[7plus1]

Hello, all! DH and I are just starting the adoption process and began with our application on 11-18-07. Our home study is next week and we already found all documents, did medical exams, etc. We have five biological children: DD 16, DD 11, DD 7, DD 6, and DS 4. We have been hoping to adopt a boy 7-12. We wanted to adopt even before having biological children, and this seems like the best time in our lives to do so. With five children we feel we have seen quite a bit and are prepared for temper tantrums, acting out, ADD, etc but what scares me is sexual abuse. I read another post about sibling sexual abuse and I could not turn a potential sexual predator loose in our home with young children. What kind of parent would I, or anyone, be to do that? I hope the statistics cited are wrong (100% sexually abused) because that is the only thing we are not prepared to deal with due to younger children in the home.
Anyway, hello! And applauds to all of you who have opened your hearts and homes to a child who desperately needs it. Any advice from those of you who have braved the system and made it through okay?

[momraine]

I don't know if the figures cited are correct, but they are probably pretty high. One thing I wanted to note. when we started our adoption agency the social worker who did our homestudy would not approve us for a child older than our youngest biological child. Some social workers are very strong about not messing up birth order. For sure a 12 year old boy who has been in the system would be very tempted to bully if not abuse your younger kids. Many of these kids have developed survival skills that have kept them going during thier time in the system and in thier first homes. (which were not good or they would not be in care, remember the kids are in foster care for a reason, usually abuse and/or neglect) Those survivor skills often include knowledge of how to intimidate younger children to give the older child power. They are also good at hiding things from adults. Your kids having not had a need to develop those skills could be sitting ducks. There is a very real possibility that an child you adopt in that age range will have been abused in some way. I am sorry I wish I could tell it was like on TV and all the kids were lovable smart kids whose wonderful parents died. There are a lot of wonderful kids out there, and even the ones who have been hurt are often great kids, they are just behaving in the way they have been taught and it often takes months or more likely years to unteach that. Good luck.

[Bippette]

I have adopted three kids from the foster care system, and currently have an 18 year old living with us.

Because you are inexperienced with abused children, I would be extremely cautious about adopting or fostering a child older than your youngest bio.

The only reason we brought this 18 year old into our home was because my husband had known him for three years, and I was reasonablly confident he wouldn't harm our younger kids.

There probably ARE some older kids out there who would fit into your family, but I would be extremely, extremely cautious. Social workers often won't tell you the complete truth. I would want to talk to the foster parents of the child, and bio relatives, teachers, sunday school teachers....basically anyone who can help give you a complete picture of the child.

Or kids are pretty much in the same age range as yours. We were/are planning on returning to fostering older kids, but I feel like we'll only do that after our first set are older and more able to defend themselves.

Because of our extensive experience with kids from "the system" now I am considering taking another young teen or pre-teen boy when the 18 year old leaves. But its only because we are very experienced now with the system and the kids.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Hope that helps. Your fears are justified. It happens.

[Bippette]

If you are still considering getting a child in that age range, I would also get the book "When Love Is Not Enough" by Nancy Thomas. There is a section in there about preparing yourself and your home for a child with issues. This includes putting the child in a room by themselves with an alarm on the door.

[crick]

I think the stats are wrong....however I also think they do not make enough of a distinction between abuse, levels of abuse etc.

For example...a child may not be sexually abused by having anything done to them personally, but might have witnessed a lot of inappropriate acts and therefore imitate those acts. Or a child might have been sexually abused but it's on the molestation level and not the higher level. It's all wrong, of course....I'm not saying it isn't. Just saying that it's not necessarily reflected in statistics the kind of abuse.

In my opinion, you have to take things on a case by case basis to try and determine what type of situations the child has been through. I'm also in the opinion that some types of sexual abuse are in some ways easier to heal from than the worst case of neglect out there.

I'd read up on everything you can, talk to people and really determine your level of comfort...what you will and will not be open to. This is of course, with a risk realizing that we really don't find out everything that happens to a child in the birth home before removal.

It can be very scary indeed...and yet...a lot of the risks are worth it.

[Bippette]

I wanted to add to my original post that its the combo of older adopted kids and younger bios that causes me to advise caution. Not the kids themselves.

And there are great older kids out there, its the system that I do not trust. I've seen too many situations where the issues of children are glossed over in the attempt to place them.

