go to a information meeting at your local government foster care agency. Also, google private foster care agencies that work in your state they all have information sessions and staff that talk with prospective parents.
It takes a number of weeks and about 6 months or more to complete the training and home study process once you start. So, your kids would be more like 10 by the time you were ready to foster or foster to adopt.
You will get the best insight by actually attending some information sessions with adoption and foster care agencies. Most are in person but you can even attend some webinars to get information from agencies that work nation wide.

best of luck

Go to a FAPAC meeting. It’s basically a support group for foster parents and you can hear what they are dealing with.

http://dcfapac.org/index.html

That 30 hour training is a joke and you will NOT be prepared with just that training. You need to connect with some IRL foster parents first, read books on trauma, attachment disorder, etc.

Just reminding you of logistics- there is no childcare provided for the 30 hours of training. Your continuing ed (15-30 hours per year depending on where you are) does not provide childcare.

We have one foster child with no physical health issues and deal with appointments every week.

You need a good support network just to make the logistics one new kid work.

Anonymous wrote:The people saying “do research” or calling OP a troll are so ridiculous. How can you be so cruel and unhelpful. OP I hope you figure out what’s right for you, whether it is adopting now or in the future, you are doing a good thing by offering kids a home.

I think that's the objection.

We adopted a group of older siblings. We did not have biological children in our home at the time. There is no way I would recommend doing this with biological children in the home. It is simply tremendously unfair, and potentially dangerous, to the children whom you chose to bring into this world, and right now---your first responsibility is to them. Wait until your children are grown before you do this. Support at-risk kids in other ways---by supporting an at-risk family, or by volunteering with The Homeless Children's Playtime Project, an organization providing playgroups for kids living in DC family shelters.

Anonymous wrote:The people saying “do research” or calling OP a troll are so ridiculous. How can you be so cruel and unhelpful. OP I hope you figure out what’s right for you, whether it is adopting now or in the future, you are doing a good thing by offering kids a home.

You are only doing a good thing if its best for the kids and all kids needs are met. Adopting from foster care has many issues and many kids have issues from not getting their needs met.

The people saying “do research” or calling OP a troll are so ridiculous. How can you be so cruel and unhelpful. OP I hope you figure out what’s right for you, whether it is adopting now or in the future, you are doing a good thing by offering kids a home.

Anonymous wrote:I would also worry that the oldest of a whole sibling group would feel weird being a middle child in a whole new family.

OP, have you considered fostering a newborn or baby under 6 months? That's the easiest case scenario. Alternatively, you could look into being a "mentor mom" for a young, vunerable at-risk mother. That way, you'd be helping to keep a natural family intact and making a difference. I think that the Gabriel Network is a Christian/Catholic organization that can facilitate this mentorship, but there must be other organizations out there as well. I wish you the best, OP. You have a good heart, but please be careful.

I love the idea of mentoring a young, at risk mother. I also have this desire to help at-risk children but spent hundreds of hours volunteering with this population and the reality is, my family is not at the right life stage for me to give the time and attention these children need and deserve. OP, have you volunteered with at-risk children yet? Maybe start there before going through the process. It is also a huge leap to go from a mom of 3 to 6!!!! Why not look into doing emergency foster first, volunteering or even just going through the process for one child, that you can commit time and energy to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve always heard you should adopt younger kids than you have for safety reasons. Older children could possibly harm your younger kids.

I am familiar with this adage as well but I was thinking that so long as they were roughly the same age it would probably be fine. My kids are 6 and twins that are almost 9. I thought for example a 7 and 10 year old would likely be fine. But I’m ignorant here. I want to be educated.

Ugh really? You thought that would be a good idea?

Did you put any thought into this at all? Do even an tiny bit of research?

Having same age children sets up a competition better kids for your time and attention. Add in that children in foster care have experienced trauma and really need that opportunity to be the center of someone’s attention.

