Adopting Older Kids vs. Adopting Toddlers | Pros and Cons + Our Experience

hi there today i want to talk to you about the differences between adopting older kids versus adopting a toddler so that you can figure out which type of adoption is right for your family [Music] if you're a subscriber welcome back you are near and dear to my heart i'm so glad that you have found my video once again in your subscription box and if you are new to my channel hello my name is katie and i'm a foster adoptive mom of three kids at the time of filming this our kids are 10 6 and 3 years old our youngest daughter was placed with us at about 18 months old so she was in that toddler kind of between baby toddler phase and then our older two kids were placed with us when they were five and nine so we do have experience fostering adopting in both of these age ranges and let me tell you they're two pretty different experiences so today i want to not only just share pros and cons of each type of adoption but also share a little bit about our specific experience so that you can get an idea of what it's like in real life on a day-to-day basis before we jump in i just want to say if you are not subscribed yet to my channel please subscribe and you can hit the notification bell and as always if you enjoyed this video don't forget to hit the thumbs up button so that other people can find this video it really helps more than you know i also just want to preface this by saying that my experience is not going to be the same as everyone else's experience obviously a lot of it depends on the kids background maybe whether you're adopting from foster care you're adopting internationally all of those things can really play a big part but i just want to give you my perspective on it because i am an adoptive parent i've lived through it now in our specific situation all three of our kids were waiting children in the foster care system so this means that they were waiting to be adopted but their foster family for one reason or another was not able or not willing to go through with an adoption they were just interested in being a foster family there's actually a lot of kids in the united states in this situation and most people don't know that you can actually adopt waiting children without having to go through the process of fostering kids for years and years before a case may become open for adoption so i did make a video about how to adopt awaiting children from foster care so i will link that above and i will link it below in the down bar now for what you really came here for let's talk about adopting toddlers versus adopting older kids i want to start with the pros and cons of adopting a toddler i think that most people when they first start dreaming about adoption or thinking about adoption they're typically imagining themselves adopting an infant or adopting a toddler they don't really like the idea necessarily of adopting older kids obviously there are you know outliers in the situation but i know even for my husband and i when we first thought about adoption we never would have considered adopting older kids we would have said like the oldest kid we'd want to adopt is maybe three or four and you know our plans change i think a lot of people believe that if you adopt a baby or a toddler that they're not gonna have any trauma they're not gonna remember anything and it's gonna be just as if you had given birth to them and i'm just here to tell you that that could not be further from the truth they may not remember like on a mental level that they can explain it to you but their bodies remember what happens and they will have trauma even if they're adopted as a newborn because that loss and separation from a parent will cause trauma so i don't want people to go into adopting a toddler or even a baby thinking that they're going to be exempt from all of the the baggage and things that can come from traumatic experiences you may not see as many traumatic experiences but that first loss of the birth parent is still going to be a big deal which you'll kind of see as i'm talking through the pros and cons so let's start with the positives the pros of adopting a toddler because there really are a lot of good things about adopting toddlers one of the biggest things that i think is a benefit of adopting toddlers is that you have fewer unknown experiences that the kid has gone through so you know they're not that old you know that they've had separation from their birth parent they may have moved houses a few times it just depends on their situation but even if they have all these experiences they don't have 10 years worth of experiences that you don't know about they have maybe a year or two years of experience in life that you don't really know exactly what happened so there's a little bit less unknown in that sense this also means that they are less likely to have moved from one home to another now i have heard stories of toddlers who have been adopted who were in like 10 homes within the first two years of their life and that is just truly heartbreaking to me because that really is not healthy for any kid especially a kid that age to not be able to form a strong bond or attachment with a caregiver but you're less likely to have that situation if you're adopting a toddler because chances are they haven't been moved around as much as a kid who's like seven years old another fun thing i think this is what most people think of when they consider adopting a toddler as a positive is that you get to have a lot of firsts with them i know for a lot of parents like being there for the first steps for the first words all of those things are really special moments when you're a parent and you want to experience that with your kid and obviously if you're adopting an older kid they've already taken their first step said their first words most likely and so you won't have those first but with a toddler you get a lot of firsts with them and that is really special to be able to be a part of that i will also say that parenting a toddler not always but could feel a bit more natural if you've adopted a toddler versus an older kid simply because physical touch is such an important part of bonding and especially