When you already have children, your adoption decisions will have to take them into account as well. In my last blog I mentioned the effect that spacing of children and adopting out of birth order can have on your family. This blog continues the discussion of things to think about when planning for second or subsequent children.
When you consider age and special needs of the child you can adopt, and when you consider the referral of a specific child, you must consider your responsibility to the children you already have. First, you must consider safety. A child who has been sexually abused is statistically at high risk of abusing siblings or other children. This may have occurred in an institution abroad, in the child’s birth family at home or in the U.S., or, sadly, in the U.S. foster care system. You must consider the age and background of the children who join your family. You will want to probe for any information on fetal alcohol syndrome that may have occurred during the pregnancy. (An adoption medicine specialist can help you assess for this.) Find out if the child has had exhibited behaviors such as torturing animals or playing with fire. Often kids who harm people started out with behaviors such as these.
I do not want to be despairing—love can do a lot, and therapists such as Deborah Gray have made a lot of progress in learning what types of therapy and parenting methods work best for abused children. But I also think we have to be realistic about what we expose our other children to. In a newspaper column such as Wednesday’s Child that profiles children available for adoption, there will be a description of what characteristics the caseworker feels are especially necessary in an adoptive home for this child. Often there is a line that says “she should be the only or youngest child in the home.” Sometimes this may be because the child needs a lot of attention to make up for missed nurturing. But I believe it is also sometimes a hint that the child is considered at risk of hurting younger children.
Please see this related blog: