Adopting above your age bracket

[undersoap]

Hi all - would really appreciate people's insights/experiences.

OH and I have been approved for two siblings under 5, however have recently been drawn to a profile of siblings outside of our age bracket (eg. one of 7y and the other under 4). For various reasons (nothing sinister) we can't discuss with our SW at the moment but will do soon - in the meantime I'd love to hear anyone's experiences who has adopted a child of that age or outside the age bracket they originally proposed.

Thanks everyone!

[Threesocksnohairbrush]

I can't comment on adopting 7 year olds but we went into our second adoption looking for a child 0-2 (but really closer to 0) and ended up adopting a child who was rising 3. Best decision we ever made, and made on the match between our family and that individual child, not a number in an age bracket.

But - 7 is potentially very different from under 5 in terms of the complexity of the life experiences they may have had, and from posts on here adopting siblings can be hard work. Id ask a lot of questions to be sure you have a full picture of their needs and the right support to meet them.

Good luck

[UnderTheNameOfSanders]

We said 0-7, expecting a 4 and 6, and eventually placed with a nearly-8 and an under-3.

I think you need to
a) review why you picked the age range you did initially - what was the thinking and reasons, are these still valid
b) work out the implications of going outside the range on your decision making
c) review implications of going outside of range on your immediate parenting when placed. An older child will have different needs.

e.g. We said 7 originally as we felt an older child would likely to have had too much disruption, moves etc, more likely to have attachment problems.
Actually our eldest had been with BM until move to FC, no bouncing in and out of care etc. So we felt OK about it.

[undersoap]

Thanks both, that's really helpful. I like what you say, three, about it being a match between your family and the child - that's why this group have surprised me because they do seem like a good match for us despite being outside our age bracket. And under, those questions are really helpful and exactly the kind of pointers I was looking for! I think I was hoping for the two kids at home experience (which I won't get much of with these two), but also feel that I 'understand' the eldest very well IYKWIM (being very similar to me in personality) and so I might click with him more than one who was at home but had a totally different personality. I'll be discussing those questions with OH, so thanks!

[blueskywithclouds]

Our original age bracket was 18m-3yrs. The whole way through the process, until a month before approval. We were asked if we would consider making it 0-3 if the right child came along, just to widen the net. We said yes, for the right match. We have had our daughter a week now and she is 9months old. I've had a hard time this week (see my post!) and it is hard getting used to. I had in my head a toddler who could communicate and now have a wriggly worm on my rug that squeals at me instead I think part of my hard time is she is younger than I had planned! But we said yes because the more we read, the more we realised she was the girl for us!