with children that's very important that they get physical touch and for toddlers it's very natural to hug and cuddle and you're changing their diaper there are a lot of physical things that you're doing in order to bond with them and so it can make that bonding process maybe a little bit quicker or maybe just at least if not if not quicker it feels a bit more natural because you know it's normal to be touchy and cuddly and lovey with a toddler like that and then the last pro that i want to talk about is the fact that your child if they're a toddler they're gonna grow up understanding that they're adopted and it's going to be somewhat quote unquote normal for them i'm hesitant to say that because i know that adoption in and of itself is just not a normal thing like what's normal and natural in many ways is for that child to be able to stay at their birth family but when that's not possible you know adoption happens and i think it can be good because the kid from a young age knows they're adopted they know you know there's something special and different about that and you can kind of educate them from the time they're a kid and be open and honest with them so that it's less shocking or crazy to them that they're adopted they'll just kind of grow up being like well i'm adopted and that's not to say they won't struggle with it which is what we'll get to later but they will be used to it if that makes sense all right the cons and before i start this i just want to tell you that our toddler adoption was very very difficult for me and you know now we've had our daughter for two years and we're in a much much different place than we were at the start but i experienced a lot of really challenging hard days with our toddler adoption and i think that was surprising to a lot of people because as i said people think adopting a toddler comes without all this baggage and all this trauma and all that stuff but it's still there and so it does have an effect and it does make parenting a toddler very challenging so i'll explain kind of some of my cons that i have and then i'll also explain a little bit about my specific experience so the first thing i'll say is that the toddler age no matter whether you're an adoptive parent or your biological parent toddlers are difficult yes they are cute yes they are adorable they're fun to be around sometimes but parenting toddlers is hard work they're constantly testing you they're constantly trying your patience uh they're constantly doing things they should not do and they're also still very reliant on you for so many things but they don't want your help they want to do things by themselves and they want to try things they want to say no and so just developmentally that age is challenging to parent if you're a parent can i get an amen in the comments because toddlers as adorable as they are they're just hard to parent and so if you're parenting a toddler who's being adopted and being ripped away from everything they know and love you can imagine how that could be extra challenging and extra difficult so kind of connected to this i think one of the biggest struggles of adopting a toddler is that they're not old enough for you to really explain the concept of adoption to them or foster care or anything like that and it's so hard for them to know what is happening all they know is that you are not the right person there was someone else taking care of them before who they loved and were attached to hopefully and all of a sudden you're coming and you're ripping them away from all of that and you're a stranger maybe they've met you a handful of times maybe not you're a stranger coming and taking them and oftentimes they will never see that caretaker ever again now in our situation we have actually visited my daughter's old foster mother before and foster father we've been able to maintain a relationship with them and that has been really great but still in those first months they're like um when am i gonna see these people again but they don't have the words to tell you i'm scared i miss my foster mom all these things they're just gonna scream and hit you and bite you and cry because they don't know what's going on and they're confused and they're sad so and obviously i know this i know someone's going to come in the comments and be like that was just your experience blah blah i have people do that sometimes and i'm kind of like well obviously that's my experience but i also don't think that that experience has been limited to me i think there are a lot of parents of adopted toddlers who have gone through this where their toddler is just very difficult because they have all these feelings and they don't know how to control them and that can you know come across in different ways but the end of the day this kid has experienced trauma and they're not attached to you securely yet i also think with toddlers something that's really hard and i will say this could be true of any age but with toddlers i find it extra difficult to know what is trauma behavior and what is just normal toddler disobedience and testing the limits as i said toddlers love to say no they love to disobey they love to try new things and all these all these things but it is hard to know what is just them being a toddler and what is them kind of crying out for more love and support and um crying out because they're confused or acting out because they're angry and they miss their old old foster parents or even their orphanage another big worry for me with toddlers and again this could happen with older kids as well but it is very possible that this child never got the important bonding moments that they needed to have with their birth mother um that skin to skin contact that being cared for they may never have received that and they're going to be hesitant to take that from you at first you may have a kid who you try to hug them or love them they push you away obviously a lot of that depends on like their attachment style and things like that but that is a common scenario and so that bonding with their birth mom is really important for their future development and they may not have gotten that because they were adopted at such a young age whereas an older child