Is maintaining birth order important to you?

Wow, I never considered that someone's birth order is going to be messed up somewhere in a sibling adoption, if you have children already in the home. Also, in a single child adoption, they may be going from an only child, oldest, youngest, or middle child to who knows what. So you are probably always disrupting birth order, wouldn't you be? It just may not be your original kids', but your new ones. Yall are so insightful! Someone else brought up blended families through remarriage. Their birth order is not fussed over this much. Melissa

We're also looking at several situations where if there was a match, there would be artificial twinning with our 7 year old dd. A lot of the social workers frown on that, too, as much or more than adopting out of birth order. The kids that came to us through adoption would probably be attending a different school than our bio kids, though. All of the children we've applied for are English, and our kids go to a non-English school. Dawn H.

well.. in our case we have applied to adopt an almost 3 year old boy and his almost 2 year okld sisterwe hav eno kids yet, but, if in the future we have any bio kids... the order will be kept

I don't know if I'm really right or not, but my initial thought is that when a new child is coming into the family, that child pretty much has to re-establish his place in the family altogether, so I wouldn't think him coming in and suddenly being out of birth order would make it much worse than it already is. Whereas the child already in the family might not really need to reestablish anything UNLESS that child's birth order is suddenly up in the air. Did that make any sense?!? LOL! ;~) Kelly

We're adopting out of the foster care system, and were told that the conventional wisdom is not to adopt anyone older than the oldest already in the home. But that's for reasons of safety, more than any theoretical reason not to upset birth order. If you're bringing in older children from broken homes, you have a risk of behavioral issues that is somewhat alleviated by having an older child in the home who may be better able to manage a misbehaving younger sibling, where they would have little or no hope of managing a misbehaving older sibling. As for the rest, any time you add a new child to a home, you're guaranteed to upend somebody's birth order.

We have a bio son that is currently 3.5 and we are in the process of deciding whether or not we want to add to our family through adoption (we know we won'[t be having any more bio children). We are intentionally keeping our bio son as the oldest - the closest will we consider is a child who is 4 months younger, that way they will be in different years in school, because of the way our cutoffs fall. If we do go through with the adoption of one, and then in the future look to adopt again, we will probably end up turning the first adopted child into a middle child and adopt 6-12 months younger than the first adopted child - just as would have happened if we had had more than two bio children. Carolyn

I always find this conversation interesting for the exact reason of the original poster. So many people think that it is important to keep the oldest child the oldest. Some people think that any child coming into the family has the right to be the baby (as they would if biological). But very few people think about the child(ren) that are coming into the family. If the child you are adopting is use to being the oldest how will they now react to being the youngest? Some would be fine -- others not so much. I don't think there are any global answers -- each family must decide for their family what would work best. For me, I think that my daughter loves older kids and gets annoyed with younger ones. So I would be interested in virtual twinning or going for an older child the next time I adopt (plus I have no desire to go through the diaper stage again). Samantha

The only convincing reason I know of to keep birth order is for SAFETY. When you are adopting a child older than an infant, that child will come with thoughts and behaviors that were taught by someone else. That child may also come with a history of being abused, neglected, or having witnessed abuse. It is unfortunately common for children who don't understand something, to act it out. Either as a way of processing it in themselves, or because they think that's the way you're "supposed" to act. Children can easily force themselves or their behaviors on children who are younger, smaller, or less street-smart. They have a much harder time trying to force themselves on children who are older, bigger, and more street-smart. Therefore it is the child who is already in your home who you want to leave as eldest, thereby giving as much protection to that child as possible. If the new child has noone he can mistreat, he is likely to heal from wanting to mistreat others much better. If the child you adopt has no acting-out behaviors, then of course any age is fine. But are you truly willing to risk your current child's safety on the word of someone who hasn't known the new child very long, who you just met a few weeks/months ago, and who you will never see again? I wouldn't be.

We adopted our son as an infant. He's now 3yrs. old. We then started fostering. We got our first placement of a 4.5yr. old and his little sisiter who was 7 months old. So our adopted son went from being the only (oldest) child to the middle child. Yes...it was hard for him at first. I think more because he had to "share" his mommy and daddy. We have just signed the paperwork to adopt the foster children and waiting for the court to finalize there adoption. Then....almost 2 months ago...we took gaurdianship of our 7yr. old grandson. So the foster son..who has always been the oldest...is now NOT. So we really messed this "birth order" thing...lol. It's been rough, but all the kids have found there "pecking order" now. Really....I think if you treat ALL the kids with respect and love...and give them all the attention they need...things will fall into place.

I'm with "Diane". It's more of a safety issue. We had an unsafe situation here with 2 older foster daughters. Luckily we were observant enough to see it happening and decided against the adoption of these children, in the best interest of our 3 younger children. Our family is unique in that I have 4 grown children from my first marriage and we now have 4 younger children through adoption. So our oldest adopted child, age 10, may have a different perspective as to whether he actually FEELS like the oldest child in the family, having his older siblings around all his life, even though they don't live in our home. So, it COULD be true, that each individual situation should be considered. If I had a one year old and fostered a 2 year old that needed permanence, I probably wouldn't worry about birth order because the safety issue wouldn't likely be a factor.