What you are envisioning is that it will be like hosting a very long play date. The kids will move in and just get into the groove of your routine as a family and adjust after a week or so and that’s that. You will sign them for sports and extra curricular, you will take cute photos of all the kids and post them to Instagram etc

This reminds me of this woman that was in my foster care training classes. The social worker said to us potential foster parents that wanting a playmate for your child is not a good reason to foster and the woman looked shocked and then admitted that’s why she was signing up. She also didn’t see a problem with hosting various homeless men in her home at the same time she would have a foster their own sel child ( she did this as a charitable act - she wasn’t in an relationship with them)

Op here. Do you ave children? Raising kids is nothing like a long play date. Sure there are parts of it that are pure joy but there is a lot of work and it is complicated. Children have personalities and their own view points shaped by their own self centered worlds and because they are kids. I envision literally all of that plus parts of their childhood that are unfathomable to me and unfairly hard for them. Sometimes I hope I will know exactly how to make them feel safe and loved. Sometimes I’ll try and I won’t. There will be ups and downs more so than we probably have now. It will make many thing harder for my family but with greater lows comes greater highs too. It will change my children’s upbringing but in a way that dh and I perceive to overall better than worse. That’s what I envision. But then again I could be entirely wrong. But no one has kids because it will be easy. I am certain that any kids we adopt will be better off for it. I am certain that my children will be better human beings for it and I know that we understand the financial and time commitments involved and prepared for that.

Obviously I am still researching but responses like yours are truly unhelpful. And sadly why so many kids who could use a home are in foster care. And you competition between kids argument. That is part of being a parent and part of being a kid. And part of being and adult too. My eldest are twins so yes I do believe that I am intimately familiar with it already.

PP you are responding to and yes I am an adoptive parent and have been a foster parent.

The competition for attention is a serious and real issue. It’s NOT THE SAME as competition between biological children in a family.

Go to this Facebook page and spend time reading the stories to see how naive parents like you end up creating more issues for the child, yourself, your own kids. So many of these stories talk about families that already had a few kids and then adopted a child from a trauma background. The child is hurting so much that they want to be placed in a new family. All of these families started off thinking like you....

https://m.facebook.com/secondchanceadoptions/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I adopted from foster care and adopted out of birth order. Thing is, you can find people who had good experiences doing this and those who didn’t. There are always risks with adding to your family, even if you have a biological child. You will have to take classes before you are approved. Educate yourself there, not on DCUM where people are so negative and have no actual experience.

Op here. Thank you. I’m not naive to birth order. I just don’t think it is the end all and be all. I also think the posters on here so obsessed with it clearly never raised twins before. I also believe that it is good for people to recognize that hierarchy can and will change. We are signed up for an info session next week and then 30 hours of classes thereafter.

And to the extent it matters dh was a teacher in dcps with homeless foster and adopted children. He would stay home full time. I don’t think six children is so
Difficult but we aren’t such fools as to think it is easy.

It’s interesting that you are asking for advice but seem to have already made up your mind.
It sounds like you have a good heart and intentions but really aren’t completely doing your research. Good luck but I would agree with them many posters who bring up the birth order factor.

Why don’t you foster for a while?

There are lots of families with 6 kids. I would go to the training classes and see what you think after that. I would also ask the agency you're working with if you can provide respite care for other families who've adopted from foster care with them so you get a sense of what it's like (of course knowing that kids behave different for a babysitter).

In my experience, there is a huge difference between children who have been removed from their birth families and those who haven't. Another big difference between those whose parents were able to get them back versus parental rights being terminated. And a gigantic difference between those who were adopted by their caretakers (foster families or relatives) versus those whose caretakers were not willing or able to adopt them. Almost by definition, the kids in that final group have tremendous unmet needs. As a result, I think you have to go in expecting that any "waiting child" you adopt will have attachment issues, really challenging sibling dynamics (read about parentification, trauma bonds, etc.), the need for an IEP, and the need for inpatient/residential treatment at some point during their childhood. It is possible that you will get the rare sibling group where none of these are applicable but these things are the norm rather than the exception.

