I know it might not be a popular opinion, but I don't agree with adopting out of birth order, especially when the new children are of an older age and have probably experienced more than most children. Because there are two, they most likely have a tight bond, and your son might feel left out and triangulated.

Add in possible attachment issues or RAD. It's hard going through that with one child, two would be that much harder.

We always wanted our oldest to remain the oldest. In our case, our oldest was the first grandchild on both sides, and that's special. We wanted him to maintain that.

We did, however, choose to adopt a child who fit in between our two children at the time. Our oldest was still the oldest, and our youngest was still the youngest.

I don't mean to sound all negative, but it was hard.

Do lots of research. There's so much to consider when you are already parenting a child or children.

There are many on there on the special needs board who deal with attachment/bonding, etc. It's a great resource.

We had read so much on adopting an older child and attachment parenting and bonding. We were very careful to spend equal amounts of time with all our children separately and as a family unit, and it didn't matter. Our older child felt a huge resentment. My two year old had no issues with our new child at all.

Our child was in an excellent foster home, and I think they might have been seeing some signs of attachment issues, but didn't really know what it was.

Children with attachment issues learn to cope very well, but when they are placed in a home where they know it's forever and they start to feel comfortable, that's when you will notice most of the behaviours. It's all about control.

A friend of mine from another adoption site just disrupted an adoption with a little guy. Everyone in the family was devastated, yet they felt a huge relief when the little guy left. Her other children were really affected. That's why it's so important to do the research that you are doing, speak to a psychologist who deals with attachment disorders, and any professional you can think of before you make the commitment.

I'm in no way trying to dissuade you. I have no doubt that older child adoptions can work...we are living proof. It just takes a great deal of extra hard work. Knowledge is power, and the more you prepare yourselves now, the better it will be for everyone.

Our kin had issues with our DD from day 1. How close our DD could sit to her, constant criticism of our DD’s behaviour – to her face with a “just kidding” and big smile at the end. Criticism of how we were parenting her, of her friends that came over to play. Meetings with social workers about our DD at the request of our kin, etc. Over time, DD went from a happy secure kid, to a kid who at night would cry and say she no longer wanted to be part of our family. She had no defense to our kin – she was so young, our kin so much older and experienced at this stuff. The constant monitoring and defense by us on her behalf was exhausting. We couldn’t leave them in a room alone together.

Believe it or not, our DD does not have any behaviour issues and our kin really quite likes her. This was all about control, triangulation as a means of control and picking on the easiest target – a kid. How that kid felt about it really wasn’t a factor in our kin’s mind – she needed to behave that way.

So, considering out of birth order, I would say be sure there are no attachment issues! How to tell that is another question. My kin presented as such a together kid – even I was amazed by her insights and abilities. Even experienced foster parents who took her on respite could not see it. No one but us and her worker understood. She was operating in survival mode and that creates a whole different set of priorities and behaviors that can be hard to see from the outside.

We were less concerned with the fact that he was older, then in ensuring there was a sizable gap between him and our then oldest child. Going with the belief that children of 9 and 3 would need different kinds of attention and would feel it less as a competition.

Our deal breakers when being matched with an adoptive placement were always safety. And this has not been an issue.

I found that our youngest child adapted the easiest. She doesn't remember a time before her brother came home. Our now middle child had some issues, an increase in attention seeking behaviours, but actually less then when his little sister was born. He really likes having an older brother to play with. Our oldest son has adapted well, but I'd say it was over a year until he really FELT that the younger ones were his siblings in truth. Now they really are brothers and sister.

One nice side benefit of having younger children in the house when adding an older child. It's allowed him to play at a younger age level without feeling ashamed about it. He can play kitchen, babies or dinosaurs whenever he wants. He's got the built in excuse that it's for the little ones.

Our risk mitigation strategies involved doing the best that we could to get the information ahead of time and putting measures into place once our son entered our family. Safety was a major concern, and when/if we adopt again will continue to be so.

For any of the profiles we were reviewing, we reviewed the history and paid special attention to red flags of aggression or sexual acting out. We choose not to pursue several children who while may have been perfectly safe, had some red flags that concerned us.

One we were matched with our son, we spent a lot of time talking to people who knew him, and especially to his foster family. He was the oldest child in that home, along with their younger children. We talked about his relationships with them, how he handled anger or frustration, and what kind of violence he may have been exposed to. I can not overemphasize how important having a good relationship and open information from his former foster family has been.

When he moved in, we moved slowly. He was in his own room, and our younger children shared a room. (They had always shared a room, with the intention that we keep an extra room open for a potential adoption placement.) We monitored play, and used our baby monitor to keep an eye on things. The kids rooms are all across the hallway from us, and my husband is a light sleeper.

We also started with monitored "play" dates with neighbors. Nothing obvious, but I'd go over for tea while he was playing and keep an eye on what was going on and how he was interacting with the other children. Even today, I'll pop over to see the neighbors while he's there playing, and keep in close contact with them about any thing that seems off or an issue.

As we're more comfortable, our boys now share a room. And our daughter has her own room, with plans to share with the new baby. We've got two more unused bedrooms that we plan to use if/when we adopt again. And as we have more children in the house, and more needs and concerns, we'll be even more "picky" about what we can handle and the precautions we put into place.

We were ready for more issues, had bought door alarms, had thought about safety plans, etc, but fortunately hadn't needed to implement them.

We continually talk with all of our children about aggression and appropriate ways of dealing with anger. (It's normally the younger, biologically related, ones that end up in the brawls.) Our oldest is actually terrified of any physical confrontation. From an early age, we talk about sexuality and use the right names for body parts. We emphasize that it's ok to ask questions, and that they have the right to control who touches their bodies.

It's great to know beforehand what you can or cannot handle. For us, we knew we couldn't parent a child who was sexually abused or a child with FAS or at risk for a serious mental illness.

My hubby works in mental health and deals with adults who have FAS, schizophrenia, etc., and it's very stressful. Dealing with that in his job and then dealing with these issues within our own family would have been too much.

Having supports and a system in place prior to placement and knowing what to do should a situation arise will make dealing with a rough situation that much easier.

For us, I now know that dealing with attachment issues was hard enough, and I can say without a doubt that I could never parent a child with RAD. But, that's okay.

I'd rather be honest with what type of child I can parent, than to accept a child into my home and have to disrupt because of inaccurate information in the child's file or not having done the research beforehand.

Like Mom of 4 said...knowing what you can handle is so important. First adoption we were open to anything, 2nd adoption we had to take into consideration what our DD could also handle, plus with our teen experience we found out that DH just cannot deal with attachment issues. Others can, and do it beautifully.