large sibling groups

Originally Posted By LouiseHi Malcolm, we too have been aproved to adopt a large sibs tho they are not with us yet, How are things going? How old are the kids? your post has been quite a while back I hope all is well oh do you have other kids?

Originally Posted By Angelasix -- how does that work? Does your social worker tell you how many children you are allowed to adopt? Or did you locate six children all together? I located three siblings and I already have one little boy. I wonder if there will be enough room for them and how they will all get along

my husband and i have located (relatives) a sibling group of 6 that we will soon be getting, does anyone have suggestions, sounds like we will get 3 then another 2 or 3- the oldest is 11 and they want her to feel good about the move since she has mixed feelings now, which is natural since this is her first time she gets to be a kid and not have to parent the other 5. they are in 3 different foster homes now and is interstate, that is why we dont have them already. any advise on the transition, we have a 1 year old daughter and i have 2 stepdaughters 8 and 4, but they are only weekenders. so we will basically get three sets of twins. any advise on organization, behavior plans, setting rules, how they come about calling us mom and dad...please help us!! thank you, and i guess once this happens there is limited time for anything since the original questions are never followed up:) i know we will have our hands full and would appreciate any info!! thanks! katie

We are in the process of adopting a teen from foster care. He probably won't be with us until late october. Good old interstate! Anyway, my husband and I were looking for our future son's profile on the internet site. (We are anxiously awaiting the day that the rest of the world can not view our sone. :) While looking for him, we found a sibling group that look great to us. I just can't get them out of my mind. I was up all night, laying in bed, thinking about how to make this work. We would need, like, a ten passenger van!!! I know that my life would be a lot easier if I waited a year or two before pursuing this... But I never got into fostering and adopting because it was easy! My huband and I are both fearless when it comes to hard work, sleepless nights, laundry in the machine 24-7 and no more alone time! :) :) :) I just wonder if I might be crazy. How did you come to decide that you were ready for that many? Jill

My husband and I recently began discussing sibling adoption, but on a much smaller scale :) We went from one child to considering 3. My husband was in shock when we were first approached by DFCS. After we sat down and talked about it, our family "goal" had always been a family of four. We just planned on adopting a second child sometime in the future. We just kind of came to the conclusion, "what is one more?" Unfortunately the children are being left in the group home but we knew we were up to the challenge! In your case if you looked at the situation as opposite from where you began, 6 children and then considering a separate 7th child, "what is one more?". As long as your house is large enough and your washer and dryer hold out long enough, I guess your biggest concern would be the purchase of a ten passenger van. Good luck and God Bless.

My husband and I started the search for a sibling group and we feel we have found them . We have our heart set on a group of six and we have no children of our own, so we would love these children. We are bilingual and we dream of the chance to adopt . For us the choice was never hard, we just know it is what we need to do. We think of them every day and just hope we will be chosen to adopt them. Does anyone know if it is even possible to be chosen for that many children, when you have no children? We have experience with children but not as parents. What kind of finances are required for a family that large? Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

Lisa, Thanks for the reply, we are just beginning the process of setting up our home study. We were in training classes for foster care but dropped out due to moving to a new county and we would have had to take the classes again, so we decided to wait and take the classes after moving. Big Mistake. Our new county was only offering classes to people interested in fostering teenagers and would accept us into the class but we did not want to foster teenagers. We could still go through the training but we already know we want to adopt and the children are not in our state so we don't feel it would be right to get the home study for free and not adopt from our state. There are not many, if any, hispanic children in our state that are free for adoption. Thanks again for the information! Lisa S.

Hi, KatieAO! I think we may have met at the NACAC conference? Anyway, no one responded to your question about how to organize your house with 6 kids. We don't have any kids yet (:[), so I can't speak from experience, but I thought I would offer this website: [url]http://www.flylady.net[/url] You can sign up for emails, which help you keep on top of your housework. Also, there's a website [url]http://www.savingdinner.com[/url] It has a paid service--something like $30 a year, that will send you a weekly menu plan complete with a shopping list. The meals are healthy, cheap, and can be fixed in about 30 minutes. I would think these sort of home economies would be important with a large family. My favorite books on older child adoption are Parenting the Hurt Child by Keck and Kupecky, Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline, and Our Own by Tricia Maskew. I also think it would be helpful to get involved with your area's foster parent association to get the support of people who (a) don't think you're crazy or a saint or a masochist, and (b) can truly empathize with your struggles. Heck, you might even be able to work out a respite switch with another large family. Please let us know how it goes! It is a wonderful, wonderful thing you are doing for these kids. Sibling relationships are really important.

Gilswife, I agree with another poster that your homestudy will note how many kids you can parent. We are looking to adopt a sibling group of up to 4 kids. I wanted to go up 6, but I was vetoed on that by the husband! ;] I would think that with the large number of kids you're looking at, the fact that you don't have kids now is a good thing. That is one less adjustment for everyone involved. We don't have kids, and we were approved for adopting 4, for what that's worth. I am really sorry to hear that you are having a hard time getting licensed in your county. In our state, there are many agencies that have a contract to handle child welfare cases. Some of these private agencies have their own licensing classes apart from the state. Maybe you could see if there is such a situation in your county. I am latina and bilingual, and I would also like to adopt a latino sibling group, although I am open to other kids, too. I know there is a real need out there, but they really make it very, very difficult to fill that need. Hang in there. Those six kids are worth it. Let us know how it goes.

Thanks for the information. We are just hoping and let me not forget to mention...PRAYING... that we will be able to adopt these children. I have talked to some people here and everyone is pretty evasive, unless I mention adopting from our state. They did send me some materials for adopting children in our state. I know if these children were here, they would not be giving us such a hard time about all this. I realize there are many children in our state that need adoption but we would really like to adopt hispanic children. lisa s.

We were foster to adopt parents of five great boys. When they came to us they were 6, 5, 4, 2, and 2 (twins!). We loved it and tried very hard to find a way for them to become ours. They were finally returned home after eleven months. We are just starting the process over. It's been a little over a year and we had to let our hearts heal a little. All I can tell you is that it was the best eleven months of our lives. We had a great time and it was wonderful to keep them together.

First of all I would like to thank you all on behalf of the siblings your taking in to your home may it be forever or just a little while. I was in foster care as a child us three girls where split up and Me and my younger sister was put up for adoption. The people who adopted my younger sister did not adopt me and it hurt so bad to not be chosen. I always rembered that for the rest of my life. I would not ever split up a sibling group myself. I would have to adopt them all. I admire you and wanted to tell you thank you. They will one day appreciate the choices you made and the diffrence you made in thier lifes as well.

Joy, Thank you for the kind words. We are fost-adopt parents to a sibling group of 3. It is not an easy path, so it's nice to get the encouragement and to imagine the possibility of appreciation as the kids get older. Thanks so much!