To be really upset and angry that social services won't let a loving family adopt?

[neroli38]

NC'ed for this

I've wanted to adopt for a while and my DH is very on board.

We have everything to give a child - a big home with their own room, good schools, we have enough money to give a child everything they could possibly need. But most importantly, we have bucket loads of love and support to give

We have a 2 year old daughter, 3 in March. We both thought the best thing would be to adopt a child aged maybe 5-8. For several reasons, we don't have a burning desire to do the baby stage again and we would be happy to skip it, but we know older children get overlooked for adoption. Our new child would be in school, so I could still work part time and we wouldn't be losing much money. It fits in with the ages of our neighbours and friends children, so our new child would have lots of playmates

We thought that January would be a good time to start, so I phoned our local council up yesterday to make contact. I spoke to a social worker who asked us some questions about ourselves but then told me that because we have a 2 year old daughter, we can't adopt now. We can't adopt an older child full stop, only a child younger than our DD. We have to wait until our DD is 4 years old, then we can start the adoption process for a baby aged 0-2

I'm just really upset and a bit angry. Apparently they're crying out for parents but here we are, we have everything to give an older child - a world of love, a little sister who is lovely and we know would adore an older sibling, a nice house, private schools and lovely holidays and anything else else you could care to name

And we're not good enough, bcause of our DD. Why is that a problem??

AIBU? Are social services BU?

Do most 5-8 year olds in care have all these problems? I know a family near me that foster, they've had a couple of children aged 5-8 and they don't seem feral or out of control

I know it won't be easy, but surely there are some children out there who don't have issues with 'sexualised' behaviour or violence? Children who with our parenting and love, can work through any problems they have and do really well?

You sound at best incredibly naive.

At worst it sounds like you want another child but without the hassle of the baby stage.

With your current views, you probably wouldn't make it through the vetting process anyway.

Do most 5-8 year olds in care have all these problems? I know a family near me that foster, they've had a couple of children aged 5-8 and they don't seem feral or out of control

Feral and out of control are a very poor choice of words. You need to do a whole lot of research and try and figure out whats wrong with your mindset here.

Older children can come from all sorts of less than ideal circumstances and often have social, emotional and/or physical needs which require dedication and undivided attention to help them through. Would you really be willing to put your own dd second if needs be ? The family dynamics for her would change significantly. It could be every bit as demanding , if not more so, than taking on an under 2. Trust that this policy is based on sound information.

They haven't said a flat no , as your title might suggest, they are suggesting that you wait and if you were to use that time productively in researching what is involved and other people's experiences , you may be better informed as to what you, as a family, are committing to.

OP imagine your own little girl without parents do you not think it would affect her deeply at 5 years old her mum is no longer there can you imagine taking a little child in who has lost their parents as children even neglected children do not understand that they are being neglected and some will miss their parents, no amount of holidays and hugs is going to cure them of that

What mrsjay said

How can a 5yr old not be traumatised at losing its parents and possibly having gone from home to home for most of its life?

A child older than your dd will have no particular reason to love or even like your dd. Older children typically like to lord it over younger children, hence many sibling battles. How on earth do you think your dd would react if you brought in an older child who would want to have first go on all toys, run faster, grab quicker, etc etc and started to treat that child as your loved new child? Highly upsetting for your dd.

It wouldn't be a cosy, protective, loving 'big sister' or 'big brother' scenario you seem to be imagining, unless you were fantastically lucky

My own father was adopted at an older age so I know how important getting the right adoptive parents is.

Was he adopted into a family as the oldest sibling?

You've had some very good advice here - I suggest you do a lot more reading around the issues so that if you decide to pursue this in future, you will be much better informed.

As some people have suggested, you might also want to look into fostering

It does seem more like trying to 'buy' - without having to go through any tedious initial haggling - a ready-made idealised big sibling for your existing child. (Perhaps with the added bonus - in your head - that this sibling will also be very grateful for the lovely lifestyle.)

Blimey! Just blimey!

Prospective adoptive parents have a lot of training thankfully which I have been through. During this, your eyes will be opened to what you are proposing, (currently somewhat merrily and thoughtlessly) to do. Having an adoptive child is not an easier option. It is ten times more difficult. You will adopt a child that has had an awful start in life. Not an easy job.

And of course SS are not being unreasonable. As the first poster told you very bluntly, it is to protect your DD.

OP
you SO need your eyes opening about adoption

Fundamentally, adopting an older child means becoming a kind of 'specialist' parent to a deeply hurting little person, who has additional/special needs.

You have to know that any amount of parenting you give, might not even touch on the deep trauma. That abuse/neglect causes problems with brain development and this is long term.

I do agree with MrsDV that I suspect your heart is mostly in the right place, but with adoption, you need a lot more than that

I would spend some time researching the needs of waiting children, in the 0-3 age bracket, and researching adoption related issues. If you post on the adoptions board, we can give you some pointers and information about where to start. Younger children are also traumatised, and also have extra needs, so you need to have researched those. When your DD gets older, you can then make an informed decision about adopting a child from the care system is the right path for you to take

For those saying fostering - the children have mostly the same issues as adopted children and you really should have the same research behind you before you start, but there is a lot more SS involvement, extra requirements, meetings, training, contact sessions weekly or several times weekly...it might well not fit with OP and husbands work etc, and again shouldn't be an older child, only babies. I really don't think that would be a good fit either

You have some time before being able to adopt a dc younger than your dd. I'd recommend spending the time reading up about adoption and attachment. The people on the adoption board here are always happy to answer questions and are extremely knowledgable.

