Dh and I have always felt that we would like to adopt one day. We alawys wantd like to children and now have 2 of our own and would like to look into the adoption process, probably and older child.

The thing is DH works away from home, ie. 2-3/ weeks away 1-2 weeks at home would they hold this against us or would we get equal consideration as someone who worked 9-5???

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question.

I'm not an expert on this as I was a single adopter but my guess would be that provided that they felt you had adequate support whilst he was away, you should be OK.

What do you mean by and older child, how old are your existing DC's? To be blunt there isn;t a long queue of parents wanting school age childrne so I suspect they would bite your hand off if all otehr issues were felt to be satisfactory

My children are nearly 2 and nearly 5. We are looking at a school age child one of the reasons being (not because we think it would be easier by the way) that there is less people offering a home to them.
We would like to give a home to a child. we have both sets of parents in the same town for family support while DH is away and I know that both my parents and IL's would love an adopted child as unconditionally as we would so I don't feel that lack of full support and day to day support would be a problem.

I don't think it would be an issue, they would want to see that the child would get adequate support by either one/both of you. There are so many families with different working patterns, ways of living etc.

It is my understanding, after talking to Barnardo's, that they would want the adopted child to be the youngest so they would want you to wait until your dc's were at school etc.

Not sure if this is different with different agencies/social services etc? Someone can probably confirm/deny this for me!

Do you know why they would want them to be the youngest?? Does that not seem so bizarre if there is a perfect family out there wanting to adopt a child asking them to wait 3 years to do it??

Think they think about the effect on your children (not that i know much about this type of thing) but if your child has been born as the eldest sibling then what kind of effect would it have if they were then a middle child? I could be totally wrong btw!

I would think that you might be waiting not far off three years anyway to adopt INAC.

yes it is exceptional (though has been known) to get approval for a child that is older than your DC's.

Most councils insist on a gap of at least 2 years between your youngest and a new adopted child (some councils expect 3yr gap).

It is all to do with the amount of attention a newly adopted child needs - it is akin (at any age) to having a new born and your other childrne need to be old enough to a) understand this and b) to need less attention themselves, both of which only tends to happen if the exisitn bio childrne are older.

Addiotnally I beleive there has been some work done on adopting children out of birth order ie taking a child who is an only child or a youngest child (most likely the case with adoption) and suddenly making them the oldest in a sibling group where the younger children already have a strong bond with the parents. It is thought not to be good for the adoptive child and doesn't promote good bonding. It isn;t just about getting a child into a permanent home - you need to make sure that the permanent home they are going to is going to be better for them than the foster home they are currently in.

I think its because they want to ensure that the adoptees needs are met primarily - I think they assume that older children's needs are 'less' in comparison. Also it is less likely to impact on the family order iyswim - ie new brother or sister is younger...

Bizarre as it is, you may have to wait three years. We are looking into this and have been told to wait til DD is at school.

No hurry for us tho'...

they do conside rthe exisitng sibling but the primary concern is for the adopted child.

What would you do if your child who was placed was violent towards your existing children? Much easier to handle if your DC's are older than if they are younger. Adoption disrupting is a disaster for the adopted child and to be avoided at all cost - they are better off staying in foster care than being placed for adoption and taken away again.

as sophierose says - there is something in the natural order of things to have younger siblings arriving, but how will your (then) 8 yr old feel suddenly to have a bigger brother/sister when they have previously occupied the top dog slot?

This is really interesting, thank you all for taking the time to answer me. I really appreciate it.

i agree with the others. any school aged adopted child will have experinced a lot of trauma and probably abuse in their lives. they are quite likely to act this out in your home and it would be too risky for your younger children.It would be much better if your children were older.

you would also need to think of the risk to your children if the newly adopted child was to allege that you or your Dh have abused them.This is not uncommon as many school teachers/care workers/foster carers will tell you - kids are well aware of the power of threat of " If you dont do what i want i will say you hit me".

If your other children are too young to refute these allegations then they are more likely to be removed "for their own safety" pending investigations

regarding your OP, i dont think it would matter that your Dh is away, as long as you have plenty of other support

I think you need 2 years between your youngest and the adopted child although I could be wrong (??) I have heard the youngest rule a lot as well. Please be aware that every school age adoption I have come across (not many -single figures) has failed (by which I meant the child has been returned) usually because of attachment disorders and the massive problems the children come in with.

i'd approach SS now and find out the score locally- perhaps see if you can meet local adoptive families.

Just come across this thread. We have just started looking into an out of birth order adpotion. We have 3 boys (3, 4.5, 6.5) and are looking to adopt a girl within these ages (prob school age i.e 5ish). I am really concerned about the last comment that school age placements usually fail. I do not expect it to be easy but the thought that the odds are stacked for it to fail is hard. Has anyone got any success stories.

We were told there needed to be two years between dd1 and adopted child. The adopted child needed to be younger for the reasons already stated above by other posters, and also - according to our SW - so they were not 'helpers' at home with their new adopted (and younger) siblings.

But different boroughs could be different.....