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After having three biological children, my husband and I decided to do what many of you have thought about doing: adopting an older child (12 years old at the time), one of those adorable kids who may not get a home because of their age. All we asked for was a healthy kid, who wanted a home and a loving family. We did all the work to get us qualified and took all the negative comments with a grain of salt. Then, one day, we finally found a lovely girl from Ohio to adopt, and greeted her with wide open hearts. And this is where the excitement ended: our new daughter was lovely only the day we met her, as the experience turned to hell very quickly. She has survived by manipulating her way through life, and that's unlikely to change. We did all we could; to start, I switched to a part time work schedule, so I could spend enough time with her. We provided medical and psycological support. We provided the same love we provided to all our kids. In return, our adopted daughted didn't exactly love us back; in fact, she stole from us, ran away many times, told false stories about the situation at home and tried to get us prosecuted for alleged abuse (which was many times proven we were not doing). It turns out our daughter had undiagnosed mental illnesses, including fetal alcohol expossure and bipolar disorder. I am extremely thankful to the social worker who was able to help diagnose her. Our experience, sadly to say, was hellish and not uncommon, as I hear many adoptive parents of older children describe similar stories. If I had to do this again knowing what I know now, I would not do this. We put our family through a lot of stress, and to this day (she's now 19), she isn't part of the family; she's back in touch with her abusive biological relatives, and she's a full-blown addict. She keeps manipulating all those she meets, and rants about all who let her down (which in her world means just saying "no" to her wishes) when they find out who she really is. I love her, but I am at peace with the fact that she has moved on, so we can recover in our own peace and rebuild our family.
I am probably too late posting here (just registered here tonight) but we adopted our youngest child, our DD, through the foster care program. She however came to us at birth and the oldest foster child we ever took in was four, so I have no experience with older kids, though some of my foster parent friends do. Much of what has been said seems right on target based on what I have heard in our classes and workshops, and through my friends. There can be tons of issues, such as running away, suicide threats, drugs, etc., but the rewards can be so worth it. I think the person here who said what a postive difference his foster parents made really says it all. You can make a tremendous difference in a child's life, for the better, even though it is not always obvious right away. You also have the support of your DH, which is a major plus. There is a very active board for foster and adoptive parents of which I am a member and you can get lots of helpful information there. For the most part it is also a warm and welcoming group of people. The board is fosterparents.com You can also email me if you have questions about fostering and adopting in general.
Keep us posted with what you decide to do.
Nancy
You are so luckly. My husband and I signed up to be foster parents of children 0-81months. Never once have we gotten a phone call. Our license is going to expire soon and not sure we are going to adopt again.
We adopted two kids, six and four, in 1998, after fostering them for a year. This is my advice, based both on what I have experienced and what I have read:
Do NOT foster or adopt UNLESS you like the teen they are considering placing with you EXACTLY like she or he is now because you will probably not be able to change him or her in any basic way. Their personalities are already established, due to a combination of genetics and past experiences (at least one of which is probably not good, or else they would not be in a foster/adopt situation as teens). Not only that, but you will be competing with peer pressures, social media and the Internet, and unless you home school, you will also be faced with modern teaching which seems to be fostering a sense of entitlement in students and are not doing much to instill a sense of personal responsibility. Even if there weren't these factors, most foster/adopt teens will also do a lot of negative "acting out", and some of this might be extreme, and on top of that, many people will blame [i]you[/I for the actions of your child.
In short, if you decide to proceed -- and I sincerely applaud you if you do -- you will need to do so with no expectation of anything good coming out of it except for the satisfaction that you gave a child a much needed home and that you did all you could to try to make life better for at least one child.
P.S. I am not saying that the results of adopting/fostering older kids are always negative -- there are probably thousands of cases where the outcomes were good for all concerned -- but that people should not adopt or foster without being aware that in many cases, the outcomes were not good.
Six years ago, I wish I had followed my heart. Our kids were then 17 and 13and I thought oh, well, I would love to foster a preteen or a teen child but I talked myself out of it.
Last night, I saw a movie about teens that never get adopted or into a good foster home. I have not been able to get this out of my mind.
My husband feels like I do so no problem there.
