How would you handle this adoption/homeschool situation?

[steppingstonemomma]

Hubby and I have 4 biological children (12yod,10yos,9yos and 5yos) and we feel like God is calling us to adopt a sibling group of 3 (ages 8, 5 and 4) from Mexico. We feel totally great about the dynamics of the family, but honestly I don't know how to handle the language barrier AND homeschooling at the same time. (They speak spanish.)

 

Where do I begin? I'm not as concerned about the 5 and 4 yo, since they will be fine to delay a little, but I hate to have the 8 yo get behind academically because of the language barrier. (Although, they are in an orphanage so maybe she'll be behind anyway. I don't know yet.)

 

Anyone have any thoughts, BTDT advice, or books/sites I can read about this?

 

Thanks so much!

[Julie in Austin]

One way that ESL is handled in schools here is to present the material in Spanish in the morning and then present the same material in English in the afternoon.

 

And I would assume that an 8yo in an orphanage would have significant academic and other delays.

[Lisa in Jax]

You're talking about breaking two "unbreakable" adoption rules: 1. adopting out of birth order (you never adopt a child older than your youngest child) and 2. adopting more than one at a time.

 

An expert tried to tell me what I'm telling you, but we didn't listen. I wish we had listened!! Despite being warned, we adopted two siblings (then age 8 and age 4) from India six years ago, and it went VERY badly. Love is NOT enough to heal kids with severe abuse/trauma backgrounds.

 

I know that it seems "perfect," but it is very likely to be anything but.

 

If you haven't been a foster family or adoptive family before this, adopting three at once is a very risky choice. Having seen what adopting two did to our family, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

If you'd like to know why I don't recommend it, I'd be glad to talk to you privately. In public, all I'll say is that despite five years of therapy, love and attention, our daughter's problems were so severe that last summer, we no longer felt that it was safe to have her remain in our home.

 

Lisa

[Bess]

You're talking about breaking two "unbreakable" adoption rules: 1. adopting out of birth order (you never adopt a child older than your youngest child) and 2. adopting more than one at a time.

 

An expert tried to tell me what I'm telling you, but we didn't listen. I wish we had listened!! Despite being warned, we adopted two siblings (then age 8 and age 4) from India six years ago, and it went VERY badly. Love is NOT enough to heal kids with severe abuse/trauma backgrounds.

 

I know that it seems "perfect," but it is very likely to be anything but.

 

If you haven't been a foster family or adoptive family before this, adopting three at once is a very risky choice. Having seen what adopting two did to our family, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

If you'd like to know why I don't recommend it, I'd be glad to talk to you privately. In public, all I'll say is that despite five years of therapy, love and attention, our daughter's problems were so severe that last summer, we no longer felt that it was safe to have her remain in our home.

 

Lisa

 

Lisa,

I just wanted to pop in here and tell you how sorry I am. :( That must have been such an ordeal. Kudos to you for trying to take on that enormous undertaking. Most people wouldn't even try in the first place. I hope that your family can heal. I wish you the best!

[LibraryLover]

Lisa :grouphug: You are very brave to share this. I am looking at foster -to -adopt and there are so many sibling groups! I try to imagine the day- to -day care, morning until bedtime ( if there is one) going through everything I do now, but with extra children who will be so needy. Do I have it in me to give them all they will need?

 

It's something I think about and my youngest is 10. I think of the worst days with my kids and then I multiply it with more kids who haven't had the benefit of security, enough food, and perhaps prenatal issues. It is very sobering. I am not saying I will never undertake it. I just don't know. Thank you for sharing your experience so gently.

 

LaurieNE, who is supposed to be packing and dropped her kids at friends for T ot T, but is now regretting it!

[Sputterduck]

Why is it bad to adopt a sibling group? I would think it would be healthier for the children to have their siblings with them. Maybe this is why singletons get adopted so much faster. No one wants to break siblings apart but no one wants to adopt them? :(

 

Also who is it bad to mess with birth order?

[NavyWifeandMommy]

Hubby and I have 4 biological children (12yod,10yos,9yos and 5yos) and we feel like God is calling us to adopt a sibling group of 3 (ages 8, 5 and 4) from Mexico. We feel totally great about the dynamics of the family, but honestly I don't know how to handle the language barrier AND homeschooling at the same time. (They speak spanish.)

 

Where do I begin? I'm not as concerned about the 5 and 4 yo, since they will be fine to delay a little, but I hate to have the 8 yo get behind academically because of the language barrier. (Although, they are in an orphanage so maybe she'll be behind anyway. I don't know yet.)

 

Anyone have any thoughts, BTDT advice, or books/sites I can read about this?

 

Thanks so much!

