Birth order

[Deleted]

Quinny's question deserves it's own thread.

We feel that birth order is very important, our agency even talks about the importance of it. There are exceptions, having an infant in the home and adopting older is ok but I stop at 1 year, they have a sense of their place in the family at that point.

I know of other people who adopt out of order but, for me, birth order is very important.

[twomoms2twins]

i am so intrigued by this ... i just dont get why it matters and maybe i am missing something but what is to happen to all the older kids out there .... does that just mean oops your past the birth order better luck next time ...

Can someone elaborate on adopting out of order or any of this.

[kershnic]

Some of the concerns about birth order have to do with the children's identity/sense of place in the family. It can be a big adjustment to go from being an oldest child to a youngest child, or a youngest child to a middle child. Parents can have difficult realligning their alliances, and children can struggle more with building sibling bonds. To some it's a hard and fast rule that should never be broken. To some it's a family dynamic worth noting but nothing more.

Particularly when we're talking about foster care there are also a lot of concerns about kids who have trauma history being at-risk of abusing younger children, and also needing an unusually large amount of attention (whereas most typically developing children who haven't experienced trauma need less direct parental attention as they get older). The abuse risk is higher when the younger children are kids the older kid doesn't already have a relationship with (as opposed to siblings they've been raised with for example).

Older kids can obviously be adopted by families who don't believe in these rules (in systems that allow it), familes who don't have any children, or families whose children are older than the kids who need adopting.

[twomoms2twins]

makes sense Thanks for the explanation.

[rikkiandjulie]

There's a book about the birth order effect, and it's shockingly true about me and my sisters!


Rikki-iPhone