Adopting Older Children
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
02/05/25
•53m
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Are you considering adopting a child over the age of 5? Join our discussion with Dr. Stephanie Bosco-Ruggiero. She has a PhD in Social Work from Fordham University and is co-author of the book Adopting Older Children: A Practical Guide to Adopting and Parenting Children Over Age Four.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The greatest need in both foster care adoption and international adoption is to adopt kids 5 and older.
- Adolescents have a bad reputation in general in our society and those in foster care or international child welfare institutions have an even worse reputation.
- These kids and youth may have challenging behaviors that will be hard to parent. (They also may not have challenging behaviors.)
- Why have they developed these behaviors? (grief and loss, trauma, mental health)
- What are some typical behaviors that are more difficult for parents?
- Tips for creating trust and attachment with older children.
- How to prevent these behaviors from influencing other kids in the family?
- Special issues specific to older kids adopted internationally.
- Lack of ability to communicate.
- Cultural differences.
- Safety concerns, especially if there are younger children in the family.
- Sexually acting out.
- Physical abuse.
- Sibling relationships when adopting an older child.
- Contact with bio family members and former foster parents
- Trying to establish rules with teens/tweens who have had too much freedom.
- Helping kids academically.
- Neuropsychological evaluations, IEPs,
- Support for adoptive families
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
We Want to Adopt, but My Father-in-Law Has Terminal Cancer - Weekend Wisdom
February 1, 2025
•3m
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Question: My father-in-law was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a maximum of 6 months left to live. We learned this right before our home study for older child/foster care adoption was finalized. Do you have any advice for what we should do with our adoption process moving forward? I am worried if we match before my husband is done grieving, we could add additional trauma to the child, but there is no set timeline for grieving. How do we deal with our loss while helping a child get through their loss?
Resources:
- Creating a Family Online Support Group (Facebook)
- Transitioning a Child to Your Home (Resource Page)
- Helping a Child Heal from Trauma (Resource Page)
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!
Question: My husband and I have two adopted twin boys who are 8 months old, and we've had them since birth. We've been on the fence for years about a big move outside of the country, but we're currently leaning towards leaving. My husband and, by extension, our kids have dual nationality with the country we'd go to. Thankfully, I'm also allowed to tag along.
We currently live near a large family and support network from both sides of the family and would be mostly on our own except for a few distant relatives after the move. We are also close and in frequent contact with our sons' birth family, but they don't live near us so that relationship has always been planned to be a mostly long-distance relationship.
We would plan on setting aside funds just for visiting our family and our birth family every one or two years, but ultimately all our children's family relationships will become long-distance. We worry about the move exacerbating feelings of abandonment or isolation from all sides of their family as they'd not only be raised in another culture but another language and continent. We all come from similar cultural backgrounds, so we aren't too worried about being able to keep them in touch with their birth culture. But we want to be sensitive to their particular needs as to how this could affect them as adoptees.
Is there any research on how adoptees are affected by being adopted into larger vs smaller families? Or adoptees who move abroad or are adopted into immigrant families? Or is there some advice to be gleaned from families adopting internationally that would apply to our situation?
Our children are our highest priority, and we want to set them up for success whether or not we move.
Resources:
- Open Adoption (Resource)
- Self-Care for Parents & Caregivers (Resource)
- Creating a Family Online Support Group (Facebook)
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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