio son is bigger & taller, the other was always getting hurt one way or another either playing football/basketball or with the other neighborhood kids. He NEVER gave up on his bmom & bgrandmom and felt they were going to be able to get him back anytime even though he had been in the system most of his life. If anything didn't go his way, he would jump and call his SW to come get him. He absolutely HATED my last name. I went through this for almost 6mos., but the final issue was I could see my bio son slowly slipping away, withdrawing, & defiant(this was a kid who was an honor student and very easy going). So I had to disrupt because I wasn't willing to make him miserable and upturn his life in order to give the other a home. I told them he was basically a good hearted kid, he just needed a home where he can be the only child or with a family who's kids are older or grown. I wish you and your family luck.

[Just Julie]

travisg,

Bless your heart for considering an older child or teen. I teach high school and, in addition to students over 18 yrs, have fostered two 17 year olds. We experienced total success with the young man and are investigating adopting him as an adult. The young lady was with us for 6 months. She had grown quite close to both my husband and myself, and I had even spent hours in her mother's home and with her siblings. However, she "stole" our car twice, driving around town with friends and no license while we were away for a few hours. We could handle that (you must have FBI credentials to foster teens!) , but she became pregnant (like mother, like daughter) and subsequently verbally abusive to my husband while I was studying abroad for a few weeks, and we eventually had to ask her to leave. She still comes to visit and calls occasionally. I think she realized too late what she threw away. She had a violent past and temper, fighting with peers and so on, but none of that while with us until she became pregnant. She knew she could not continue with us with her baby (our lives are much too busy to take on an infant with a violent child for a mother). Although we would have kept her until the baby came, giving her time to find another place, I believe she got herself removed out of spite.

Anyway, I wish you well in your endeavor. I'm waiting to see what this year brings us!

[Dr. Art]

Generally, older children who are adopted have more psychological and emotional needs than do younger children...more time in care, maybe a longer history of maltreatment, longer time in "limbo" etc.

You may find the book, Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray helpful. It has a lot of good information.

regards,

[suzanna]

If you decide to adopt older children, you need to locate and get to know a good support group of other adoptive parents with older kids with similar issues and problems to those yours have.

It's also absolutely essential to find ( ask people in the above group for recommendations) a therapist who really understands kids like yours. He/she can often short circuit problems, especially if you AND your child(ren) see her on a regular basis. And if, you have problems with the police due to the child's behavior or if the kid initiates false abuse allegations, you'll hae a professional to back you up when you try to explain to the authorities WHY they should believe you and not the child.

Also, if you have other children, they must be several years older than the new kids and "normal, healthy children" (no mental, psychological, or physical problems that make them vulnerable to abuse and manipulation on the part of the troubled child. If adopting teens, that pretty much means your other children need to be grown and on their own. Please don't ignore this bit of advice. There are scads of horror stories of younger children being hurt, even killed by troubled adopted kids, and maybe even more of parents whose other children no longer speak to them because the feel the newly adopted kid was favored with all the attention. So many of these kids , after many years in the system, just need tons of one on one attention that noone can manage in a multi-kid home.

Good luck.

[Dr. Art]

Since the majority of older children will have attachment difficulties, you need to find a good therapist to act as counselor, guide, and advisor to you and your family. I'd look at Assoc for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children for someone in your region who can help you. You will also want to get a thorough evaluation so you are prepared to address the child(ren)'s issues.

regards,

[leca]

We adopted a sib group 7, 10 and 11. I have to say year old is the biggest challenge which is not what we expected. I would say be prepared and committed. I can't imagine giving a child back once they are in your home and that is one thing I REFUSE to do. We are in it for the long haul. My children went through a disruption and I can't tell you what it does to them.

[suzanna]

I, too, thought that giving a child back was unimaginable. I've been told by many that we weathered things that have caused many other families to give up. But when their RAD exploded in adolescence and we could not get the child welfare people to help us with the costs of treatment in a RAD center (residential for the child for several weeks, parents must come in for group therapy twice a week) nor with some respite care, we took our 14 year old to a teen shelter to give the rest of us some time to recover our equilibrium. Things went downhill rapidly from there. We begged for respite care as we were physically and emotionally exhausted and could not tackle the very difficult task of sorting her out without first regaining our strength and reconnecting as a family. The she found a ready audience for her lurid tales and they just kept getting better and better. And we began to find out things from the other 3 kids about just what all had been going on behind our backs.