 

I hope it works out for you, when we return to the state hubby and I plan to adopt a sibling group. I don't see an issue about birth order. I personally will not adopt a child older than my oldest. I have gone to the MOPS forums and read the posts about adoption and just googled online, read a bunch a books from the library and mostly talked to famlies that adopted. I have two friends that adopted domestically and internationally. I also got to a church that has quite a few adoption families. It can be a rocky road but so worth it.

[Ottakee]

I will jump in here as a foster mom to over 100 children in 10 years and adoptive mom of 3---1 single and 2 sisters.

 

First, a sibling group can be wonderful to adopt and it can be a huge blessing to these kids BUT and these are HUGE things to consider---some sibling groups (not all but many) have many disfunctional aspects to the siblings and they carry out the abuse they experienced and things they were exposed to on each other. Also, sometimes siblings will work hard to make the adoption NOT work as one of them might feel that it is disloyal to the birth family to love/bond with another family. I have seen both of these things happen many times.

 

My son is from a sibling group of 6 that went into 5 different homes. He has contact to varying degrees with all of his siblings. The family that adopted the 2 together (sisters) honestly feels that alone, each would have done better than they did together. We had one sister here for a few months but due to her acting out against him she had to be moved--come to find out, it was a problem known but not told to us ahead of time.

 

I do think that some contact with siblings is great and some sibling groups can be adopted together (remember my experiences are all foster care in the US cases). It does though take a very dedicated family with a very strong support network.

 

As to birth order. You want your youngest bio child to be older than than oldest of the adopted children by several years. Again, these kids CAN and often DO act out their abuse on other kids--physical, sexual, etc. You want your kids old enough to protect themselves.

 

Also, very often adopted kids come in with emotional and learning delays. It can become very hard to explain to the adopted kiddo why they at 8 can't have the same freedoms that a bio 5 year old is ready to handle. This can cause a lot of resentment with the adopted kids or bio kids. The adopted kids often need the freedom to go back through the emotional stages they might have missed--the loving, cuddling of infancy, toddlerhood, etc.

 

This is just a super brief answer to your questions.

 

I am VERY pro adoption but it is much harder than most people ever expect when they go into it--esp. with a sibling group and/or older kids. They don't just love you and appreciate all you did to "rescue" them.

 

Why is it bad to adopt a sibling group? I would think it would be healthier for the children to have their siblings with them. Maybe this is why singletons get adopted so much faster. No one wants to break siblings apart but no one wants to adopt them? :(

 

Also who is it bad to mess with birth order?

[Cindy in C-ville]

I'm reading with interest! We're just adopting one and she is younger than our youngest "bio," but only by a year. In Ukraine, they won't allow you to break up sibling groups, but most of the families that I see adopting siblings have older children, FWIW.

 

Regarding hs'ing, I really freaked out about this for a few days while we were in Ukraine. Up until then, dh and I had just thought that Kateryna becoming part of our family and learning English was all that we really needed to focus on for the first year. Then, while I was over there, I really got concerned and even considered putting her in public school for the ESL classes. But, after a day or two, I settled back down and am back to our original plan. Part of my concern is keeping her busy while I'm schooling the others. When mine were younger, I set up stations around the house and rotated them through. I'm thinking with Katya, and several of the siblings, we'll go back to this. They'll get "station time" as a break from their schoolwork, but the stations will really BE Katya's schoolwork. From talking with her teacher in the orphanage, and from all I've observed, she is a good reader, in Russian. But b/c of this, she should learn not just conversational English more easily, but also be able to learn grammar eventually. However, her math skills are lagging. Basically, I plan to do A LOT of manipulative play.

 

Anyway, as one who's on this adoption journey as well, my hat's off to you for even considering this. While I agree with the posters who gave very wise caution, I'd also say that if God's calling you to do this, then do it, even if it's not "successful." We've had this idea before us all along - "God doesn't call us to be successful (in the world's eyes). He calls us to be faithful."

[gardening momma]

My grandparents adopted a sibling group of 4. I don't know of any problems. They adopted a total of 6, and had 3 biological kids (I'm pretty sure all the biological kids were older, but not sure--it's possible one or more of the adopted ones could be older than the youngest biological one).

[Ferdie]

We had a friend with 5 children who were homeschooled. She adopted three children from Russia and put them in public school until the language barrier was not an issue - I think it was a year or two.

[heatonsmom]

As a young child my parents fostered an older sibling group. From my perspective it was a total mess. I won't get into all of the details publicly but there was plenty of bitterness on all sides. One day my dh and I hope to foster, but we will only welcome children younger than our youngest.