So read about FASD. Read about attachment disorders. Go to NAMI meetings and learn what it's like to have a family member with a mental illness (because a whole lot of parents whose kids are placed in foster care have mental illnesses, and a lot of them have genetic components, and trauma itself is a risk factor for serious mental illness). If you're in DC, go to a FAPAC meeting and meet other families who have adopted from foster care. Really think about if you are willing to have emergency psychiatric services, the police, social workers, and others coming to your house regularly. Think about what it will be like to have alarms on the windows and doors in your house to prevent kids from escaping or interacting unsupervised with each other. Are you prepared to put all knives, scissors, and the knobs to your stove in a lockbox so a child cannot harm herself or start a fire? Have a therapist and someone who can prescribe anti-anxiety and/or antidepressant medication FOR YOU lined up (most foster parents I know required meds even if they didn't before fostering) because you will not have time to figure it out when the kids are placed with you.

I was a foster parent of a grade schooler, in a placement we thought was going to be adoptive. It was the hardest thing we ever did. I was not nearly as good at it as I wanted to be. We wound up asking for the child to be removed. Now we volunteer with an organization that supports at-risk families in hopes that they won't need to enter the foster care system. It's a much better fit for us.

Someone needs to adopt the thousands of kids waiting for permanent homes. I hope your family is able to handle it. But be prepared that it will turn all of your lives upside down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I adopted from foster care and adopted out of birth order. Thing is, you can find people who had good experiences doing this and those who didn’t. There are always risks with adding to your family, even if you have a biological child. You will have to take classes before you are approved. Educate yourself there, not on DCUM where people are so negative and have no actual experience.

Op here. Thank you. I’m not naive to birth order. I just don’t think it is the end all and be all. I also think the posters on here so obsessed with it clearly never raised twins before. I also believe that it is good for people to recognize that hierarchy can and will change. We are signed up for an info session next week and then 30 hours of classes thereafter.

And to the extent it matters dh was a teacher in dcps with homeless foster and adopted children. He would stay home full time. I don’t think six children is so
Difficult but we aren’t such fools as to think it is easy.

I’m glad to hear one of you would be staying home. That would make handling everything to do with school and appointments easier.

How qualified do you think you and/or DH would be with ASD? ADHD? ODD? FAS? NAS? What about diabetes, asthma or other purely physical issues? Over 50% of kids in foster care have major health issues, and if I remember correctly, it’s slightly higher among kids who available for adoption through foster care.

I’m not trying to discourage you from ever adopting. The kids who are most at need are the kids with the most severe issues (odd, fas, nas, anything involving immunosuppression), but you have to be realistic about what you know how to handle and how much research and work goes into tackling sn that you’ve never tackled before.
https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/healthy-foster-care-america/Pages/Physical-Health.aspx

No matter what the physical health of the kids is, there will be mental/emotional trauma. If you think you can handle it, go for it. I’d still suggest a sibling group with the eldest at least 6 months younger than your youngest.

My sister adopted a sibling pair when they were toddler and preschool aged. It was very stressful and traumatic. I can’t imagine what it would be like if she already had biological children. The adoptive kids had issues with feeding, anger, stealing, attention, destructive behavior , etc. This required much intervention with therapists, psychiatrists, daycare teachers. She also had to coordinate visits with the bio family. Its taken years to get where they are now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh I hope this is a troll post. I have 5 brothers and sisters and life was complicated enough when we were all related. And a big strain on my parents.
OP sounds very naive.

I’m one of 5. Dh one of 6. Neither of our families felt stress from too many children. I don’t think most larger families do. In some ways it is actually easier.

It is different with all biological kids.

Anonymous wrote:Gosh I hope this is a troll post. I have 5 brothers and sisters and life was complicated enough when we were all related. And a big strain on my parents.
OP sounds very naive.

I’m one of 5. Dh one of 6. Neither of our families felt stress from too many children. I don’t think most larger families do. In some ways it is actually easier.