Advertisements
Advertisements
My husband and I are starting our application, and starting to talk about age groups. We have only one extra bedroom, and could fit two kiddos in there (we're looking for a bunk bed). We also have room for a bassinet or crib in the bedroom if we need to get one.
We are thinking about having boys, but can't seem to decide on an age group. Initially, we were thinking about 0-7, because in our state, if you're under 25 (we both are), you have to be 15 years older than an adopted kiddo. I would hate to get a placement that is a great fit for us, and then lose him/them because we're too young to adopt when they are free. (7 puts them 15 years younger than my husband)
My other concern with older boys is size-my fear is if we have an teenage boy with anger/violent outbursts, we (mostly me) won't be able to restrain him or protect ourselves if he comes after one of us.
My husband, on the other hand, has this fantasy of being able to go to sports games and have someone to watch football with! So he wants to be able to take any boy from 0-17.
Thoughts?
My husband and I decided betwen 3 to 6 because we can interact with them and litle babies kind of scare me a litle bit since i have 0 experience and older kids I dont think I will be able to manage if they behave bad and I dream of a litle girl no a baby no a teeneger just a litle girl I know the age have their own challenges but also depende on each case I think. If your husband dream of a litle budy and you adopt a litle kid eventually he will have his teen son. :)
Advertisements
I originally set my age range as 0-3 with an exception up to 4-5 if they were autistic. But now I have really changed my mind to 0-5 with an exception to 0-8 if it is a sibling group of 3-5. I am not in this to adopt, I want to foster for a year or so and then have bio kids. I am not quite ready to bring a baby into the world but can't fathom not having kids in the house for a couple more years and figured I could do some good while I waited. One of the reasons that I set my age range 0-3 at first is because of my dad, he is scared of the unknown of fostering and I figured that he would bond easier with a younger child but he has said some things recently that made me realize that he finally "got it" and understand that I am doing this to help children and he is excited to help too.
Age range is so hard for me because I work with kids all day and have some great older kids that I would take home in a heart beat, but the unknown of an older child scares me and the risk of false allegations from an upset older child scares me to death.
Good luck I am not even fully approved and have already changed my age range.
Sometimes you find out what age group is best AFTER you have each age group lol, and then many will say it isn't about age, but the individual. I only agree with that to a point though. I would never do teens b/c I have younger kids, as well as two teens myself. We have found that we really like the baby/infant stage. Any child older than that causes more arguing,fighting,competition,jealousy etc, and my bios don't need extra partner in crimes in that area. :evilgrin:
We haven't officially decided yet, but we talked a lot about this last night, and we decided to keep the oldest age we would take at a year younger than our youngest child. So that keeps us with a pretty young age range, but I think we are planning to take boys or girls, so hopefully we won't end up with zero placements. I worry that with such a young age range that there will be a lot of other foster homes that want the same.
1st post, lurking forever!
We are foster to adopt girls ages 8 and up. We can take a sib group of two. Our house isn't big enough for larger groups. We have 3 bio girls ages 4-13. While I enjoyed the baby/toddler phase with our girls, I do very well with pre-teens/teens.
The toddler phase was very challenging for me as a parent and now that we're out of that (just), I'm not ready to do it again.
Advertisements
Our range is currently 2-7, girls only, up to 2 children if it is a sibling group. We currently have two girls, sisters, ages 2 and 3. We said 2-7 because we both work, we can't/don't want to deal with newborn or infant needs. We only have room for 2 kids in our apt. And my wife really feels more comfortable with girls (we're both women), so I said ok to that.
I think when this placement goes home, we'll expand to ages 2-9, and I'm going to try to get my wife to think about taking a boy under age 5. I think little guys are lots of fun!
Re: your husband and a boy to watch games with...Just keep in mind a boy might not WANT to play/watch sports with him, no matter how old he is. So just because it's a boy doesn't mean that's what the kid will be into. And just because you get a girl, doesn't mean he can't watch football with her.
I think everyone starts with an age range but tweaks it depending on the situation. Sometimes you only know from trial and error. We have tweaked our age range a few times.
I'm currently considering age groups too myself, i'm leaning more towards 9 and up. I would love to adopt boys mainly because i like the idea of a big bro/father type relationship. i'm great with counseling youth so this will work well for me. I would love to have a daughter one day but would prefer for her to be biologically mines.
We have young bio kids in our house, so we had to keep their safety in mind. But if you don't have other children in the home, I think this decision is best based on the age kids that you feel most at home with. Whose company do you enjoy the most? And talk to your husband about how he'd feel if you get a 13 or 14 year old boy who hates sports and is a total book worn science guy? Will he still be able to find a way to relate to that child and cherish him for who he is?
Advertisements
We foster children from 0-4 right now. The reasoning is that we are new parents (we've never had any children of our own) and would like it to seem as "natural" as possible. We wanted to learn how to parent as a parent with a natural child would.
However, now that we've got some experience under our belt we've been talking about upping our age range.
Our youngest bio will be 4 by the time we are licensed so we chose 0-5 for safety and to keep it at least close to birth order.