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Our middle child- birth child- is our hardest to parent!!!!!!!!!!!!X

Hi, Treeflo -There's an interesting comment in your original post:"The last thing I want to do is make my children’s life difficult...".A few thoughts for you to consider:"Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy." -- Robert A. Heinlein"If there was no pain and no discouragement and no threat; if we never had to exhibit patience and fortitude; if we went through life without having to struggle and fight and overcome: if there were none of these things, there would be no heroes and our children would have nothing to look up to." -- CorkwingWe had a couple come to our AUK support group. They had two birth children and adopted another. On some levels their story was pretty horrendous and their adopted child ran off aged something like 14 and lived with his birth mum again. Their children had to live through some very difficult experiences. The parents commented, though, that they had both turned out loving, caring individuals who had a real heart for the disadvantaged in society.I think what I'm trying to say is that it's sometimes difficult to define "success". Yes, if you're after a sweet little brother or sister that the kids will adore, then don't have another child by any means and certainly not adoption. But if your view of success if wider than that, then it may well be that adoption is the right path to go down. It may be easy, but it probably won't. But it can be intensely rewarding and can do an incredible job of forming character.All the best with whatever you decide.Corkwing

I understand that you are going to have questions And you know there aren't guaranteesDespite people hoping that the posters on these boards are the few with negative spin on life they tend to be very average adopters. The people who have very straight forward family lives with few issues rarely post. The people with very serious issues (which tend to be very identifying) rarely post. Here you get the middle. If you haven't already- look up 'the costs and implications of non infant adoptions.' There's a chunk in there about the research into the affects siblings and bc have on adoptive homes. There's more research going on at the moment too. They are very nice at Hadley and you can ring/ email to ask questions The 'am I missing anything' comment really depends where you are in the process to a degree.Frankly, these days in modern adoption you are taking on children who have had to survive trauma beyond the simple bring removed, fostered and then adopted. Even in this most 'simple' scenario there is massive loss plus the trauma of mixed up birth mum carrying a baby. Then the post birth experiences of neglect, emotional harm, physical harm, sexual harm- these children are going to be affected by this. My older son, with more years within birth family has been moderately affected by his early trauma. Our adoptive dd had less than 3 years in birth family and yet the impact of that trauma effects her and us greatly. I can tell you about lots of families who had one or two things, in retrospect, as children that were indicators that the traumas prior to their adoption were impacting them. Then, puberty hit and WHAM! The trauma affects went from seemingly mild to very challenging indeed. So my advice is to do the healing stuff while they are small- even if they seem unaffected. My point is, every child will have some affect from the losses around adoption plus the having too much of what they didn't need, and not enough of what they did.So, prepare things as much as you can- which means learning things like therapeutic reparenting, working out how a child with very little grasp on cause and effect could learn safe ways if behaving appropriately.Alongside parenting your bc differently as I'm guessing they are average children who have a reasonable age appropriate grasp on cause and effect. (Margot sunderlands book what every parent needs to know is good for this)Things like how to take time out for youHave you got a good support network going?Plus for your bc is there a school counsellor about/ can you find out if there are local family therapists experienced in adoption matters in case you needed their over sight?The stuff like how to organise a calendar of school non uniform days, getting lunch box ready, knowing that children will spill cups of juice if filled right up checking for dirty undies in the dressing up box etc is stuff you are already used to. From this perspective you are really in a much stronger position than a new parent who's never done it before. But you might not be expecting to still want dressing up dresses aged 12 and finding wee in funny places and complete bold faced lying about the biscuits they've eaten when it's all over their faces! So that's going to be a heap of new Learning and although very challenging its encouraging to see when you notice that actually all the dirty pants arrived in the washing machine this week Our 3 were on the beach together this week. The older 2 are now 18 and 16.They came at 6 and 4. Our bc is now 5. They had the most lovely day making an enormous person (pip buried the older 2 in a line- blossoms head and partridges feet) they helped her down the bumpy inflatable slide, they dobbled their toes eating their 99s and dangling their crab lines. For a whole day I didn't think about their different starts But we'd prepared we'llGot the food rightGot a beach hut in case a bolt hole was needed etc.So it worked beautifullyWe had a truly lovely time Yes, my older 2 have got difficulties. But- its not their fault! Some others inflicted this stuff on them and I got the huge privilege of being called their mum. Interestingly although they refer to one another as half sibs- Pip is their 'whole' sister.I just cannot imagine them now without Pip in their lives and visa versa. Is this at all helpful?

