Concerned about bio daughter

[chloboe]

hi.. I don't even know if this is the right place to come but I just would really appreciate a few questions being answered regarding adoption 🤍

It has always been a very important thing in my heart to home kids who don't have a family or any love. I've always thought if there's a spare bedroom why not use it for a child who is in need. I've also always been drawn to helping teenagers as I feel like they can sometimes just be 'forgotten' about as 'nobody wants a teenager' but me and DH are torn because we're due a little baby in the summer and we already have another 6 year old daughter and we just wonder wether our 6 year old would adjust. We've spoke to her about it and she seems okay- to be honest I don't really think she understands but has anyone else has any experiences with bringing teenagers into there home that has small children just for advice? Thanks so much xx

I would wait until they are both older, but there are going to be things you could do as a volunteer during the day which would really help people who need help, whih could really make changes to young people's lives, you could investigate that in the meantime

Honestly you won’t be approved to bring teenagers into a home with small children. There are a few reasons, firstly a teenager in the care system would be very unlikely to be suitable for adoption, as children get older adoption becomes less viable an option due to the level of disruption the young person has already experienced meaning they need considerable support, which is best provided under the auspices of local authority care.

If the teenager has been in the system for a while they’ll likely have had several moves, which will have an impact on their behaviour and capacity to cope with the structure and boundaries of a family home. This might mean violent behaviour, risk taking, pushing boundaries, anti social behaviour, substance misuse etc etc which would present too much risk to a family with small children. Obviously not all care experienced teenagers have challenging behaviour, but they do have a high level of need emotionally, developmentally and psychologically which means adoption isn’t usually an option for teenagers in the UK unless there’s been some preceding relationship and even then it’s very rare.

There are programmes which place teenagers in supported homes (similar to foster care) but those would usually be homes where the carers have adult children who have left home.

The short answer is that teenagers are very rarely adopted. My son was 8 when I adopted him, he was considered very old in adoption terms.

Where prospective adopters already have birth children, it would be very much an exception for a child older than the birth child to be placed with a family, normally most agencies would require an adopted child to be a minimum of 2 years younger than a birth child.

You could potentially foster teenagers, but to be honest I really wouldnt in your situation
I write as someone who will be giving up their nice cosy civil service job in the next year to foster teenagers.
Adoption and fostering is so much more than having a spare room and love.
There are very good reasons why children are removed from their families. Neglect and abuse result in trauma which can have long lasting impact.

If a child is still in the care system into their teenage years, its a lot more complex than noone is interested in them. They will generally be amongst the most traumatised and challenging of young people requiring specialist care.
My son’s brother is 14. I tried to foster him several years ago when he was 8, I can’t go into the reasons here why he isn’t with us. He is now in a residential unit and attends boarding school. He is a lovely young man but deeply traumatised, he can be violent, and a bully. He is institutionalised and not capable of living in an ordinary family unit. I care about him very much, but to be brutally honest I wouldnt want him near any family with young children.
My best advice to you is to enjoy your babies, if you still want to consider adoption look at it again when your baby is in school, but forget about teenagers

chloboe great advice from everyone. If you are in the UK it is highly unlikely to be approved but if you are elsewhere you should not pursue this for all the good reasons given.

Enjoy the time with your young child and baby and look into this again when your youngest child is older. Usually, an adopted child will be the youngest in the family unless it is a relation adopting.

I love your attitude and respect your desire to help those less fortunate. My advice to you is to enjoy your new baby when it comes and remember you'll need a lot of energy for those formative years. You'll know when the time is right to look at helping others again. Good luck with the baby.

And if you look at fostering never accept a child older than your youngest. You can’t expect that SS will always put your children first or will have the information to do so. The sad truth is you never want your child to be you her than any children coming from within the system.

It's unlikely that you'll be approved for a adoption until your baby is a certain age (dependent on agency but usually a couple of years) . This allows for them to assess what your set up as a family of 2 looks like and how you cope

It is also unusual to place a child "out of birth order" so usually the adopted child must be the youngest in the house hold so the established roles of older sibling etc continue, it's usually seen as least disruptive

Usually teens and older children are up for foster (and possibly long term foster) rather than adoption

If you decided on a younger child, They also usually like a certain age gape between the youngest child and the new child coming in via adoption (it seems to be places aim for around 4 years gap ish, which quickly passes by the time the process is complete)

It can be agency dependent though, so there's no harm in attending open evenings etc once baby is here

Would you consider fostering?