What I do not want to see happen the most are disrupted older child adoptions. They've already had too many disappointments. And if you are going to do this, being prepared for the worse and expecting the best will give you the best chance of being successful.

[lovemy6]

That nationwide stats are that 25% of females and 20% of males REPORT being sexually abused before their 18th birthday.

I believe it was my post where *I* said that of my 23 foster children, 100% of them had been SA. We THOUGHT 2 of them had not been, but 4 years into our placement, we found out not only were they victims of incest from their birth home, but one of them was abusing my three younger kids.

I would NEVER recommend bringing a child into your home who is older than the children already in your home. You NEVER know the full extent of the abuse that child has had. Sometimes the department will INTENTIONALLY withhold allegations made against the child, so the child could be placed. We ALWAYS ask about the sexual abuse history of a child. Our first sw told us absolutely not, the child had no history, then a week later, when I called DCFS to confirm what the former fm told me, I found out from the supervisor that the child DID have a history of SA and her perpetrator was serving time in jail for it. The sw blatently lied to me, putting my sons at risk.

You can and will do what you want, but I'll tell you that SA can destroy your family and will affect your kids for the rest of their lives. I would really caution you against taking a kid older than your younges. You can't imagine the things that my family has endured and what some of my foster friends have been through. It's horrible what we had to live through, but our kids will be scarred for the rest of their lives.

[SuzBerg]

7plus1 - Welcome to the boards! I'm wondering if you have taken the Pride/Maap/whatever they're called in your state Training Classes yet? Althought they are lacking in some instances we did get ALOT of info from the classes that did prepare us for what kind of issues we would and would not be able to handle. Our caseworker was also able to help us with this as we had 3 bio sons ages 5, 8 and 12 when we started the process.

Our caseworker also told us to figure about 90% of the kids in care had been sexually abused or at least sexually exposed - kind of what Crick said about levels of abuse (but 90% was just our workers feeling not any proven statistic). We did not adopt a child older than our youngest child.

If you have more questions please post - there is a lot of experience here on the boards.

Best Wishes - Suz

[athikers]

I have had 11 kids in my home. In the cases I have been made aware of TWO of the eleven were sexually abused. However, seven of the eleven were under two years old at placement.

I think you need to be prepared for the chance of sexual abuse... and you can say you are not comfortable being placed with a child where sexual abuse is KNOWN, however, sometimes, many times, the caseworker does not know.

[7plus1]

Thank you all so much for your time to respond, and I liked some previous posts about keeping your head instead of listening with your heart. The reason we want to adopt an older child is because they are harder to place and we are tired of the baby/toddler stages. We will continue our course and if we don't feel 100% safe, I guess we will just wait until the children are older. My husband and I are criminal investigators and we aren't naive about the crimes against children, it breaks our hearts. We have completed our training, called IMPACT in Georgia. But I think the problems were downplayed a lot. We were initially interested in a particular 12-year-old and they were completely honest in his sexual abuse and acting out with another foster child so maybe they will be again in the future. We will definately talk to everyone involved and think long and hard before thinking long and hard again. Thank you all so much again.

[AmyAnne]

Let me also point out that adopting from foster care doesn't necessarily mean you're going to avoid "toddler behaviors". my son was 7. I remember chaparoning a field trip and him whining at me and waving his arms to be picked up EVERY TIME I put him down. I carried him all day. That's just an example.

I'm not trying to talk you out of adopting, I'm just sharing my experience for you to consider.

[momraine]

I got called to pick up my son last week at school (age 7) because he was pooping in his pants on purpose to get out of math. (he is good at math though so it makes no sense) He had done it four times already that day and this is a totally new behavior as he has been home a year and never done that before. Before he prefered to throw up daily, but only at home. So yeah, you might get toddler behaviors from an older child, LOL

[7plus1]

LOL, I guess I only thought as a mama to five I had seen/heard it all! I guess as long as we aren't lugging around diaper bags/toddler car seats and making bottles all night long it will be okay. We already spend quite a bit of time at the elementary school with dd 6 who has ADD so they're used to seeing me there. I guess I can just make the rounds to the classrooms! Those stories are too funny (probably not to you guys, so I'm sorry). It's nice to hear the lighter side of issues, though.

[Bippette]

Be sure to read the one about my 9 year old riding the on the hood of my car down the driveway. LOL.

[HIATUS]

ROFL...that is my all time favorite post!!!!!