Your 'anger' at this answer from the SW implies that you are fairly unfamiliar dare I say naive with adoption processes and the issues involved.

You have a dd who is 2yrs & to have a child bigger than her come to the family with many problrems that need care and attention would be not right for her imho. If you want to adopt then wait until she is older

We adopted but not out of birth order, SS liked for adoptive children to be younger than your youngest child in your home when we did it too. I can see why they do it.
But it's nothing to do with you as parents.
If you start now or in a few months, by the time you have completed everything your daughter will probably be a year older and you'll be all ready to accept another child.

I've got a better idea for the OP, who is naive to the point of utter folly.

Get a dog.

Oh and by the way, they told us we could only adopt if I gave up my job. Because no adoption would work with the kind of job I have.

And the icing on the cake was that they wanted to find a racial match. I pointed out it was going to be hard to find Anglo-Ugandan mixed race children.

OP - Your saviour mindset is the worst way to consider trying to care for an older child who has dealt with trauma. It will lead to resentment and anger for both you and the child and it's not healthy. Thankfully this would hopefully be picked up in the vetting process, and I - along with many others - suggest you do a lot more reading and self reflection into this.

I was an abused and neglected child-young adult. And I would have thrown your nice schools, fancy holidays, and 'everything I could want' back in your face (that is what I did do). I wasn't feral or out of control - I was angry, I was broken, I had already been bought out enough times in my life to 'know' that that type of love was hollow, empty, lasted very little time, and would end up in strings attached (I did this all this for you, how dare you not reach my expectations/want to do X for me/be so ungrateful). I didn't need someone with things, I hated people trying to give me things because I was so concerned about the catch. Even now, over a decade away from that environment, I get twitchy when people I don't know well want to give me things, particularly those with any sort of authority over me or my family.

I needed someone who could deal with my angry, depressed, broken self, help me rebuild myself and did their best to help me feel safe and worthwhile while I did so. I was broken before I was 5, desperate for any kind of affection often in very inappropriate ways. By 8, I'd built my shell that no one was ever going to without a catch. I was a runaway and suicidal before I was 8, pretty much every holiday in my childhood that I can recall involved me getting 'lost'/running off because escape was my coping mechanism. 8 was when I snapped, went from straight A to failing student within a few months and never really came back from that. It's a hard enough age for children without these issues, it's a lot for a child who has gone through trauma and betrayal and has built that wall and line of reasoning to cope with that. I didn't need or want a saviour or things, I needed a shoulder and time. And doing that while fitting into someone's schedule and another child's big sister would have just not worked for anyone.

I think it's lovely that you want to adopt, and it would be nice if more people were more willing.

However, going from the children I have known in care all of them have had 'issues' of some sort and many have been very challenging.

2 little girls were put into care aged 5 and 6 after serious neglect. When they first went into care they were regularly wetting and soiling themselves. The oldest had an issue with stealing things. Food from lunchboxes, little toys children brought to school, bits from teachers' displays etc. She was also very 'greedy' and had no self control. For example, if she was given a selection box she would eat it all as soon as she got it. She also found it very difficult to show affection and could be cold and distant to her carers and didn't make friends easily. Her sister on the other hand was very loving but could be a little inappropriate. Her teacher when she was 7-8 was male and he was quite uncomfortable with the way she acted around him.

Another pair of siblings I knew were adopted as toddlers but still had emotional difficulties that lasted throughout their childhoods. They found it difficult to love their parents and their parents found it difficult to love them. They ran away overnight at least once when they were about 8 and 9.

Another boy had no behavioural difficulties but he did have learning difficulties and was statemented at school. His adoptive mother was lovely but I think someone else might have struggled with the extra help he needed.

I know a few people have suggested fostering, and that may be something you want to think about, but I am currently applying to foster and my local authority also requires birth children to be the oldest and for there to be an age gap of at least 2 years between them and a foster child.

We were a bit knocked sideways by the not adopting out of order rule. In the end we 'took in' - not adopted - a child who had been doubly bereaved and was older than our son. It has not been a problem at all. Of course, there have been problem to work through, but the chronological ages have not been a problem.

I feel very uncomfortable that the OP is being pulled up on not having done enough research and being naive. Not everyone researches first, some people pick up the phone and speak to someone on the phone. That's exactly what we did. There's nothing wrong with starting out the process being naive.

I might add that fostering out of order, including long-term, is not any sort of problem to SS. My DB has had 4 long-term foster placements, the most recent 8 years and they had two children younger than the twins they fostered.

conclusionjumper the OP is being told to research and called naive because her attitude to the whole thing is so spectacularly wrong.

I think telling her to 'do some research' is the polite way of putting it.