Do school age adoptions mostly fail?

[carrieboo75]

I have just read on this thread and I have always felt we would like to adopt but would this be against us??? someone say that every person they know that has adopted a school age child has had the placement fail. Does anyone have any success stories?.

We are just looking into adopting an out of birth order child (between our boys ages 3, 4.5, 6.5), so most likely the child will be school age. While I do not expect it to be easy it is hard to think it is more likely to fail than succeed.

Thank you

yes edam but the theory (I beleive proven but cant think why I beleive that!) is that

a) it is in the natural way of things and most childrne do deal with it reasonably well after an inital transition
b) the child who is displaced has been in the family since birth and thereofre not dealing with attachment/loss/neglect issues as well as displacement.
c) its much harder to deal with an older and presumably bigger child with attachemnt issues and possible violent behaviour when there is a younger birth child in the picture who may well be the target of this violence.

Hi - do you know any older adopters? I am a freelance journalist and have been commissioned to write a piece about people adopting over the age of 50. I am hoping for a moving and compelling piece, but am still looking for families of older parents and older children who would be willing to speak to me. Do please reply if you would be interested in taking part, or if you know somebody who might.

gaby - you need to contact mumsnet as there is a seperate section for media requests

i have to boys i adopted at differant ages and from differant sets of parents,my first son i adopted at four years of age who came from parents who both had mental health and learning problems,he stayed in one foster home from being a baby, till he was almost four then placed with us,all i can say is that the whole experience has been sheer hell,he left home at 16,takes drugs and has a criminal record.my other son has been the best experience and a total joy ,he was placed with us at four months of age and is a very happy 11 year old now. i am in contact with two other adoptive couples who adopted the same sort of ages and both couples have been through hell with the child placed at an older age and in fact only one set still has contact with the child,we all have very similar historys with the adoptions but i can honestly say i dont think there would ever have been a differant outcome for all of us!

We adopted our daughter aged 7. There have been a few minor problems but I'm not sure that they were adoption related or general 'normal' child behaviour.

She is 13 now and going through all the usual teenage things but is doing very well at school, has many hobbies and lots of lovely friends.

We have no regrets but we considered quite a few children [all younger by the way] before we asked to be put forward for our DD. I think you have to take a lot of factors into consideration before adopting any child and be honest with yourselves about what you will be able to cope with.

With a younger child there is usually a lot more uncertainty about future development as the child has been removed for a reason eg learning difficulties in birth parents or mental illness.

Our DD has a history of mental illness in the birth family but as she was older we knew she was coping at school and also she had had continuity of care from an aunt until 3 years which is a very important time in terms of making attachments.

In summary what I would say is to assess each potential match on its own merits. We were originally approved for 0-5 years and ended up with a 7 year old.

Success story? Yes a couple in our village adopted a 9 year old girl and her 18 month old brother and the kids settled in well and they seemed a very happy family.

Carrie - please don't take offense as you sound fab but I don't think you should adopt. I know you want another child (and preferably a DD) and that you also want to help a child in need. However, the adoption process itself and a subsequent placement could place excessive strains on your happy family. What you have now is so good please don't put it at risk.

(I speak as the mum to a glorious DD who we adopted but we have no other kids, BTW).

The OP is half a year old so only the last few posts really relevant I suppose.

Still, as the sibling of an adopted child I would say there are very good reasons for having the adopted child the youngest if he is coming into a new group of sibling.

Simply because a newly adopted child is going to need to be the baby and do the whole bonding thing with his new family, maybe regress for a while: this is much easier for siblings to accept if the new child is visibly younger than themselves. I felt very protective of my new little brother: can't imagine I would have felt the same if he had been older than me.