Question for those doing Foster Care.

JoJoGee · February 2010

How did you decide which age group you were comfortable with?

Eventually, I would really like to accept all ages, 0-18, and I would really like to foster pregnant teens and teen moms. But, I'm pretty young - 23 - and I know I just can't take in teens at this point. However, I'm not quite sure what I want that upper age to be. I'm debating between 5, 10, 13?

And, I know that none of you can tell me what age group to pick. But, I was wondering if any of you would be kind enough to share what age groups you choose and why?

TIA!

P.S. I have to run some errands so I am posting and running.

Temp206787500007404 · February 2010

When we were considering foster to adopt, we set our age limit based on what we felt was a reasonable age of a child that we could biologically have. Example, I'm 29, and we felt the cut off for us was 25. Which meant we would have accepted a child age 4 or under. It could be any number for you, but I think there are definite issues as your FC gets older in them thinking that you're "not that much older" than they are. A 13 year old is only 10 years younger than you, I would definitely not be comfortable with that, if I were you, but that's something you and your husband should decide.

Did your SW give you any guidelines?

Temp206787500007404 · February 2010

The loose guidelines we received were no less than a 10-12 year difference between the youngest of the husband/wife age, BUT that it was totally up to us.

mom2one · February 2010

I am 31 and we just finalized adoption of our 10 year old. I figured I could have started having kids at 20, so that was the cut off for us. HOWEVER, I now feel like I could foster or adopt a teen...so I think with more experience the comfort level changes. I also have a bio 7 year old. :-)

joeandkristie · February 2010

My husband and I compromised. We knew we wanted to grow our family thru adoption and also wanted to give children a loving home. I want that baby time. The cuddles, the baby smell, everything. He was more able to move past and be ready for the rough and tumble age. We finally decided birth to 5 for now and once we have adopted our family we will expand. We are now waiting for a sibling group ages 3,2, and 8 months to come to our home next month. Good luck in whatever you decide.

MayDayGirl · February 2010

We are pretty open to ages but we know that adding a child in school would make a drastic change in our life, so I would prefer younger than school age, though DH doesn't care (but it wouldn't affect his life much).

JoJoGee · February 2010

Thank so all so much. You've given me a lot to think about.

Proud adoptive mom 6.11.09 · February 2010

i am only 23 myself hubby is 27. we have an adopted son who is 15 and yes it is hard and yes we get comments isnt it hard ur not that much older than him and yes it is but the youngman is a child who lived next door to me growing up and when i learned he was in the system i just could not say no.

hubby and are starting the stages to become liscenced foster parents, our son we have now was a non relative emergency placement so we dont have any neccesary paper work for foster so that is what we are doing now, how ever we i think have decied on 0-5 which would make me like 19 and jubby like 22 had we had them on our own so thats what made sense to us. hubby would rather have a toddler over a baby but i would like to experience a baby

but ulitmatly the choice is up to you!! God Bless

come*on*baby · February 2010

when we started it was 0-18 months, we're not 0-10 years old. we do not want to do teenagers until we are a) old enough to realistically have them biologically or b) had experience with younger children. when the ones we're adopting right now are older, we're going to do a group home for older children. but not until our boys are out of high school.

its a personal choice on the ages. DH does not like babies, I do though.

ctbride08 · February 2010

In our state the licensing is in age blocks (ie: 0-5, school age, teens) and we chose 0-5 for a few reasons. 1) we felt our skills were strongest in that age range 2) we hope to have bio children and didnt wan't siblings too far apart in age and 3) there was/is a big need for foster parents in that range in our state and 4) (less important, but still on our minds) if we ended up adopting, we wanted to know them for as much of thier life as possible

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