I adopted my son when he was almost three (last November). He is now 3 1/2 and I am in the process of adopting a little girl who will turn 5 at the end of this month, so she is 16 months older than him. I was concerned about the birth order thing, but I think my situation is a little different. Gabriel was a youngest child in his foster home and has only been an only child in my home for the past 8 months. Angelina is the second child out of four in her bio family and has other foster brothers and sisters. In some sense, I'm reinstating Gabriel's birth order, making him the youngest again. Anyway, he will still be the oldest and only boy. Angelina does not have any aggressive behaviors and the kids aren't that far apart in age, so I'm not too worried about safety. I guess every case is different, but I think in my case, it should work out all right. Leah

I have a daughter who will be 9 in September. She wants to remain the oldest. And because she is competitive with kids her own age, I don't think it would be in her best interest to have a sibling close in age. My younger daughter just turned two-but she is so easy going I don't think it would matter to her if the new child/ren was older, younger or even the same age. So I requested children 6 or younger. Safety is an issue-but also the personalities of the children already in the home.

Our oldest is 9, and we were always adamant that he remain the oldest. He is the oldest grandchild, and we didn't want to take that away from him. We adopted our second baby when our oldest was 7. In November 2006, we adopted a little girl who was 3 1/2 at the time. She was a good fit for our family. We are considering adopting one more time, and if we do, we will be looking for another newborn/infant. Hope that helps. :)

We are adopting a 12 year old and her brother who is 14. Our biokids are 11 and 8. I agree with the safety issue for our 14 year old. He is big and intimidating and it has been an issue - partly because we haven't really parented a teen before and our expectations were off kilter with reality (our 16 year old nephew is apparently abnormally responsible and mature). He also has RAD, PTSD, bipolar, behavior disorder, ADHD... most of which we didn't know when he was placed The biggest issue for us though is the girls. Our bio dd is VERY smart, fairly responsible, very big for her age (already 5'4" 130lbs) and one of the youngest in her grade (summer birthday). Our new daughter is also tall (5'2" but only 100lbs), she's a year behind in school with learning disabilities in addition to her ADHD, ODD, attachment issues... The problem is the girls are in the same grade in school! Our bio daughter is the more responsible reliable one. Our adoptive daughter is incredibly jealous of everyone and is probably emotionally about 4 years old. She has started viscious rumors about our bio dd in order to establish her place. Both girls ended up miserable and angry. We finally found a very small private school for the girls that accepts children with special needs and all 3 children are now flourishing (older boy is currently in an RTC). We made sure the new school put a halt to any rivalry issues quickly by keeping them very aware. We also put the girls in separate rooms (we'd been told our new daughter had always shared a room and would be lonely). This helps our daughters' relationship as well as they used to fight over who had to clean up what. Basically I don't recommend displacing the oldest child in the new home. It might not have been an issue with our older son and bio daughter because of the age/gender difference - they just don't interact much, but it has been a major concern with the girls. Remember too that their chronological age and their emotional or developmental age is rarely the same - especially for older children in the foster system. That's hard to explain to kids! Marymom to bio son T (8yr) and K(11yr) and adopting daughter C(12 yr) and someday her brother D(14yr) "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!"

I have been thinking alot about the effects of disrupting birth order for our biological children ... they are 5 & 6 .... it would be so hard to only adopt at the age in the middle (since they are 18 months apart LOL), I like that idea though. Now we are considering a sibling group of 2-4 children. There are 4 children in the family but we are waiting to hear if the baby in the family was adopted. I have never met her, she was taken to a different orphanage. I was in Kenya last month .. see my signture for more info .. the children's approx ages are: b, 14 yrs - we are sponsoring him for boarding school now. His school is less than a mile from the orphanage he was living at and near the one where is other 2 siblings are at. When he is out of school on breaks the manager of his orphanage has taken him in to her home with her dh and their 2 boys that go to the same boardng schol. I have met her and her 2 boys and been to the boarding school. b, 7 yrs (but I suspect older) although he is the same size (maybe even smaller) as my bio 6 yr old (who is VERY tall for his age). He is the first one I met, and it was instant love when I saw his sweet face and the sparkle in his eyes :) I had a dream that I brought him home the day after i met him. 2 days later he looked up at me and told me .. he wished I was his mom. g, 4 yrs she is the sweetest, cheeky little star! g, 8 months old. I found out about her from the oldest boy. He told me their story and the manager of the orphanage filled in a little more for me. The baby may have been adopted and depending on how long it takes .... The oldest boy may age out. And as others have mentioned, I worry about my younger children bringing in a sibling that is SO much older. Kenyan adoption, as many others, can take a long time and the residency requirement is LONG 3 months plus and additional 4-7 months to finalize. I haven't even begun to process, I am waiting to find out if they are eligible for adoption (all have different fathers) and if they will allow me to pre-identify (this is against the law, but they have been known to allow exceptions) but I miss them every every every day. I am able to talk to the 14 yr old, he has no idea that we are considering adoption. I talked to him today .... and he was able to visit his younger 2 siblings yesterday and they are doing well. He is so happy to be in school, he is doing well and I am so proud of him! I am so happy to have found this group/site.