In the end, the choice came down to taking the two of them (by now we'd had to send our son away as well) back with no outside help (and the added bonus that whenever we had to tell the child no, she could spin more of her little stories) and expose our younger children to even worse abuse at theirr hands, or letting them go. Five counselors, 4 attorneys , and our pediatrician, not to mention all of our friends and relatives, told us NO NO NO. Having to chose between your children is a horrible choice. But the chances of healing these two damaged before we got them children were very slim even if it was just those two we had to think of. And the chance that they would do irreperable damage to our younger children was out a almost 100%. Not to mention what it was doing to our marriage and our health. Would you really let a child who'd be 18 and gone in 3 years destroy a 15 year marriage?

We would have liked, and the counselor who worked with our entire family recommended, that they no longer live with us, but that we remain their family, so that they had people who cared about them and some motivation to give a **** about doing the right thing. But the disfunction of the child welfare system in our state made that impossible. I pray for them every day. I also thank God that my little girls were no physically harmed before we woke up to the hopelessness of the situation (I'm a bit too stubborn for my own good sometimes) and that , with counseling and PEACE in the house now, thye've been able to retuen to being normal, healthy little girls.

A lesson I learned the hard way: No matter how much you love someone, no matter how responsible you feel for them, if they have a problem they will not or cannot fix (be it RAD, alcoholism, depression,bi-polar disorder, or just plain laziness), and you've dome everything in your power to help them; if their problem has begun to adversly affect the other people you love (in our case, actually physically endanger them) or your own mental or physical health, or has made you become a person you do not like; you must let them go. Put their fate in the hands of God, and get on with your own life. Sometimes your letting go is the impetus the other party needs to finally get help or really put some effort into getting better ( we're talking ceasing to be an enabler here).

[leca]

Wow! That is all I can say. It seems like your state did not give you much support which unfortunately seems to be the going trend. I know we are sooo lucky to have our wonderful social worker who gives us all the support and love we need. What a heartwreching experience for your whole family to go through! It sounds like you gave it your all and sometimes no matter how much we want to, we can't help the children we want to most.

I would like to say though that my two older ones who are 10 and 11 we threw in with my 7 year old so if you adopt older ones they do not necessarily have trouble with younger ones already in the home. Every case is different and needs to be evaluated that way. My 7 year old is the MOST attached to his 11 year old older sister and she is probably the MOST attached to him.

I have to say I have bitter feelings towards the family that disrupted with my children. I am glad to have them and know I would not had they not disrupted but these kids did NOTHING remotely close to the situation above. They had them during the school year and only for six weeks! They only had them after school for the most part and for some reason could not hack it. I am a stay at home mom whose husband is in Iraq and I am doing it all by myself for now and not once have I ever thought of giving these kids back. They moved in during the summer full force and I have loved it for the most part.

You sound like a wonderful family and I hope this does not deter you from adopting again. Some experiences are positive although I can understand why you would be leary!

[kay]

T & N,

I had both bad and good experiences with older child adoption. My first placement was with a very troubled 11 year old; neither of us was adequately prepared, and the placement ended very quickly after she physically attacked me. From that experience, I learned to read between the lines in the written material we're given about the children. The workers were so eager to place her, they glossed over the reasons that a previous family had disrupted - and of course you can't talk to the previous family to find out what really went on there. There were also problems in the group home, but those also were glossed over: it'll all be better when she's in a loving home. I was just not equipped to deal with that level of problem (the experience also taught me not to be judgmental of prior disruptions - we don't really know what went on, and when you're faced with "keeping the child equals a nervous breakdown for yourself" - you realize that you can't always do what you "should" do.)

And then the good. A few years later I tried again, this time with a 9-year old. A good match, some pretty severe post-honeymoon problems, but we got through them with the help of a good support system and a great therapist. The adoption was finalized in a year, we're in our 4th year together now, and things are great. Although the pre-teen is definitely a challenge, overall he's doing just great, and I couldn't be happier. A younger brother for him is definitely a possibility, depending on how we're both doing as he starts the teen years. One thing I noticed, though, is that I had expectations that he would "act his age", and many times, especially during the first year, I'd feel like I was dealing with a 6 year old rather than a 9 year old. Just something to keep in mind, some kids miss out on certain developmental/emotional stages, and seem to play catch up when they get into a stable home.

Good luck to you - older children can be such a joy! Just be sure to ask the hard questions and to get the answers you need.

[mina2u]

My sister just finalized on the adoption of their 14 year old daughter. They are doing great! Their new daughter has now been with them for a year. What a beautiful young lady she has become. Her former family said that she was incapable of bonding. What a bunch of you know what! She has a wonderful relationship with both my sister and brother in law. Heck, she has even bonded with me. She calls me play-dough and I call her twigy...the names fit too!