Adoption

3. Adopting out of birth order

So as mentioned in 1. and 2. sweet girl is almost 4 and as you can see from my siggie, I have twin girls who just turned one. It seems most of my research in adopting out of birth order come from the first children being transitioned into new order roles, but with my girls being so young, they don't know what it's like to be an only child or an oldest child. And sweet girl is one of the oldest in her orphanage (it goes up to 4) so she's used to being older.

Any thoughts on this?

Photobucket Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

Re: 3. Adopting out of birth order

  • I think preserving birth order in adoption is a much bigger concern than it initially appears.

     

    Adoption/foster professionals often cite jealousy and the child's understanding of how they fit into the home as a reason for preserving birth order, but there's a much bigger side to it that they often choose not to discuss when not relaying the circumstances surrounding a specific child.  Many older children who are in foster care or are available for adoption have experienced trauma in their lives.  This could be as simple as losing caregivers through death, but more often means witnessing or being the victim of abuse, neglect, or other violent behavior.  Children who have suffered these types of trauma often act out those types of behaviors on younger children around them.  This can happen even if they are getting all the emotional and psychological help they need; it's often part of their process as they learn to cope with what happened to them/what they witnessed.  So in the minds of many adoption professionals, placing an older child, who may have had a turbulent past, in a home with young children is not ideal in most situations.

     

    ETA:  All that being said, I know that there are some people who adopted out of birth order here and it worked out swimmingly, especially when the children were young.  I just highly advise you to look into this further, and to consider the specific children's backgrounds and personalities before making the decision.

  • We went against the common thought in the adoption world and we have two babies that are eight months apart.  It's often referred to as virtual or artificial twinning.  For us it worked.  I understand the issues at hand and will be cognizant of them as we raise our daughters.   So clearly  I believe that everyone needs to assess their own situation and determine what they are willing to parent towards.  I hope I will always be able to be positive of the choice we made.

    So with out of order adoption, I'd really educate myself first and determine what I was willing to take on.  Are you comfortable if the four year old acted out in against your twins?  Could you deal with extreme behavior around your twins?  Those are real questions to think through.  Seek out both the positive and negative stories of adopting a four year old from an orphanage so you can see the extreme and positive behaviors.  You may also want to read stories of disrupted adoption.  As awful as it sounds, understanding why a family might disrupt an adoption could give you a sense of the magnitude of acting out. 

    All of this said, I have no strong opinion other than to wish you luck on a big decision :)

    image Best friends and sisters... 24 months and 16 months
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