As some of you might remember, hubby and I are on the TTC roller coaster and have been trying to have our first for about five and a half years now. We’ve done medicated cycles, IUI’s, and an IVF. I have been pregnant six times, all early losses (one was ectopic and I lost my left tube). My most recent pregnancy was just last month and it only lasted to about 5.5 or 6 weeks. We have two frozen embryos which we will transfer this winter, and we are looking at the possibility of immunologic and inflammation issues, but that is a whole different post…
So, in the meantime, a young girl (she is nine right now) has been in our life while she was in and out of the foster system for the past five years. Last Christmas, we started taking her every two weekends for a night or two and have developed a relationship with her. The situation right now is that her mom has been given one final LAST chance and the girl is with mom right now and has been for the last two weeks. Everyone involved is holding their breath wondering how this will all fall out, but there is quite a bit of pessimism.
The Government of Alberta Child and Family Services (where we live) does concurrent planning for kids in the system. What this means is that while ‘Plan A’ is that the child be with their biological family, if possible, there is a ‘Plan B’ to fall back on. We are that Plan B for this little girl. Right now we are in the middle of (very, very, very) comprehensive training and will start our homestudy in the next few weeks so we can be approved to take over care and eventually adopt this little girl, should things go that way.
During this training, the social workers have talked a lot about adoption of older children, children up to 16 or so. I should mention that in the public system, you virtually never get an infant, the youngest age is generally around 3 or so. Anyway, through the training and from meeting all these wonderful adoptive families who have adopted older children - usually 7 and older - I’ve come to realize that maybe this is something we should consider regardless of if we end up with this known little girl or not.
My question is, has anyone adopted an older unknown child - say, 7 or older - and how did it work out? I’m especially interested in people who did not have biological children and grew their family through adoption only, but all experiences are welcome. Experiences with adoption of older known children is valuable to us as well, considering we may be doing that as well.
A good friend lost her baby close to term; it was understandably incredibly traumatic, and between that and some long-term health issues she and her husband decided to not make any further attempts. They went the foster parent route for a while, taking in quite a few children, before ending up adopting a little girl of… 8, I believe. The adoption was official a year ago, but they had her for about a year before that.
In GA at least, the majority of children in care are struggling with not only extremely difficult family lives, but also associated mental health/behavioral issues. I know my friend and her husband love their daughter very much, but she has a lot of issues that they thought they were prepared for, but weren’t. My friend is not a large woman, and as I said she has a lot of health issues, and their daughter has tantrums that sometimes require her to be restrained. Unfortunately this falls to her husband the majority of the time, which (according to my friend) creates an odd dynamic within the family. She’s significantly better than when they first brought her into their home, though, and while there will always be some problems (a good portion of the mental health issues are tied to in utero drug and alcohol abuse by her biomom), my friend and her husband are hoping that time will reduce the severity of their daughter’s symptoms.
I worked at a residential facility for children in the foster care system for over 7 years, and the individuals/couples who went through the process of adopting our kids went through a lot of training on therapeutic foster care, which really is different from traditional foster care. A lot of foster placements and even adoptions fell through because the parents weren’t prepared for 24/7 life with a behaviorally disordered child. Much like with anything, sadly love isn’t all you need.
After five years I think you probably know what you’re getting into with this particular little girl, but should you consider adopting another unknown child, I would caution you to go in with your eyes as open as possible. Most of these issues aren’t insurmountable, but they do change a family dynamic even more than an adoption of an older child does.
Thank you for the story! Yes, we certainly realize that should we decide to adopt an unknown child we will be faced with some sort of emotional/behavioural issue - it’s pretty much certain. This training has been invaluable to us and makes us feel more comfortable about our ability to parent these types of kids and the resources we have available to us. Alberta actually has one of the best public child welfare systems in North America, so it’s pretty amazing what kind of support we would get.
However, there is, of course, the fact that we’ve never parented before. Having an older unknown child with potential issues come in to our home is daunting. We still have a lot to learn and a lot to discuss before we decided to go down that path, but the last few weeks have opened my eyes to the possibility so it’s nice to hear the good AND bad.
Friends of mine fostered with the plan of adopting four siblings. They ended up adopting three of the four, as one had so many issues that she was a danger to everyone in the house. All four kids were born addicted, all suffered severe physical/emotional/sexual abuse at very young ages. The state assisted with mental health counseling for quite a few years.
Now, ten years later, the oldest moved back with her biomom. She has sigificant disabilities that her adopted mom tried to help with, but she decided no rules is better. The oldest son may be back with biomom, or in jail. I’m not sure. The adopted parents haven’t had contact with him directly in almost a year. The youngest is still at home, started college last week.
I’ve asked my friend if it was worth the tens of thousand in doctors bills, attorney fees (the two oldest had many run ins with the law), the nights wondering where they were (again, oldest two running away). She said yes, as she is positive that they are in a much better position than if they had not taken them in. They became her kids, period. She accepted them for who they were and tried to help them become productive adults. Didn’t quite work out as she had hoped, but many other bio-parents go through the same disappointment.