who maybe wasn't removed from their parents home until they were older yes they may have experienced more abuse or neglect but they also may have gotten some more of that infant bonding time which is really important for development and then the last thing i did talk about in the pros that your child will grow up kind of knowing about adoption and it will be kind of a quote-unquote normal thing to them but i will say that as the kid when the kid is younger they'll probably be like oh yeah i'm adopted it's more normal thing but then oftentimes what i have found and i try to follow and listen to a lot of adoptees and and hear their perspectives and their stories especially like i follow people on instagram or on youtube and try to hear about their perspective because obviously my kids are adoptees and they're going to grow up and have feelings as well so i want to understand as well as i can and from my experience most of the adoptees who are really struggling more with the concept of being adopted were adopted as infants or as toddlers i think that's because there's a big loss of identity when you're adopted as a baby or a toddler because you never got that time with your birth family to really get to know them and to feel like you understand where you came from or you may even have situations where they don't remember their parent at all if they're a toddler they may not even have a picture of them so they'll always wonder what were my parents like and i do find that a lot of people who were adopted as infants or toddlers they really struggle with their identity and feel a lot of anger and resentment sometimes about being adopted when they're older so that doesn't always happen but it could happen and i could understand why someone might feel that way if they're they never got that experience we went through at least a year where my daughter was constantly rejecting me and she did it to my husband as well but not to the same level she did it with me and that's very common that they're more likely to push away the mother because they've had more experiences with mothers and abandonment and sometimes dads weren't there to begin with and so that was definitely true of us um when i was on maternity leave with her we spent a ton of time together and i will say those were some of the darkest days of my life that sounds terrible because i was so happy to have her and it was exactly what i wanted but man she had so much um trouble just attaching and trusting and i think i i don't think that my agency like didn't prepare me for that but we were i think most of our training was surrounded around older children adoption because that's more common but it was kind of uncommon for us to be matched with a toddler so young so all of our training was about how to deal with trauma in like slightly older kids and i felt pretty confident with that but when it came to toddlers i was like i don't know what is her just being a toddler and what's her this is like as a trauma response because i've never even had a kid before she was our first kid and so that was a big struggle for me and that lasted for a long time and i had to work through that and during that time i really struggled with like post-adoption depression which is very similar to postpartum depression and there's just not a lot known about it and so i felt so isolated in that and i felt further isolated because when you adopt a toddler everyone's like oh that's easy like you're so lucky that you got a little kid and you don't have to adopt an older kid with all these other problems and so those comments while they were meant to be helpful and encouraging actually kind of silenced me and made me feel like i had no right to be feeling the way i was feeling that was really challenging for me i actually made a video about post-adoption depression actually two videos so one is about kind of like signs of it and then the second one is about how to overcome it so many people experience it but they don't talk about it because i've had countless messages dms comments on my video saying i was feeling this way and i thought i was totally alone so i just want to say if you're feeling that way i'm going to link the video above i'm also going to link it below check it out and just know that you're not alone in those feelings it doesn't mean you're a bad parent it doesn't mean you don't love your children it just means you're struggling this is all very new and it's very difficult it took us about a year to get through that really difficult point before we turned a corner and it felt so much more natural and it was just interesting how time will do that even and so that was really helpful once we passed that milestone and now that we're two years in i feel like it's much more similar to biological parenting obviously it has its differences but it is a lot less intense now than it used to be and i've really loved being able to experience a lot of firsts with our daughter and i've loved being able to see her just grow and develop and even you know when i went into adoption i never expected that my kids were going to grow up and be like me because we're not biologically related i didn't want to expect that of them but it's been really cool to see our daughter like pick up some of our little traits and quirks and things and even like our sense of humor um some of our habits like we read a lot and she reads and um it's just been really cool to see that and i think that's kind of unique to toddler or infant adoption whereas like older kids who already have been formed a lot and their personality and their likes and dislikes you're not going to see that as much so it's been kind of fun to have that experience that i just wasn't expecting to have at all all right now on to older kid adoption so when we first went into adoption as i said we were not interested in adopting older kids at all but as we went through our training and we talked to our social workers we slowly start inching our our way up on the age range uh inching in inching and inching and they just have a way of convincing you that you should adopt an older kid we actually said we would be willing to take kids from zero to ten and we were open to taking up to three or