s/o Adoption

[MrsBean]

Adoption is something that I've been considering for a while but I would rather adopt an older child. Does anyone have experience with that?

My county website has a few profiles up and I think they are kids in foster care who are awaiting adoption. I shouldn't have looked (we haven't even started the training process) and now I can't stop thinking about one particular little boy.

[HiC]

We are almost finished with the licensing process to become foster parents. There are SO many older children who need families. Call your local DCF office and just get some information on adopting and older child. They will send you tons of info. This may be the route that you want to take.

[Deleted]

PM me if you would like to join the Adoption Nestie's facebook group. There are several girls in the group who are adopting or have adopted an older child, and the group is a great source of support.

[Captain Serious]

I adopted both my sons as "older" children, but through international adoption from Peru. My oldest, M, was legally 7 (though we have reason to believe he's quite a bit older biologically) when we adopted him in 2010. My younger son, J, was 5 when we adopted him in March 2012.

If you are really serious about older child adoption, I highly recommend doing some research first. The thing you have to keep in mind is that older children are available because they have suffered some kind of trauma in their lives. This means that they might have difficulties attaching to new families, and might be dealing with a variety of other mental and physical health issues. Often, they have stored up a lot of anger that will have to find an outlet, and without the right kind of intervention, they may develop unhealthy relationships. Many have learned how to survive by whatever means necessary, and that can result in a difficult homelife because they might not understand what is and is not appropriate in family life and society in general. It's not an easy road, but it is highly rewarding.

Several books I highly recommend on attachment and older child adoption are:

Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow <http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Hurt-Child-Adoptive-PARENTING/dp/B001TM8K46/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271184539&sr=1-10>> - This book is the one that I always recommend first to parents adopting older children. It really helped us understand what we were dealing with and how to best approach it. It can be scary, because they talk about really bad cases, but it was so relatable and helped us avoid many pitfalls--especially triangulation!;

Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families - This book was the first that really captured how I felt. It's more about the impact that raising a hurt child can have on the rest of the family, and was very honest. I couldn't believe that the emotions I felt were actually being written about so openly;

Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents <http://www.amazon.com/Attaching-Adoption-Practical-Todays-Parents/dp/0944934293/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271184539&sr=1-4>;

When Love Is Not Enough: A Guide to Parenting Children with RAD <http://www.amazon.com/When-Love-Not-Enough-Parenting/dp/0970352549/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1355498619&sr=8-2&keywords=When+Love+Is+Not+Enough> , Healing Trust (3 CD set), and Taming the Tiger While It's Still a Kitten (lecture on CD with booklet, www.attachment-store.org/taming-the-tiger-while-its-still-a-kitten.html) are good resources to understand children with attachment difficulties. They really helped me get the full understanding of the child's mentality as they go through the process. I personally felt that the techniques were too heavy-handed, but that's likely because I wasn't dealing with a child who had RAD. Still, the insight into their fear and how they act and manipulate relationships because of it was invaluable in understanding my sons. These books/CDs really made me feel like I had a better understanding of what they had to go through, how they were going to do it, and why they were acting the way they were. It made me feel more in control, because I knew what we were going through was normal, I wasn't completely messing up, and that this was all just part of the process they had to go through; and

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors <http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368805596&sr=8-1&keywords=beyond+consequences> presents a different/new way to interpret (and therefore respond to) the behaviors of children with traumatic pasts. It was recommended to me by many parents of children with RAD and FASD, and they swear it’s the only thing that worked with their kids. Basically, it urges parents to first foster a non-punitive, non-judging, nurturing relationship with the child to quell their fears, calm them, and build a relationship of trust and respect before focusing on correcting their behaviors. This book is pretty much the exact opposite in many ways to Nancy Thomas’ approach and many of the others above, but I think they all have their place, depending on the child and situation.

If you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer them. A quick search on my posts on the nest adoption board will give you an idea of what our transition was like. I've tried to be really open here and share both the good and the bad. It might make me seem a bit manic, but I think we often only hear about he good, and it leaves a lot of perspective parents either going into situations without enough of a feel for what it could be like, or running away because of the really difficult, "worse case" situations described in the books.

There's also a yahoo group called "adopt older kids" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A_O_K/) that can give you an idea of what some of these families experience.

Finally, if you decide that you do want to adopt an older child, I strongly advise that you should have the medical files of any child you are considering adopting reviewed by a doctor who specializes in adoption. Such a doctor should be able to help you not only evaluate the child's health, but also identify other risk factors, such as the child's likelihood of attachment issues/RAD, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), and other risks depending on the child's background. These evaluations are not fool-proof, but will give you the best idea of the child's prognosis based on the available information. The doctor would also be able to help you determine if the child has any developmental or other delays, how severe they are, and what level of treatment the child might need.

[StormyDixon]

I don't have experience, but my father was adopted as an older child

[WOT?*]

I am in the process of adopting my granddaughters, age 7 and 9, through the state. I am currently undergoing foster-licensing in order to go through the process. There were a number in my class that were adopting older children, as well. Three of my brother's children were adopted as older children rather than babies.

My brother adopted through foster-care placement. I am adopting through CPS. I don't know if my experience would be similar to what you would go through but I assume as it is the same process that non-relative caregivers have to go through.

[2boys2danes]

H and I adopted out boys internationally -- they were 3.5 and 4.5 -- not bio related and 10 months apart. The books listed above are great starting places for sure. H and I went specifically to adopt the 3.5 YO... he was dark complected, very cross eyed and in Russia we were told that no one wanted to raise another mans son so boys are more plentiful (this was 2004 -- not sure if that is or was the case, just what we were told)

They kept trying to offer us several babies but H and I just didnt think we would be good "baby parents" and had a heart for older kids. There were a lot of hard things about it -- our boys still remember the orphanage they grew up in, didnt speak English for a long time and still have a few language difficulties. Good luck -- older kids are worth it for sure!