First of all: I think it is really wonderful that you are considering this. I really hope things turn out well for the little girl, be it with biomum or with you.
I have worked in a children’s home from which several older children were adopted, always by people who we knew very well such as former employees. I can only echo what bobkitty said.
I presume with the little girl you mentioned you are aware of any behavioural problems. A different child will be different of course, there is no telling what problems may already be present or may develop. Children in such a situation, I’m sure you know, will never be “normal” (whatever that even means).
That said, all of the children that were adopted (very few) adjusted very well. They and their adoptive families are all extremely happy together, despite some behavioural problems. IMO this was always because they knew each other very, very well before taking any steps, they were well aware of any problems, already practiced at dealing with any of those problems and usually in fact trained professionals.
Belonging to a family was the ultimate dream of all the children who came to our children’s home. I will never forget the way Escarlet looked when she said to me: “Because she wants me”, we were talking about her being adopted. It was such an intense look. Someone wanted her as a daughter. To be wanted as part of a family, an unbreakable unit that you are a part of, is perhaps one of the most important things there is.
I can’t really think what else to say, other than that it is hard but also great. I hope you find your children, one way or another.
Thank you for the stories, advice and encouragement everyone.
Of course, potentially adopting this ‘known’ child is vastly different than adopting an unknown child. We’ve known her for five years, we’ve had her in our home and overnight dozens of times, and we are close with her foster parents (though we’ve never met her mom). The little one has opened up and recently started telling me she loved me, as well as DH (though she won’t say it to his face yet - too shy) and our dog, of course! She even once said that she wished she lived with us, though we have never had rough times and of course it’s like being at an aunt’s house where it’s all about the kid for a couple of days. She fits in to our lifestyle - we are very active in cycling and outdoor pursuits and this summer she competed in two cycling races for the first time (kids races done as part of races we were in) and came camping. She loves the outdoors and wants to be ‘just like Derek’ (my DH).
I’m gushing, but yeah, she’d be perfect for us if things don’t work out with her mom. I think we’ll be fine.
I’m more concerned with the unknown, obviously. There are many, many things to consider.
I’m glad you posted this, I was wondering what happened to the little girl that liked Amelia Earhart. Will pray for the best possible outcome for this child.
We went through the process of selection and education for adopting older children 25 years ago. In a twist of fate we ended up adopting a newborn. But preparation is the key with older children. I can’t think of any good circumstances that lead to this situation so it’s important to have some exposure to situations people have had in the past. I’m trying to locate the organization we dealt with before, but I’ve been frustrated by Google reporting mostly pet adoption services in that area. They were a very small group, essentially two parents who had adopted several older children and worked with volunteers, including some of the adopted children that had grown up under their care. The only advice I can offer at the moment is to consider that you may be able to establish a family relationship faster than the parent-child relation. You can define the place for your children within the family by having them contribute with necessary chores, a specific time to talk to them everyday, scheduling activities that are specifically for them. It’s hard for older children to establish a new parental relationship, but they can find their fit within the the overall family structure, making the parental relationship easier to develop over time. After all, it’s a tall order to expect an older child to suddenly love someone overnight. But they can certainly find something in knowing their part of a group, and you can do things to emphasize their participation.
Here’s something else I remember, but maybe not in great detail: Avoid going on a shopping spree and giving a child a pile of new stuff when they come to live with you. That will look like lottery winnings to them. Going shopping with your child and allowing them to make selections and express their preferences is helpful in establishing a relationship.
Thanks TriPolar. This training we’ve been going through has actually covered everything you posted, which is good! In fact, while in the beginning we thought 20+ hours of training before we even started the homestudy was a LOT, but now that we’re going through it, we think it should be mandatory for private adoption as well. There is a ton of research in infant and child loss and grief related to adoption. Even if a child was adopted as a newborn, there are grief and loss issues they’ll have to deal with. It’s very interesting, probably mostly because I do enjoy psychology.
The other interesting bit relates to discipline. Bobkitty upthread mentioned restraining the child in certain situations. I brought this up yesterday as we are absolutely NOT allowed to use ANY form of physical discipline, including restraint. Given that this little one sometimes has self harm tantrums, I wanted to clarify. They said that restraining a child, especially an older adoptive child, can be severely detrimental as it restricts their sense of ‘control’ (a big issue for adopted kids), not to mention causing a safety issue for the restrainer. They did then provide methods to mitigate the harm the child would do to themself and explain how to redirect the behavior, so it was a good conversation. I guess what I’m saying is that everything I grew up with - including spanking as punishment - is counter to what Child Services requires. There are other differences (no time outs in the room, for instance) that are completely different to what I’m used to. But, I guess parenting is learning, right? This training is done so we get the tools and resources we need to be as successful as possible.
By the way, I just got a call from our case worker and we have our first homestudy interview on Tuesday. The very in depth one…yikes!
I think this sounds like a great foundation to build a family from, and clearly you are starting to build trust as well. I’m genuinely very excited for you and for the little girl. One way or another, there will be a real family for all of you. Please keep us posted!