Hi

We are wanting to adopt via foster care. We would like to adopt 2 yrs or younger but have been told that the children are older. Is that common?

I can tell you how it was for us in our state. We started with a private adoption of a newborn. When he was 4, we became homestudy-ready again, this time in a fost-to-adopt program. Our biggest want was to have a child younger than our son. We were told it would be a challenge since the majority of children were older and that there was more ‘competition’ for younger kids.

The woman we worked with said to look at our list carefully (We were given pages of physical and behavioral traits and had to indicate on each one if it was something we would either definitely consider, def. NOT consider, or might consider) and really try to open ourselves up as much as possible, given our age limitation. Some things right off the bat she said to consider were: be open to any race, be open to either sex, be open to multiple siblings (we put our limit at 2), and go through the list and accept whatever we were truly comfortable with. (For example, asthma, cleft palettes, and tattling [yes - that was an option ]  were fine for us, but we weren’t comfortable with other major medical conditions and certain behaviors like fire-setting and sexualized behavior) Also, we were told being open to a ‘legal-risk’ placement (Parental rights haven’t been terminated yet) could bring us placements of more younger children.

It worked out well for us. We had a few leads that didn’t pan out, but then got selected for a sibling pair, 3 and 1, who were legally free, with backgrounds that we felt would fit well with our family. It was a great experience. I’ve known people who’ve really limited themselves and came away disappointed - I’m definitely not saying to accept kids that you feel would be beyond your capabilities just to get a placement, but the list we were given made us talk about it and really assess what our strengths and weaknesses were.

Good luck!  I hope you it goes well for you, whatever way you decide to adopt!

My partner and I are doing foster-to-adopt.
We were pretty open about what kind of child we’d be willing to foster (under 6 years, male or female, any race, mild to moderate health issues, etc). Then when the calls came, we listened to the stories and asked questions to determine if it was a good placement or not. We accepted a foster placement of a newborn. We’ve had him for many months and all signs point to adoption.

Every state is different and every organization is different so it all depends on your situation.

my husband and i are foster-adopting in nys and the majority of the children “seem” to be older.  from what we can see the children between 6 and 10 are prevalent.  fortunately dh and i would like a boy between the ages of 8-10 in our home.  everyone has their own system and statistics.  i hope everything finds you well.  best of luck!

xo