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I am home studied for domestic infant adoption but have begun the foster to adopt training process after a lot of thought and reading here on the boards. And, I admit, a lot of looking at photolistings and knowing there are many children not in the listings that need a loving family. I had entered this with the idea of adopting a single child, but there have been several sibling sets in the photolistings that have caught my eye. So now I'm reconsidering.
I am single, and live in a two bedroom home, so it would need to be two kids of the same gender, preferably girls. (My family has more than our share of boys and my mom and the lone female cousin would love another girl or two!) I was thinking of school aged children, no younger than 5, partly because of the cost and pain involved in finding available child care near me. Before and after care programs are readily available at the local schools, so that would be ideal.
Any thoughts on adopting two at the same time as a single parent?
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It is very doable if you have good local family support and are able to take some time off when they arrive. You may reconsider two over 5 through foster care as your first kids though. You are very likely to end up with kids who have some challenges. I think it is a great idea to get licensed as a foster parent. The training is just good parent training (plus a lot of yucky stuff). Perhaps you will decide to just do respite or take in foster only kiddos while you wait for the call on domestic adoption. What training program does your state use? PACT, MAPP, something else? If your area is busy, you may be surprised how happy they are to even have you on their roster. Be patient with yourself through the training and see where your feelings end up at the end of training. A big part of the training is to get you thinking about what you can handle/want out of fostercare.
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Best Mom, thanks for your reply! I am not scheduled to start until the beginning of next month - the orientation times for me are really hard. For some reason they're all scheduled on days that are hard for me to do - I run a program for a non-profit on the one weeknight a month they hold the program. I can find someone to cover for me, but it's hard to find people willing and qualified (and cleared, since it's within the public school system.)
I don't know how busy it is, but when I told them I was interested in children up to 13, they changed from hesitant to enthusiastic. I think it will also help that I'm homestudied for the city, even though it's for domestic infant adoption, all the clearances and such are the same.
It looks like they use MAPP. I'm not sure how that's different from PACT - any thoughts?
As long as you have family support. I know several single Moms who have fostered/adopted more than one child. Also the age of siblings depend on your area. We are in the process of adopting our 3, who came as toddler, infant and NB. Here its unusual there's a single child. Also regarding age, choose the age you feel comfortable w/. Before we started we wanted 1-5yrs old. We were newbie parents. Well our babies came as a toddler and infant. 11mo later their NB sibling was added. Although we are tired as Heck, we discovered that younger children were more up our alley.
As long as you have family support. I know several single Moms who have fostered/adopted more than one child.
Also the age of siblings depend on your area. We are in the process of adopting our 3, who came as toddler, infant and NB. Here its unusual there's a single child.
Also regarding age, choose the age you feel comfortable w/. Before we started we wanted 1-5yrs old. We were newbie parents. Well our babies came as a toddler and infant. 11mo later their NB sibling was added. Although we are tired as Heck, we discovered that younger children were more up our alley.
Thanks Lotus Mama.
I don't have a lot of family support - my cousin in MA is the closes to me and the rest of my family is on the opposite coast. I do have amazing friend support here, including one friend who is on a local board that oversees foster care, so she's got a lot of information that I can tap into, not to mention mentoring at-risk kids is her thing. (Seriously - state mentor of the year winner a few years ago.) My mom has offered to come out to help me prepare and then again around placement time to help with a transition. She's always been good with older kids, though I worry about her temper with kids that have behavior issues.
I love and am comfortable with kids of all ages and I know I'd love a little one, but I'm told that's not where the need is here. It's hard to say though - the photolistings for the area only have about ten kids and most of them are medically fragile, which I am not capable to handling on my own. Only one sibling set, too. Because of that, I've been looking at photolistings in states where I have family ties - CA, MI, OR. I don't know the liklihood of adopting from out of state though - that seems like a tough row to hoe.
I told them I'd accept up to 13, mainly because I live in walking distance to three public school and four private ones that go up to 8th grade. Younger would be okay as long as I could find a daycare with openings.
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