Has anyone had experience with fostering kids? We are in our late 40's, early 50's but feel we could give one or two children something....
And how did your experience work out?
Here is our experience. We started our family like most young couples; we had a darling baby girl about a year and 1/2 after we were married and then a few years later we had another little girl. But that time things didn't work out so well. She was a premmie and in those days, early tiny babies often didn't live. She was one of them. Again we tried and a little over a year later we lost our son, also a premmie. Less than 3 months later I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Of course that became the end of biological children. We eventually adopted 2 children: a girl and a boy, both infants.
Now to the foster part: we were not quite sure we wanted to adopt anymore, but we did have room in our hearts and home for more children. Though we had requested only pre school age kids, we were suddenly considering older kids as they did need homes as well. One of our many foster kids was a 13 year old, who had just recently become part of the foster system. We did take her and she remained in our home 3 years, even after we relocated to a different city. The state of CA let us keep her. She was in contact with her biological mother and we paid for her to fly to see mom every few months. One of these visits she decided she wanted to return to her mom and the courts agreed. For many years we were in contact with her. We would fly her to our home once a year. Eventually we lost contact with her. The story doesn't end there. Just 7 years ago we got a call from a private detective. He wanted to know if we had ever known a young girl with her name. Long story short, she had hired this guy to find us. Now, we are reunited. She, originally had deliberately lost contact she said because she realized she was a lesbian and didn't know if we would accept her? Now when people ask how many kids we have: we say, 4, 3 girls and 1 boy.
I will add though, we had many teen foster kids that didn't work out this way. We had them run away, one took our car for a joy ride, others stole from us, etc. I think wanting to adopt or foster teens is a wonderful thing, but be willing to put a lot of love and understanding into the decision and realize these kids have had a rough life and do come with baggage. Some are delightful kids though.
Be very, very, VERY careful. My in-laws have done foster care for years and they've always refused to take in teenagers because they're usually nothing but a heap of trouble.
Well, we are in the process of having our 15 and a half yo son placed in foster care and from what I see so far with his temporary placement, its pretty much a glorified babysitter position. Maybe once he finds his "regular" foster home it will be different but as far as the temporary placement, it is a glorified babysitter position. Thats JMO on a different end of the spectrum. Good luck to you. Follow your heart!!!
It is sad to say this,but true:there are many foster homes that are simple baby sitters. Many foster parents do it strictly for the money, but then, there are those wonderful homes where the foster parents do what they can to bring extra love and attention to kids who really need it.
Oh and to those families that have a preference for a particular age group, other than teens, good luck With the shortage of good homes the agency will try and talk you into kids that are available and they may not be the age you had hoped for. We started wanting only pre schoolers, close to the age of our son, at the time. We ended up with first child: a new born waiting to be placed for adoption. She was 3 days old. Our next one was a 13 year old and our third one was our pre school boy. From then we had early elementary ones, tweens, and teens. They came from every background imaginable and with every type of problem. But, if you can make a little difference in thiir lives for a month, a year or ever how long, you will be well rewarded. there were times when we had 6 kids at once including our 3 and other times when there were just the 4 o them. Eventually we stopped fostering, but thought about returning to the temporary parent role a few times. We had some kids a few years, our one daughter 3 years and others just a few weeks but each one made an impression on us and changed our lives a little.
glorified babysitter position? More like a super nanny, without pay! Trying to raise a broken child isn't as easy as the birth parents may think. These are children which, chances are have been neglected for only God knows how long. Now they are needing love, guidance & structure from a stranger. It's not like fostering is a career move. You do not make money off of it. Unless you pocket all the money that is provided and the child sits in a cardboard box with no food, clothing, toys, electric or running water. These are thing the state does not provide. Including gas for transporting them back and forth. The foster parents have to act as the 'parent', providing them with all of that, a good life.
When we fostered children, they had everything. My goal was to make sure they adjusted pretty fast with a new home and family by having a nice home with nice clothes, toys, bedding & all the love any child could hope for. Every cent went to them and then some, so as far as being a glorified babysitter, only a birth parent of a foster child would think that.
JMO,
BTW all foster homes are temporary placement.