maybe we said up to four kids we were crazy i'm really glad we didn't take up to four kids at a time but bless you if that's what you wanna do it's been very different parenting a six and ten year old and i would argue i've handled it a lot better than parenting a toddler so that might surprise some of you but i don't know if it's because it's our second adoption and we're just a little bit more experienced but i feel like it's more than that to me parenting older kids has been a lot more natural and i know that's not true for everyone it's my experience i do work with older kids i'm a teacher and i work with 6th graders through 10th graders and so i am used to older kids and i do enjoy that age range and even though our kids are younger than that they're not like babies and toddlers and i just find it so much easier the first thing about adopting what i will call school-age children so like our kids are younger like elementary age kids um the first thing that's really helpful is that you often know a lot more about older kids and their cases than you would about a little kid who you were being matched with like a toddler so for example if they have any diagnoses oftentimes they've already been diagnosed with that especially if they've been in foster care in the u.s foster system they've probably been to therapy before they may have gotten an iep at school already in our case too the social workers had a lot of information on both kids and i got to call them and ask them a ton of questions before we even agreed to meet them and so i knew a lot about their story about their case and it was able to decide better if we could be a good fit for these kids if we would be able to provide them with what they needed another thing i love about slightly older kids is like they're so much more independent and i'm saying that while also knowing that kids who have been through trauma are going to be more dependent than most kids their age would be if they had not been through all that trauma but still compared to a toddler or a baby i'm like they can use the bathroom by themselves that is that is one less stressor to worry about they can sometimes make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by themselves like they're able to get in and out of their beds by themselves and in and out of their chair and it just kind of made me realize how like physically demanding raising a toddler is versus school age kids i feel like a lot less needed for every single activity and that is that has been nice for me at least i think i enjoy that my kids are a little more independent they can handle some things on their own and then i can just enjoy time with them more doing fun things without always having to take care of every little thing they do i also find it way easier to read older kids like you know if my daughter is just struggling with something or she's grumpy about something i can often guess what it's about i won't say too high of a percentage but i'd say like 70 to 80 of the time i can pinpoint like why she's acting a certain way and like the reason behind a behavior whereas with my toddler i struggled with that so it's easier for me to tell what they're feeling and why they're feeling that way which makes my next point there's a lot more clarity and how to talk to them about things because if i know that they're acting this way because they were triggered by the fact that they saw you know this dog that reminded them of a dog they used to have i can talk to them about that and i can understand where they're coming from and why they're acting out it's just so much more clarity and i i will say i think talking with kids through different situations is a strength of mine but i also think it's just a little bit easier when they're a little older i also find it a lot easier to set clear consequences for if a behavior expectation is not met or they've done something they know they shouldn't have done you can very easily come up with a consequence and they'll feel the the pain of that and it can help change behavior a little bit like taking away the tablet or adding an extra chore or something like that those kids that age understand consequences and why they have them and we have seen that be effective and so that is something that is a lot easier than a toddler where you're like wha what are you gonna tell your toddler i mean you only put them in timeout so many times right and i would say that another pro is that and i'm hesitant to say this as well as i was in the last part but i do think that kids who are adopted at an older age they tend to actually remember a lot of the trauma they've experienced and they kind of know the alternative to living with you and so they may struggle with the idea of adoption at first a lot but as they get older oftentimes they struggle with that a little bit less than someone who is adopted really really young because they still remember what it was like living with their birth parents and maybe there was neglect or abuse and that's not to say they might not run right back to them when they turn 18. that could happen you have there are no guarantees i know families who have kids who are like 18 and they were adopted and they ran right back into the really bad situation with their birth families again and it doesn't matter that could that could always happen but i'm just saying i typically find that the adoptees who were adopted at an older age typically don't struggle as much with identity problems as the ones who were adopted as infants who are just completely out of touch with their first families and don't really you know don't really feel connected to their culture or things like that so that's just something i'll throw in there and you might disagree with me but i'm just basing it off of what i've read and seen and experienced from people i know and i just want to throw this in as another pro is that it's not as bad as people make it sound if you tell your family or your friends you're thinking of adopting a 10 year old they might be like are you crazy what if that kid has a million problems what if they try to set your house on fire because every single person that you will talk to will have a horror story about adoption