Adopting an older child?

It is a wonderful thing that you want to do. But it won't be easy. Give really serious thought to how you want to do this. Your 11 year old needs to take priority.

I come from a family of 5 adopted siblings. None of us are biological siblings, but we all grew up together in the same adopted family. Three of us turned out okay - we have our hangs up, but we have lived fairly normal lives and my eldest brother has been an exceptionally high achiever. But 2 of my siblings are complete psycho! At age 13 one of them tried to murder my sister. She spent over 6 months in hospital, recovering from her injuries - and still bears the scars! When asked why he did that, he said he rather liked his new home but he thought it would be better to be an only child. His plan had been to murder us all! The thing is - no one, but no one, ever guessed he would do something like that. The other "psycho" looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, but he started by killing the neighbourhood pets, and moved onto murdering people.

I am not trying to put you off. I thank God my adoptive parents took us in. But do your research very well, and don't allow social workers to push you into adopting a child you have any qualms about. Research has been done that shows if you already have biological children, it is more successful to adopt much younger children. There is enormous anecdotal evidence of older adopted children harming biological children.

Please don't change your mind - but do be careful.

If the older girl you want to adopt has been in the system for a long time, Run. She would teach your younger son thing you do not want him to know at 11. Older kids are usually still in foster care for a reason. There are always exceptions to the rule, But i would not want to experiment with my child.

Go for it.

Adopting an older child is a good thing, because by the time a foster child turns 18, they are pushed out the system.

It's good that you want to stop a child from aging out of the system.

Also, I would like to adopt an older child as well.