Just to keep this straight, yes, we were the same type of foster parents you were and I would hope all foster homes are that way, but you certainly know this isn't the case. There are families that do take foster kids for the money whether they even know it. There are some who give the kids nothing more than the min. of love and care. I wish all foster families were caring and giving, treating the foster kids the same way they treat or treated their bio kids. All we had to do was learn about the foster home some had come from to know,ot all are equal.
Understand the financial structure before you jump in. The reason why these kids are not adopted, is because the state never allows them to be. State grants keep the kids in foster care. Then, the Federal Grants are given if the child eventually becomes adopted. I wish more people understood and fought for the laws to change, instead of being suckered into the money pool and just signing papers blindly. I'm not discouraging foster care, since this is the ONLY way 90% of kids can ever find a home & family, but I do encourage you to get politically involved...find out where the money goes for these kids, and stop the funding which prevents them from being a permanent family member in your home!
this is not the whole story by any means.We had foster kids that were not eligible for adoption. they had been removed from their home for various reasons but were not adoptable. Just because a child is in a foster home does not mean the biological family has released them for adoption. Some have, yes, but most have not.
Six years ago, I wish I had followed my heart. Our kids were then 17 and 13and I thought oh, well, I would love to foster a preteen or a teen child but I talked myself out of it.
Last night, I saw a movie about teens that never get adopted or into a good foster home. I have not been able to get this out of my mind.
My husband feels like I do so no problem there.
Has anyone had experience with fostering kids? We are in our late 40's, early 50's but feel we could give one or two children something....
And how did your experience work out?
I once felt the same as you. And while I'm sure you'll hear plenty of positive stories, they are from people who have not yet suffered the inevitable consequences of adopting and fostering.
With fostering - you will have an allegation against you. Especially with pre-teens or teens. That allegation could turn out unsubstantiated or it could be substantiated. Either way, once it's there, it's there forever, regardless of the outcome. And understand that most people believe that even though the allegation was found by the agency as 'unsubstantiated', you must have done something wrong or there must have been some truth in it for you to be accused in the first place. Because like you, they are imagining these kids as regular kids - like the friends of your children. They're imagining the kids will be so grateful to be in a family that, unless you've really hurt them, they would never complain.
That's not reality. These kids are angry. Not all of them are taken from abusive homes. Plenty of them are removed from middle class & upper class families with no drug problems, abuse, neglect, etc. but the family had no choice but to relinquish custody to get the child the services they need. And this was only after years of trauma, abuse and upheavals perpetrated on the family by the child who may have some type of undiagnosed mental illness or emotional problems not from anything the parents did.
So you're going to end up with a very angry child with a probable undiagnosed or undisclosed mental illness which could manifest in anything from stealing, hoarding, fecal smearing, bed-wetting, property destruction, antisocial behavior, endless school problems, drugs, violence, aggression, etc.
Eventually, they try to prove themselves "right" about you - that you're 'just going to abandon them like everyone else' by making accusations about you that at the very least will cost you some serious financial harm as you're forced to hire an attorney and at worst could find you in jail labeled a sexual predator, pedophile, etc.
CPS works through civil court. This means they don't have to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt - hearsay and circumstantial evidence is enough to ruin your life. CPS workers have immunity, meaning they can lie, in court, about anything and can't get into trouble for it.
If you adopt and the child makes allegations against you or your spouse/children, you may find that you can no longer live in the same home while they place the child back in foster care to investigate. These investigations can take up to a year or longer. Can you afford to pay an attorney that long? Child support? Two separate households? Be separated from your spouse? Lose your job? Lose your friends?
I don't say this to sound negative, I want you to understand how brutal this can turn out. The rules you know and trust don't apply in these cases. The child is always believed. Always. No matter how ridiculous, heinous or unlikely their allegation. And you don't get to present any evidence or rebuttal in your defense because they say that as long as the CHILD believes it's true, it doesn't matter what the actual truth is. Even if you have video, audio, eyewitnesses - the best case ever that would be thrown out instantly in criminal court - the child is always believed.
If you choose to move forward based on your emotional response to a movie or news story, just make sure you are prepared to have your life turned upside down. Is this true of every single foster or adoption situation? No. There are the rare few that are successful. But it is more likely than not. Do your research if you don't believe it could be this bad.
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Adopting a infant