[Ravin]

That "bio kids older" rule isn't necessarily hard and fast. My parents were foster parents when we were growing up. When we were little, they fostered teenagers and helped several get a decent start in life as they aged out with our family. When we were older (preteen/teen) they fostered several more teenagers; one, my sister J, was with us from age 13 (she's a year older then me, and I'm the oldest of the bio kids) and aged out with us; she was never formally adopted but we (and she) still consider her part of the family; the one unsuccessful placement during that period was a girl who was actually younger than my bio sisters, thus following the "birth order" rule. With my younger sisters being twins and J being less than a year older and the same grade as me, our family balanced quite well.

 

If you feel you are called to do this, then do it. Every placement, child, and situation is different. There are bound to be obstacles, and not every story has a fairy tale ending, but that doesn't make it not worthwhile. Just do it with your eyes open and every bit of training and support you can muster!

[KrissiK]

We adopted a sib group of 2, but they were babies when we adopted them (13 months and 4 months old). I hate to say it, but I would also hesitate to adopt an older sib group, although unfortunately there are a lot of them to be adopted. One of the problems we're going through with our 3rd adoption (4th child) is that we're trying to stay with the birth order thing (which we think is very important), but our daughter is 3, and younger children are the most adoptable, so there aren't many of them.

 

Regarding your original question, I would rather homeschool a child without English than send him/her to public school. Especially if they were spanish speaking (where I live in California Spanish is more commonly spoken than English). I thnk they would pick up English more quickly, as well as facilitate the bonding process if they were home with you. You could probably get a lot of information about TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from your local university.

[Kate CA]

You're talking about breaking two "unbreakable" adoption rules: 1. adopting out of birth order (you never adopt a child older than your youngest child) and

 

I really appreciate that you mentioned this. I know of two situations where there was serious abuse to the younger bio child by the older adopted/foster child. I would never encourage a family to adopt out of birth order and would not recommend adopting a child that was not many years younger than my own for these very reasons.

[Anne in CA]

I have visited many, many orphanages in other countries and all that I have visited do a great job of keeping children well educated. It is in their best interest if they hope to get money from Americans. I bet she will be doing well academically.

 

If it were me I would keep her home and work on English for a few months and she will probably catch up academic work fairly quickly with home school type tutoring.

[Starr]

I don't think you can start to compare your 8 year olds. Just like all children you will have to see what your new child's learning needs are and go from there. Children learn languages fairly quickly. Being with the family and taking a chance that a child might be delayed or doing something very separate from the others will be a big decision for your family. My unexperienced gut reaction would be to keep them all together. They could learn language skills together. I wouldn't worry about what grade level work was being done the first year. Wishing you well.

[SonshineLearner]

Our youngest is 6 and my dream was to adopt. Perhaps it could still happen... I'm thinking of a 3 and 5 year old or something like that... when my son is just a bit older. Then I think about whether I am willing to basically tomato stake myself:-) to the kids... I have such freedom now, and think about the fact that for safety's sake, you have to be willing to watch the children all the time, to watch for what's happening... I'm thinking of adopting US kids.... Our oldest are 17,14,11 girls... and then a 6 yr old son....

I'll continue watching this...

 

Carrie

[jeri]

First, know that I LOVE to homeschool! It is really a passion and a heart issue for me. And, I homeschool all my bio kids.

 

Four years ago, we adopted an 8 yo from Ukraine. She joined our other 8 yo girl, and our 5 yo and 3 yo boys. She came from a "good" orphanage school. But you have to realize that in many countries, a "good" school consists of memorizing a lot of information, and little understanding of the situation. Also, when a child is living in an orphanage, they never have books read to them, go to the grocery store, visit a zoo . . . In other words, even if they "learn" the info, they have no context for the world. So it is one thing to learn that they know their addition facts; it is another thing for them to actually be able to understand that if they have 5 pieces of candy and they get 6 more that they will have 11. Anyway, she did some school with my 5 yo during that first 1/2 year home (we adopted in Jan). Then I tried to homeschool her the second year and although she learned, it was very challenging becasuue of her personality. She was/is very immature adn did not *want* to do school but wanted to play instead. And since I had a precocious 9 yo, a budding 6 yo reader/mathematician, and a preschooler, it became very difficult to keep homeschooling going. At that point, we put her in a small parochial school and I could get back to homeschooling my others.

 

A year and a half ago we adopted a sib set, then an 8 yo girl and a 6 yo boy, from Ethiopia. Again, they came from a "good" (private, Catholic) school at the orphanage. Because I was driving my one dd to her school every day (total of one hour each day) and had the others at home, we pulled her out to continue homeschooling all of them. I gave her a lot of good quality seat work (WW, JAG, Horizon math) and worked with the new kids and my youngest who was then 6. Once again, we had to start way back in the beginning. Now I had two 11 yos, two 8 yos, a 6 yo and a 5yo.

