Can you adopt an older child?

[sunnyjim]

Is it possible to adopt a child who is OLDER than your birth child?

I'm so happy for you sue, and full of admiration at your tenacity in going through what must be a gruelling process

dp and I have talked about the idea of adoption

I have two children aged 13 and 15, and dp and I are 44 and 39 - are we too old? Also my "Life CV" isn't exactly 'normal'. Just rambling now, I guess the best place to start is on the internet to find out some basic info.

but you have to consider that a disrupted adoption is worse than no adoption at all for an older child.

no you are not too old - cat me and i will quite happily share what I know and point you in the right direction.

...and that adoptive parents do decide they really cannot handle it and chuck the towel.

The agencies have to balance out the different factors, and I'd think they are considering this a genuine risk, or they wouldn't take that decision.

I'm not CAT-capable but thank you sue

I will have a look at the adoption.org.uk website MI posted for a start though

At the moment it's only a glimmer of an idea tbh

molesworth you can go to local authority infomration evenings, even if you are only considering it and want more info. There's no need to feel you are backing out if you don't proceed.

but there's a vast difference between older children who have come into a family because their parent has married another partner, and those who are brought into the family as a result of adoption. For one, the older children coming into a family have come in as part of a family, i.e. father is marrying mother and he has moved into the family as well. And there are also studies that say that creating a stepfamily is also incredibly hard and that something like 70% of stepfamilies break down due to differences between the children/step parent.

When a child is adopted the idea is that that child goes into as normal a family environment as possible, and also that the disruption to the existing birth children is limited as far as possible. now imagine a two year old who has been the only child for the past two years, and the parents adopt an older child. had they adopted a younger child that two year old would be a big brother to the new brother or sister, the one essentially tasked with being a big brother and looking out for their new, younger, sibling. But if the parents bring an older child into the equasion, that two year old then gets demoted to little brother, and a big brother comes in, starts bossing him around, and essentially takes that two year old's place in the family hierarchy. essentially, the younger child is pushed out. Imagine how you would feel about that if you were a child. Also, older children often have a lot of emotional/psychological problems which come from their previous situations. often older children have been removed due to abuce/if parents were drug addicts etc, and those children bear the scars far more than a younger child. and therefore it is imperitive that those older children be placed in a situation, and with parents who are able to put that child's needs first and help him/her overcome the problems he/she has brought with him/her. This must be much harder to do if you have a demanding toddler already.

See i saw it as having a younger sibling comng in would be taking DS palce as the 'baby'

I know I resented my yougner brother for exactly that reason.

not important really now is it, i may think the rules are too rigid but thats what they are so there'll just be one more kid out there who doesn't get a home.

but we are preprogrammed to get used to a younger sibling not an older one. A bit like we are programmed to expect our parents to die before us, however big a tragedy it is, it is in the natural order of things.

There are many stuoid rules in adoption which I dont't agree with and I got hit by a fw of them but I do think this one makes some sense.

another reason is that a child of 5 or 6 who has been in the care system for years has probably witnessed or been the victim of abuse. Its quite possible they woudl abuse a younger child, especially a toddler

you woudl need to be able to provide constant supervision for the two children, hard enough for any family, especially a single parent

you shoudl also know that if the fostered/adopted child alleged that you abused them, they would probably remove your ( younger) child while they carried out their investigations. at least an older child woudl be able to tell them that nothing had happened, though SS coudl decide not to believe them

Have trained as a foster carer and they're happy to let you foster children older than your own. If one of those children becomes available for adoption and is settled with you, you would most definitely be considered as potential adopters. (You are not meant to do fostering as a back door to adoption though, so don't tell them I told you!)

There are certainly guidelines about the ages of birth children vs adopted children, but in my experience adoption agencies vary enormously in their procedures, so call all your local ones and explain your situation.

what ages of children did you foster, mamalennon?

When my DS1 was 2 we did respite-care fostering for a 4 year old with special needs. Then when we moved to London we completed the local authority fostering training but our social worker left under suspicious circumstances, all our records were lost and we were told we would have to start again, which we could not face doing. I then did voluntary work with HomeStart until my DS2 was 5 at which point we applied to become adopters and we have been matched with a 2 year old girl, although it is currently uncertain whether that will go through due to complex legal proceedings.

I also have two sets of friends who are foster carers and they have been approved to foster children up to eight years old even though their own children are younger than that. I am an approved person to babysit for them etc. That's in Hackney where they're in dire need of foster carers, so they might be less stringent about the relative ages of birth/foster children than in other parts of the country.

mamalennon - are you teh same person as chattea? your story sounds very similar to hers? I hope you get soem good news soon

Hello KristinaM. Yes! There was another MNer called 'Chatee' and people were getting me confused with her, so I changed. The adoption situation remains unresolved, we are still in limbo about the little girl and it is very painful as we have made a strong emotional attachment to her through reading her files and talking with her foster carers...

i'm so sorry! of course you have already bonded with this little girl. You need to be able to imagine her being part of your family! it must be SO hard. meanwhile thsi poor child still has no security....its so sad