Edited 17/02/2021
Do we need a reality check?
Piper
March 30, 2015 00:00
I have seen that there are posts relating to siblings but I couldnt find anything that answered my questions. My husband and I are in the early stages of looking at adoption and are due to attend an adoption event at the end of next month. Our situation however is not simple. We have always wanted 3 children and this has never waivered and it certainly doesnt feel as though our family is complete. We currently have 2 birth children aged 6 and soon to be 4. We are able to go on and have a third child naturally and if adoption proves to not be a route we are able to take then this is what we will go on to do. Adoption is something we have talked about since before our children were born and it has never really been something we have walked away from. We want to adopt because we feel as though we are able to offer a child a family to grow up with and 2 parents who will support and be there for them every step of the way. We are currently discussing between ourselves requesting to adopt a child with special needs and this is never a decison to be taken lightly as is the decison to adopt any child. Our complications come in due to the conditions of our 2 birth children. My eldest has Aspergers and ADHD and my youngest has a sleep disorder and possible ADHD, which is often linked to his sleep disorder. Our youngest is medicated for his sleep but it is a lifelong condition and at the moment things are going really well but that can always change. Our eldest is a happy, well adjusted little boy, he is polite and well mannered, kind and empathetic, He does however have challanges relating to his conditions and always will and we cant pretend otherwise. All these things consider will they put massive road blocks in our way to becoming adoptive parents? I know we will gather some knowlege at the infomation evening but sometimes experience speaks volumes. We have very lightly touched on the subject with my eldest son, both he and his brother are currently desperate for a sibling (well in truth they desperate for a sister but they have been informed that it doesnt work like that) - I asked him how he would feel about having a brother or sister not from mummys tummy but from another mummys tummy that needed a family - he said "mummy we should give someone a family" Now at the end of the day he is 6 and he has NO idea what all of this actually means in reality but as a family I feel as though we are ready to take on the challenge if SS will let us.
EverHopeful5
March 30, 2015 00:51
They will only put road blocks in your way if you let them. You need to turn these conditions into positives. You have shown you can handle 2 children with extra needs and feel able to parent a third. That is a massive strength. SS will question you a lot about meeting the needs because they will want to make sure you are not overloading yourselves. Be confident and just keep showing them all you can offer. All your experience is invaluable in helping an adopted child. With regards to wanting a sister you are able to specify approval just for a girl if you can justify why. In your case an adopted child the same sex as your sons might feel inadequate as the only non birth boy. There is also masses of research on adopted children being more jealous and competitive of siblings and this has shown adopting children of different sexes can be very beneficial. Of course that's for separate adoptions rather than sibling groups taken together. Good luck :)
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Pear Tree
March 30, 2015 01:06
Ok controversial perhaps but go have your birth children- enjoy them and the life they bring then in a few years consider adoption. We have 2ac and a bc.