whether it's a younger kid or an older kid you can easily find horror stories about adoption i mean you can find it on youtube i'm sure but that's doesn't mean that that's what it's always like and in our situation yeah our kids struggle and there are struggles that we have with them but man it it's really not as bad as it is for some people you know there's the minority of people where there can be something really truly terrible that happens and then there's a majority where things are hard and things are challenging but it's still totally manageable and doable so the first con though of adopting older kids is that there are so many different types of trauma or abuse or neglect that these kids could have gone through and you have no clue about some of them because maybe that kid has not ever disclosed that and it's possible they've been like in a foster system or in an orphanage for a long amount of time and who knows the many many things that could have happened to them over those many years of not being with a family and even outside of traumatic experiences there's just a lot of regular experiences that you have no clue what they've been through and they have they may have a lot of triggers about things and you'll be like why are they triggered by this like why are they acting this way when really it has to do something with an experience they've had in the past that you have no clue about yet because you have like six to ten years of experiences you've never been with them for so that is very challenging again because they're older it's very possible that they have been passed around to different caregivers more often maybe moved around at different homes they may have experienced more separation and loss than a kid who was younger because they've experienced loss again and again rather than just like the first time that they were you know placed in care so that can be very challenging and oftentimes too if they've been passed around a lot they will have attachment issues because they've never had that secure stable attachment with one caregiver and so it's going to take time for them to build that up with you i also find that when this happens there often is a bigger struggle with boundaries as well with older kids so if a kid has grown up and they've been passed from adult to adult their whole life they might just not know a stranger like and this can happen with toddlers too our daughter was like this a little bit but you can train a toddler a little bit easier to realize that's not okay whereas like with older kids if they've been with all these different adults their whole life it's gonna feel normal for them to instantly be like clinging to a new adult even if that's not a healthy idea and so it's going to be hard for them to recognize you as like you're the parent and there's different levels of relationships between you and them and then them and other adults whether it's in your family in your friend's circle that can be really challenging and depending on the type of abuse that they have gone through there can also be boundary issues with like the opposite sex or um just boundary issues in general like just not knowing how to maybe not having some of the social skills because they weren't taught things by their first family or they've moved around so much they didn't learn a lot of things that most kids would have learned so that can be very challenging i know i mentioned that it's kind of good to have the diagnoses but maybe if you get an older kid and they have a ton of diagnoses it can feel really overwhelming um and so you see all these things that kind of scare you away like all these letters that you're like adhd gad you know you might be like what are these things this is really stressful to me so that that can be a challenge as well another thing is that for kids who experience trauma their emotional age and their actual age are very different things so you know your kid may be seven years old in actuality but they may be i don't know four years old emotionally because they've been neglected they haven't gotten that bonding they needed and so you'll find that the the way they react to things is much more like a four-year-old than like a seven-year-old and you have to adjust your expectations and it can really feel like you're babying them a lot and it's confusing to know what to expect from them i will also say that when you're adopting an older kid they sometimes come to you with a very unrealistic view of what a family will be like it's a very idealistic like once i get a family everything will be perfect there will be no rules there'll be no expectations i'll get to do fun things all the time we definitely faced that with our older kids they were so looking forward to being a part of a normal family but a lot of times normal family is defined by what they see on tv like cartoons and stuff and they think you're just going to be going on vacations all the time and having parties and not having all these rules about things and so that can be challenging to have to kind of be like sorry we're not perfect and you can't just have your way all the time just because you're in a family now like that's not really how it works and that can be really disappointing for those kids and it can be very challenging for you to try to be living up to those expectations i also find that with one of our kids in particular who has lived with a lot of different adults in their lifetime there is this expectation of me as the mother to be every mother that they've ever had i need to be the mother i am which is a full-time working mother who keeps my house relatively clean who cooks dinners who you know takes them on vacations who takes them to activities um and who is pretty active in my church and all these things i need to be that person but i also need to be their old foster mom used to sit on the couch with them all the time and watch tv and cuddle and i also need to be the bio mom who just bought them food all the time like two adult meals from burger king not that i'm being specific but to adult meals from burger king and let you eat them well i can't be all of those things but there can be a pressure to feel like you're not measuring up