Bill_in_MI
Silver Member
Dan,
<font color=blue>If these questions are to personal...</font color=blue>
Not a problem. My wife and I have done a few public speaking engagements to share our experiences...not because we think we are so great at it, but to help educate, encourage, anyone who would participate in fostering/adopting, or support those that do. For that reason I will reply in the forum...presuming also anyone can skip over if the topic is getting too far afield.
<font color=blue>How did you bio kids handle the adobted children? Did it cause a lot of stress between
you and the bio kids?</font color=blue>
Our goal was to be into long term fostering of abused/neglected teens and pre-teens. My wife was working (for years) at a shelter home that these kids pass through on their journey through the "system." These are the toughest ones to place as well...most want the babies and younger kids.
Our bio kids were (approx) 16, 11, and 6 at the time we started. It was a family decision to give it a go, but clearly my wife was the "key man" in our endeavor. I'll admit I was a bit reserved about the whole idea. After all we had a nice tight little comfortable family thing going. We had the advantage of my wife being able to observe and see which situations would have a better chance of working out if she, so to speak, "brought her work home with her." We had a couple of kids that cycled through rather quickly...didn't want we had to offer, wouldn't follow clearly established rules, etc. But for the most part, there were no problems between any of the kids that you wouldn't find in any "large" family of kids. The foster girls fit in between are youngest and oldest, age-wise.
We ended up going a ten-year period with 4 of the girls...three sisters (whom we eventually adopted because their "case" was so bad they were not going to be reconciled to their bio-home and they were "put-up"for adoption with a probable split-up. We already had them for a couple of years and said "why not"...keeps them together and we were in for the long haul anyhow)
As an indicator of how family life was, many of our recent friends and aquaintances would ask us "..now tell me again which are bio vs foster/adopted?" All the kids took some pride in just having that question asked! All good students, sports, band, activity leaders, etc.
<font color=blue>Did the adobted kids handle the adobtion, the new family, etc?</font color=blue>
It went fine...these kids came from bad situations and did not want any part of going back. We were mom and dad from the get-go. However, as you would expect, even if the outward things looked fine, these kids did come with a lot of inside "excess baggage." There was a lot of counciling going on throught to help them deal with the internal stuff. I'm not going to say there were not issues that surfaced from time to time. But these were the same types of things you can see in any family/teenager/kid. These girls were all from our city/county and are of like race. The later is not a hard and fast "rule" I don't believe. But with older kids, and a challenging situation to overcome already, it is sometimes advised not to add any more complexity into the situation...mixed race or other such variable. In my mind this is very situational dependent.
Dan, it is a HUGE undertaking. And I wish I could say that all is just fine today. As some of girls got older and more independent, there were some "tears" in the fabric that occurred. Sad, but not unexpected from a logical point of view. Very difficult emotionally however. On the other hand, when we ask ourselves if we would do it all again, the answer is yes. It has shaped who we are today. When I look back, before all of this, our world was rather small. I can't tell you how much the old boundries have been expanded. We also found a "bonus" in gaining a feeling about our identity here on earth for the short time we are here. It's a good feeling. For every challenge or "downer" there was and is an overwhelming joy or "upper" with a net positive result.
We are in our 50's and the girls are all out of the home (sort of...but that's another story) We are now enjoying the grandkids...
I better quit...this is much longer than I anticipated...hope I have helped you in some way!
<font color=blue>If these questions are to personal...</font color=blue>
Not a problem. My wife and I have done a few public speaking engagements to share our experiences...not because we think we are so great at it, but to help educate, encourage, anyone who would participate in fostering/adopting, or support those that do. For that reason I will reply in the forum...presuming also anyone can skip over if the topic is getting too far afield.
<font color=blue>How did you bio kids handle the adobted children? Did it cause a lot of stress between
you and the bio kids?</font color=blue>
Our goal was to be into long term fostering of abused/neglected teens and pre-teens. My wife was working (for years) at a shelter home that these kids pass through on their journey through the "system." These are the toughest ones to place as well...most want the babies and younger kids.
Our bio kids were (approx) 16, 11, and 6 at the time we started. It was a family decision to give it a go, but clearly my wife was the "key man" in our endeavor. I'll admit I was a bit reserved about the whole idea. After all we had a nice tight little comfortable family thing going. We had the advantage of my wife being able to observe and see which situations would have a better chance of working out if she, so to speak, "brought her work home with her." We had a couple of kids that cycled through rather quickly...didn't want we had to offer, wouldn't follow clearly established rules, etc. But for the most part, there were no problems between any of the kids that you wouldn't find in any "large" family of kids. The foster girls fit in between are youngest and oldest, age-wise.
We ended up going a ten-year period with 4 of the girls...three sisters (whom we eventually adopted because their "case" was so bad they were not going to be reconciled to their bio-home and they were "put-up"for adoption with a probable split-up. We already had them for a couple of years and said "why not"...keeps them together and we were in for the long haul anyhow)
As an indicator of how family life was, many of our recent friends and aquaintances would ask us "..now tell me again which are bio vs foster/adopted?" All the kids took some pride in just having that question asked! All good students, sports, band, activity leaders, etc.
<font color=blue>Did the adobted kids handle the adobtion, the new family, etc?</font color=blue>
It went fine...these kids came from bad situations and did not want any part of going back. We were mom and dad from the get-go. However, as you would expect, even if the outward things looked fine, these kids did come with a lot of inside "excess baggage." There was a lot of counciling going on throught to help them deal with the internal stuff. I'm not going to say there were not issues that surfaced from time to time. But these were the same types of things you can see in any family/teenager/kid. These girls were all from our city/county and are of like race. The later is not a hard and fast "rule" I don't believe. But with older kids, and a challenging situation to overcome already, it is sometimes advised not to add any more complexity into the situation...mixed race or other such variable. In my mind this is very situational dependent.
Dan, it is a HUGE undertaking. And I wish I could say that all is just fine today. As some of girls got older and more independent, there were some "tears" in the fabric that occurred. Sad, but not unexpected from a logical point of view. Very difficult emotionally however. On the other hand, when we ask ourselves if we would do it all again, the answer is yes. It has shaped who we are today. When I look back, before all of this, our world was rather small. I can't tell you how much the old boundries have been expanded. We also found a "bonus" in gaining a feeling about our identity here on earth for the short time we are here. It's a good feeling. For every challenge or "downer" there was and is an overwhelming joy or "upper" with a net positive result.
We are in our 50's and the girls are all out of the home (sort of...but that's another story) We are now enjoying the grandkids...
I better quit...this is much longer than I anticipated...hope I have helped you in some way!