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Piper
March 30, 2015 01:29
Thank you for the responses. I didnt know we could request a girl and you raise interesting points as to why and it is certainly food for though especially with both of our boys wanting a sister, to be honest it isnt a subject that I thought much on as I assumed this wasnt the case. I do think having a girl in the house would certainly add a new dynamic and give my 4 year old someone who will possible apprechiate his my little pony collection and pink bedroom. I find it interesting that you say to have our own children Pear Tree. In all honesty I can not see us reasonably wishing to have more than 3 children in our lives and financially we would be able to comfortably raise 3. I would rather offer a child a chance to grow up with a loving family, with 2 annoying brothers to torment and animals to play with. I know things can change and there is no upper age limit to adoption but I feel as though we are in the right place now. My kids have their chalanges, as all children, and goodness knows they have tested us and pushed our limits. I think S's sleep disorder has been harder to cope with than E's ASD to be honest - sleep deprevation and actively parenting for your every waking moment is hard - but we have come through it, we have adapted and learnt what works for us and sometimes we still get it wrong because we are human
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Pear Tree
March 30, 2015 08:05
Hi again I think having had children with Sen you've got a really good handle on how parenting children with challenges can be. The Children who are adopted from the UK system have all been in care first. Even tiny babies have life long effects from the trauma involved with leaving bf and coming into foster care then adoption. Birth parents often have had lots of complex problems themselves and this impacts their child. There's a much higher chance that your child will have ongoing issues compared to the chances of developing difficulties in birth children. But as you've discivered if it's - 1% chance or a 90% chance if its your child its 100% for you! Go for it- learn all you can :) have a big gap between the ages of bc and ac ideally it's really very different There are a lot of books on this but 'what every parent needs to know' by Margot sunderland and 'why love matters' by sue gerhardt may be a good start for you :)
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Fruitcake
March 30, 2015 15:15
Another perspective: there are currently far more people coming forwards to adopt than there are children to place them with. (Of-course this could change in the future.) You could have another child biologically. Many prospective adopters cannot: adoption is the only possible route to parenthood for them, and they too want to offer a family to a child from the care system, and perhaps are in a better position to meet the needs of such children. (This point may well be put to you, so might be worth thinking about.)
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goat
March 30, 2015 16:57
You have great experience. There are many children with various needs that struggle to get adopted, and they may be right for your family. Although you may want a girl, perhaps keep an open mind and wait to see what children come along at the matching stage. Good luck
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Flosskirk
March 30, 2015 21:34
Fruitcake is right about the lack of children, but I see that you are considering a child with special needs and I guess that many prospective adopters are not so open to special needs, so this could be a good plus point for you. There are so many types of special needs of course. I have two children with special needs. One of them has epilepsy and things like that are a complete game changer. It affects all of us - we can never relax in case she has a seizure. That affects our other daughter. They both have autism and learning disabilities/difficulties and may never live independent lives. So when you talk about special needs, I was wondering if you had considered what having a child with a debilitating condition would be like. I think that Peartree's point is about an adopted child possibly needing untold amounts of attention (special needs or not) and the effects of that on the existing family. Adopted children in this country tend to have a background of severe neglect/abuse and this has ongoing effects in many, many cases. There are many people who adopted in good faith and have ended up with children with severe mental health/behavioural issues. A loving family is often not enough to repair the damage from the early years. Add to this possible drug addiction, foetal alcohol problems, sexual abuse, poor genetic inheritance (this is something that we never considered but has fuelled many of the problems we face), the ongoing effects of intra-uterine stress........... I think you have to be prepared to take the risk of basically taking a ticking time-bomb into your family. Strategies that have worked well for your birth children may be useless with a traumatised child. They should tell you more about this on the information evening. If you still feel driven to go ahead, good luck.
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Milly
March 31, 2015 00:03
To be honest, your boys are still very young. Younger children with SEN are easier to parent than older children with SEN on the whole, in my opinion. The full ramifications of their difficulties won't yet be apparent and as with younger children a parent is more in control of what happens with them, I would suggest you wait a while. Apart from anything else, social workers will want their child to have plenty of attention and may be looking for a much larger age gap. I can't say how much your experience of children with extra needs would prepare you for an adopted child. I only have adopted children. They are both challenging in their own ways but not to the extent of many adoptees I have heard about. Whatever the needs of an adoptee I do think their early experiences etc etc give a different dimension to parenting. To most outsiders one of mine has no extra needs at all and there is no diagnosis I would consider fitted her - she is very "normal" in many ways but she can still be very hard work at home. Fruitcake makes a good point - there really aren't loads of children ready to be adopted right now - in fact there are loads of approved adopters waiting for a child. You don't need to adopt to complete your family - maybe it is something to think about for a bit longer. If your youngest isn't yet four, you wouldn't miss out by waiting another year or two. You could still adopt then and have a family not massively far apart in age.
Edited 17/02/2021
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