to their standards or their expectations and you are disappointing them like it's just the reality is you're disappointing them even if those expectations aren't realistic and that can be hard to deal with when you feel like i'm giving so much and they're not gonna be grateful okay like it doesn't matter that they have experienced way lower standards than what you're giving them they will probably not be grateful and i don't think we should expect them to be it can be hard it can be hard because their expectations are so skewed that they won't be grateful they'll just want more and from what i've heard that's pretty common experience so now for my experience as i mentioned earlier this time around has been a lot better i think i mean i have still struggled greatly i just struggle with anxiety in general and my anxiety is like very heightened because i know my kids have anxiety issues and they're in a new situation and they're adjusting and i want them to do well and i worry about their futures and i worry with my oldest like are we gonna have enough time to help her in the ways i want to help her and help her grow and kind of like make up for some of the things that happened in her past and i know i know i can't fix everything but there there is worry there there's a lot of worry this time around that wasn't there as much with our younger daughter with her it was more isolation and feeling really lonely and feeling kind of um ashamed for struggling and in this case i feel like people totally understand why i would be struggling because adopting older kids is kind of viewed as like whoa you're a saint you're crazy and i definitely am not a saint i might be crazy to me adopting older kids has felt a little bit easier but like i said that could just be because it's my second time around and adopting and but i also really think that i just handle older kids a little bit better they don't need me quite as much like i'm just not one of those moms i know a lot of moms like this and always feel bad that i'm not this type of person but a lot of moms are like oh no my kid is walking oh no my kid can feed themselves now oh no they can go to the bathroom now like i'm so sad that they won't need me anymore and to me i'm like great like it's working the goal is independence the goals that we're training them up so that they can do these things by themselves and it's one less thing i have to worry about and so older kids that the fact that they can do a little bit more on their own really frees me up like our kids are two older ones they can like get themselves up in the morning and we have like a little breakfast bar and they can get their own breakfast and you know it's just like nice that they can do that it just takes some of the stress away so that is something i have appreciated about having older kids i also find it a lot easier for me to talk through things with older kids and that part has been easier and yeah i would just encourage you if you're scared off by adopting older kids like don't be explore it and so much of it depends on what the kid has been through any diagnoses they have all those things will inform you more about whether or not you could be a good fit for that kid i always try to encourage people to be a little more open because you just never know and for us even though it has been really hard and i don't want to pretend it hasn't if you're curious you can watch some of my adoption update videos i'm pretty brutally honest with how difficult it's been but i just think that's the nature of foster care and adoption and it's not going to be easy you're putting together a family from all these different places and different backgrounds and that can be messy so it's not going to be perfect but i do think there's so many benefits to it and really you never know an older kid could be a great fit for your family so why not be open to it and then see you can always say no that's something that maybe i need to make a video about that it's okay to say no to placements you don't want to put yourself in a situation where you can't take care of a kid i'm not saying just take whatever you know case comes your way but i'm saying maybe be more open on the front end and be more selective on the other side of it so there you have it that is my comparison of adopting a toddler versus adopting an older kid if it was helpful to you in any way if you can click the thumbs up button that would be super helpful to help more people find this video and figure out what type of adoption is right for them it has been so long since i've sat down and actually done a sit-down adoption video but i really like doing these so i am planning to do some more in the upcoming weeks about different adoption topics i also would like to do another adoption update how we are doing at this point we are like eight months into the process of a legal risk adoptive placement and a lot of big things have happened lately in the case and we're just waiting and crossing our fingers for the next step so you can be looking for an update coming your way soon and also a couple more topical adoption videos like this to help people who are on their adoption journey if any of that interests you please hit the subscribe button and also you can click the bell which will notify you anytime that i post a new video i typically post videos on thursdays but sometimes i may do an extra one especially in the summer which is coming up so soon so you don't want to miss out on any of those videos and if you have any topic ideas i have a pretty big list right now but if there's anything specifically that you would love to see a video on adoption wise put it in the comments below and i will check it out that's all for today and i hope you have an awesome week [Music] you

Channel: Adopt Informed with Katie

Views: 34,138

Keywords: adoption, foster to adopt, foster care, adoptive family, foster family, International adoption, adoption, foster to adopt, foster care, adoptive family, foster family, International adoption, adoption, foster to adopt, foster care, adoptive family, foster family, International adoption

Id: goMSBWJ6Emc

Length: 36min 45sec (2205 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021