 

We actually moved overseas in February of last year. That means that our Ethiopian kids had been home about a year so far. Given that we were in a hotel for 6 weeks, we put them all in the American school on the Army base. My two ET kids got ESL services and extra reading help. My Uk dd didn't qualify for any services and did adequately. All 6 of them finished out the school year in June and over the summer I thought very carefully about what I planned to do when Sept started.

 

What has happened is that my Uk dd is in school and my ET son is in school, both mostly because of personality reasons. They are both doing well, pretty much at grade level (except my son who is still at a grade 1/2 level for reading). They are difficult to homeschool becauuse the desire to learn is not there and they distract the other kids. It is frankly easier (and so against my heart!) to have them being told and held accountable by another adult. They are now learning that they are responsible for their output and their behavior. My ET dd is home because in spite of extra help, one-on-one assistance, a bit of laziness on her part, she is still quite far behind her age group.

 

As for the "adopting out of birth order" part, I will say that it can be done. But it will be the hardest thing you will ever do. Like us, your children will be close in age, so this is not that you have a lot of teens who can stay home by themselves as you do things that need to be done with the new kids (dr. appts, medical evals, learning evals, etc.) It will be a bit more like Lord of the Flies if you are not very clear on issues from the get go. I have a *very* mature 12 yo dd but I still couldn't legally leave her home to babysit my others when I dealt with new adopting issues with our new kids. Think through some other issues: what if your 5 yo is bullied by the older new kids and you don't even know it until later? what if he is sexually molested? who will be sharing what bedrooms? how are you going to keep your oldest on track since s/he is approaching high school? what if one of the kids is such a selfish, thoughtless child that the other kids even have difficulty playing with him (yes, this is my ET son)? what if there are undiagnosed learning difficulties (although my ET son and my UK dd are perfectly fluent in English, my ET dd still makes basic syntax error--"She take it", "I bringed it," "Can I today have candy?"; she also struggles mightilyy with reading, spelling and math, in fact my just-turned-7 yo is way ahead of her in all areas.) do you have someone who could help with tutoring your youngers in English, read picture books to them, count blocks, etc. while you help your olders? is your dh completely onboard with this to the point that he could leave work and come home without a lot of notice if you called him? What is the new kids refuse to eat what you've made? If you tell them that's ok, how do your younger bio kids react?

 

If you are open to alternative education for your kids (ie. public school), you have an option there. If you realize that until your 12 yo is a bit older, you will have 7 under the age of 12 and that's a lot for any mom!

 

I've got to go get ready for church! I will say that this is the hardest thing we have ever done and because of that, we are done! After 1.5 years things are getting better, but things still crop up. You have to be really strong and willing to change your expectations. Need to run.

 

jeri

[CalicoKat]

We've adopted 5 times. Our first three were private infant adoptions. The younger two we fostered 3 and 2 years. The younger two are also siblings.

 

We were given the advice you've been receiving about NOT disrupting your family's birth order. I whole heartedly agree with that advice.

 

We had been fostering our son for 18 months when we got a call from our case worker about his sister. Because of his placement in our home we had "first right of refusal" for her placement. Of course we welcomed her despite the dire predictions of the medical community 99%of which have not come true.

 

If you're interested in helping siblings there is another way. It's not a "sure thing" that the birth mom would have another child and you'd get that child too. But it's not totally unlikely either.

 

When we got a call about his silbing we were better prepared and able to help her.

[Haiku]

(Although, they are in an orphanage so maybe she'll be behind anyway. I don't know yet.)

 

 

Having adopted older children from orphanages, I have to say that learning English and being academically behind will likely be the least of your worries.

 

Tara

[Guest Barb B]

I have not btdt, but you asked for thoughts. I see you ask for thoughts about the language barrier. . . First, I think it is awesome what you are doing. If you feel led by God, go for it and take negative advice with a grain of salt. Anyway, my only thought is maybe there is a college student at a local college or community college who is bilingual and would be willing to come and help?

 

Blessings to you, and keep us posted!

 

Barb

[jeri]

and having re-read what I wrote, want to add that we love our children! We definitely felt led by God to do this and we are happy we did. I am not trying to be a nay-sayer, but some of the situations I and others posted before are very true! This is *really* hard work and the more children you adopt and the older they are, the higher to possibility of difficulties! But this isn't to say that things will go wrong; there are lots of families who adopt and things go verryy smoothly! I do wish you well in your endeavor and please feel free to email me if you want!

 

jeri