“EYES WIDE OPEN:” CONSIDERING OLDER CHILD ADOPTION

Traditionally, couples and individuals wanting to adopt have mostly desired babies. However, infant adoption has waned in the past three decades, due to both the abortion rate and the decreasing number of births in the U.S. Both state and private adoption agencies now strongly encourage older child adoption, typically age five and older. In recent years, there has been a particular increase in older sibling groups being available for adoption from the foster care system.

Older child adoption has inherent risks, but also possible rewards. Many of these older children and sibling groups have already experienced multiple foster or residential treatment placements. However, for the parents who feel called—and it is a calling—to adopt the older child, there is the hope of the child/children of having a loving, forever family. Whether you are adopting domestically or internationally, I’ve always strongly encouraged parents to go through this process with their “eyes wide open.” We have to expect the unexpected. In previous blogs, I’ve shared the story of how my wife Lisa and I adopted our children from India at ages four and seven (they are now 30 and 38!). We did not go into that process blindly, as both our social workers and our adoption agency did a great job of explaining the challenges and rewards of older child adoption. Like many parents of older adoptees, however, we had to resolve in our own minds that 1) We did not, and would likely never know who the birth parents were; 2) That adapting to a radically new culture might be very difficult for our kids; and 3) That, beyond their time living in an orphanage, we had absolutely zero physical or mental health history on our kids. These were only a handful of the potential challenges. We have faced others. But we’ve also experienced a lot of joy.

Older child adoption is a calculated risk. Children with a background of transience, abuse and neglect come into care with deeply ingrained survival behaviors. These behaviors can manifest themselves in anger meltdowns, food hoarding, developmental regression and oppositional- defiant behaviors to name a few. However, deeply ingrained does not mean irreversible! If you are considering adopting an older child/children, here are some helpful suggestions on going into the process with your “eyes wide open”:

• Talk to people who have adopted older children, whether through the U.S. foster

  system or internationally. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions.

• Become not only trauma-informed, but learn how to become trauma responsive. You will learn some of this info in your required parenting classes (NTDC Training is

  excellent), but also seek out other sources of training—Hope for the Journey, offered virtually every year by the Show Hope Foundation (www.showhopefoundation) is an excellent and affordable seminar. Also, check out the work of Dr. Karyn Purvis & Dr. David Cross, called Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). Their website is child.tcu.edu. They have also written two excellent, parent-friendly books, “The Connected Child” and “The Connected Parent.”

• You may know of some young adult adoptees. If they are comfortable, ask them to share about their experiences of being adopted as an older child.

• Finally, don’t allow the “horror stories” dissuade you from adopting an older child. There are plenty of horror stories out there about biological children! Yes, there are

  some horror stories, but there are just as many—if not more--heartwarming stories

  about older adopted kids who, over time, begin to flourish in their new forever homes.

Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to learn more about older child

adoption.

~Mark