[fanorkey]

My wife and I have a 13 year old bio son and are in the final phases of our homestudy. We are looking for a 6-15 year old girl (yup, it's a wide range). It seems like nobody wants to adopt a teenager (always bringing up major issues), but it seems like they have a greater need for a family. The statistics for children aging out of the system are pretty grim!

Is there anybody out there who was in that position and adopted a teenager who would be willing to pass along their experiences?

Jim

[vam]

Hello Jim, We are in the same situation. Except bio son is 29. We want ages 7 to 16. We attend our first info seminar on Saturday and started our paperwork.
VAM

[marythemom]

Our bio kids are younger than the sibling group we adopted. I have to tell you to be careful with adopting out of birth order. It might not be as big a deal with the gender differences, but because of all the trauma and issues my new children have they are emotionally only about 2-4 years in age. Academically they are 2-3 years behind. Physically they are actually more mature. This is very confusing for the younger children who don't understand why the "older kids" are acting younger and being treated differently.

My girls are 1 1/2 years apart in age, but in the same grade (bio daughter is a summer b-day so one of the youngest in the class), new daughter moved a lot and has reading disabilities. The competition between the two can be dramatic at times. Luckily we were able to move the children to a private school so they are working individually and it's not as noticeable how far apart they are academically. Puberty with both girls at the same time has been VERY interesting.

Both children came with attachment issues (of course). With attachment therapy our 11 year old daughter (now 12) has adapted to the family fairly well. Our 13 year old son (now 14) has not adapted well at all. The teen years are hard - developmentally they're supposed to be distancing themselves and becoming independent - add Reactive Attachment Disorder and a new state (they're from NE we're in TX), new family, hormones and history and you begin to see the problem.

Our son spent 6 months in residential treatment, and the younger children all suffered for the 8 months before we sent him (he was verbally and physically abusive and we were unable to completely protect them). He's 5'9" and 200lbs. He never physically hurt me or the children (although he attacked my husband on several occasions), but they witnessed him being out of control and the police had to be called. The bio kids have bounced back fairly quickly (although his sister had a much harder time).

Would I do it again knowing what I know now? Probably not. I love my new children, but with hindsight I'm not sure this was what was best for my family.

So that's my 2 cents. Adopt older children, but go into it knowing that they have a LOT more issues (more than they say in the records) and be sure you and your family are ready for that. Get LOTS of support. These boards are great. I couldn't have made it this far without the Special Needs board. Good luck!

Mary
mom to D(14) and his sister C(12) - might be finalizing this month! and bio kids K(11) and T(9)
11/06 picked up D and C in NE!
11/06 3 day of school -D kicked out for threatening to throw child out of second story window and cussing out teacher and principal
12/06 called the police for the first time
7/07 D put in residential treatment
1/08 D comes home!

"We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!"
If "that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger..." just call me Superwoman!

[Empty_Nest]

I think I would preserve the birth order, too, although we have adopted out of order and it was not an issue. We also adopted a boy the same age as one of our daughters, but that was a non-issue too.

We're also considering adopting a teen, but we're being very cautious, taking a L-O-N-G time to decide if we even want to go through with it, and being VERY careful about exactly the type of child we're looking for. We don't feel the urgency to adopt that we did in the past, so we're willing to take our time and wait until just the right child can be found. We're doing a better job of assessing our strengths, limitations, our own hobbies, interests, and lifestyle, and are looking for a child who matches those things as closely as possible. We're not looking for another trans-racial placement. In short, we're doing all we can to eliminate as many potential conflicts as we possibly can.

Our two oldest kids at placement were unrelated and did not come at the same time. One was an eleven year old girl from an orphanage in Brazil. The other was a 12 1/2 year old boy, part of a sib group from US foster care. The girl, J, was with us four years, then became violent and also made false allegations of abuse. Her placement disrupted and we placed her in foster care to protect ourselves and the other kids. Our son basically gave us no problems until he turned eighteen, at which point he knew it all, moved out, got into drugs, fathered a bunch of kids, and eventually moved back in with his birth mother, who is also an addict and does nothing to discourage our son from his negative lifestyle. He's 33 now and there's little hope for his future. It's heartbreaking, but that's just reality.

We're not sure why we're dumb enough to think of doing it again. I guess because we enjoyed all our kids until they became adults and turned into people we don't want to know. We're hoping if we do it again, we can select a child who has similar interests and therefore might build a stronger bond than our other kids have. We can dream, can't we?

I think teens wait in foster care longer in part because prospective families feel there's not enough time left with them before they become adults. We've been considering that question ourselves, but we're still looking in that 10-15 age range.

I've also noticed a lot of waiting teens have the notation that their workers are looking for 'experienced parents' but want the child to be the youngest (usually much younger) or only child in the family. Basically, they're looking for people like us who are older and whose kids are not living at home. Many families who would fall into that catagory are past wanting to rear children, especially challenging children, so it just seems like those two somewhat conflicting requirements would have to considerably shrink the pool of prospective parents. Additionally, if the child needs to be the youngest and is already a teen, that narrows the pool of prospective kids for any future adoptions the family might be interested in, further limiting the pool of parents willing to consider that teen.

[chelspark1]

We are in the process of fostering to adopt two children ages 13 and 14. They moved in almost a year ago.
There have been a lot of ups and downs. We are first time parents. In one respect that was a plus for us since we had no other children at home and could focus all our attention on these two. However, having no parenting skills and little training did not help us at all.
Our kids are adjusting and so are we. Some days I wonder why we are doing this and then sometimes we are having a good few days and then I know we will make it through all of this.
This is a tough age for kids to begin with let alone children that have been through what our kids have been through.

[fanorkey]

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences! You've given us a lot to think about and discuss. Our final home visit was completed tonight and with any luck our homestudy will be approved by the end of the month.

The adventure is about to begin!
Jim

[Bippette]

See all the posts below about my unofficially adopted son. He came to live with us six months ago at the age of 17.

Its been a hard road, and very risky, but very rewarding.