Treeflo,We are currently going through the approval process and have a bc (5yrs).I read these boards at length before we started out on our journey and deliberated long and hard over whether our son would be ready and able to take this. Another bc is an option for us, but the chance for adoption is our choice. My experience is not as relevant as the others who have posted having not yet completed the process however if I might suggest a couple of things which gave us the peace of mind to continue -We spoke at lenght to the family liason at our son's school and had a meeting with her and his key stage head to discuss how they can support him during the process ahead (successful or not) and about the experience they have of helping families where adoption has touched their life.We also investigated the local resources for statemented children and visited a local school (primary through to secondary) for high functioning children with ASD and speech/languare difficulties. Having met with the pastoral care officer from the school we are booked in to observe some classroom sessions in September. The school have also put us in touch with a couple of parents where there is a sibling who is in main stream education who have been extremely helpful.We didn't/don't still fully understand the real life reality of ASD etc and this has helped us enourmously so far in the decision to apply as we are going in more aware of the potential outcomes.Please do message me if you would like details of where we found the information for our local authority's provision.

Hi Treeflo,We have 3 BC and adopted a baby 2 years ago. It has been an overwhelming success to date and our BC adore our AD (as do we!). My advice would be to adopt as young as possible, from the sibling bonding point of view - which is crucial. Your child's needs will be very hard to predict but if you are open to various possibilities then you won't be phased by issues as they arise. Having an age gap over 4-5 years makes this easier to manage. I am always positive about adoption, but I can see that for some families it may not be the best option for a vulnerable and needy child. I think on the whole, 3 BC is a far more resilient and open position to be in than only 1 BC. Once you decide, be committed and don't ever think 'what if we hadn't' ...... It is ok to be excited about adoption, despite your knowledge of the huge difficulties faced by some families. Being positive doesn't make you naïve ...... it can be an informed choice too!

Hi Treeflo. Have sent you a PM

We have two bc, they were 6 and 7 (now 8 and 9) when we adopted our daughter, who is nearly 3. Although we have only been together as a family for about a year and a half, I have never had a second of regret and my bc have never uttered one word about regretting it either.My daughter is already fairly challenging and certainly has issues- but we expected that when we adopted her. In many ways, she has already exceeded some of the original prognosis. In some ways, she clearly has more needs than originally expected. Our sons love her and the three of them bonded very quickly. I definitely think the fact that the boys were used to having a sibling already helped. I also think the fact that our eldest child has many significant challenges, including autism, meant that my husband and I, and our younger son, were already geared up to do things differently. We already live a fairly low key life, where traditional parenting was thrown out the window years ago. If I had only parented my straightforward middle child, my daughter would be seriously testing me!My daughter definitely does not have ASD and she is more straightforward than DS1 in some ways, but his steady and consistent start means he does not have the emotional damage that she does. I think if he had been through the care system, with his needs.. well that's a child I would be terrified to parent, frankly.For us, adoption was the right thing to do. Our daughter is amazing, her relationship with her brothers is fantastic and she will get the help she needs- I will make sure of it.But is is different? Yes. Although not a million miles away from parenting a birth child with special needs, in my experience so far. I do think though, that the majority of adopted children have issues. I am a teacher in a large secondary school and my boss has an adopted child too. We often marvel at how the trickiest/neediest students are adopted and we both agree that we have had one adopted child through our school in recent years who needed no additional support, either academically or emotionally. ONE. And I don't know how she was at home, of course. So plenty to think about. But for us, best decision ever.

Hi all,A big THANK YOU to everyone who has taken the time & trouble to reply! Your answers, each one individually and all collectively, have helped me to work out additional issues and thoughts. A lot to take in, surely. …Best wishes to you all and your families, xx