Should I Foster a Younger Child or Teen First? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: My husband and I are licensed to foster/adopt, but there have been no placements yet. We initially thought our age preference was 2-6 year olds, but as we have gotten more information/education we think we may be a good home for teenagers. We have no children (adopted/fostered/biological) between us but this also means we have no one else in the home at this time. We are still interested in fostering (and adopting should the opportunity arise) younger children as well at some point. My question is would it be "better" for us to start with teens and move to younger children after the teens have left our home (for college, work, general adulthood independence) or would we be better prepared for teens after having younger children first?

Resources:

• Becoming a Foster Parent
• Foster Care Adoption
• Welcoming an Older Child to Your Home

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome everyone to this week's Weekend Wisdom. This is our opportunity to answer
your questions and we need you to send us your questions. You can send them to
info @creatingafamily .org or there is a link in the app you are using to send us a
message. So either way it will get to us. So let me jump right in.
This question comes from Carly. Carly says, "My husband and I are licensed to foster
/adopt. No placements yet." We initially thought our age preference was two to six
-year -olds, but as we have gotten more information in education, we think we may be
a good home for teenagers. We have no children, biological, foster, or adopted
between us, but this also means we have no one else in the home at this time. We
are still interested in fostering and adopting should the opportunity arise, younger
children. My question is, would it be better for us to start with teens and move
to younger children after the teens have left our home for college, work, general
adulthood, independence? Or would we be better prepared for teens after having younger
children first? Thank you for your time and assistance. I listen to both podcasts
each week and feel your knowledge and resources are invaluable to people in my
position. Thank you for all you do for this community. Thanks, Carly, truly, for
your kind words. I mean it when I say they mean a lot. All right, there are so
many things to consider when making this decision. First, there is such a need for
homes, for teens and foster care. People, really, honestly, our whole society have
given teens such a bad rap, and that scares people off, but there are so many
advantages to parenting teens. They can carry on such interesting conversations. You
get a window into the next generation. They can teach you video games and how to
use the latest app on your phone. They're old enough to do some of the things that
you think are actually fun, such as playing a real game of basketball or going to
a movie that is not animated and, you know, the list goes on and on. And there
are also so many firsts to experience with them. First time at the beach, first
problem, getting their driver's license. Another advantage of starting older is that
if you were to add a younger child to your family at a later time, you have some
information already on how your teen would handle having a younger child around. And
from my experience, parenting younger kids doesn't really prepare you for parenting
teens unless it is those younger kids who have grown into adolescence and you've
grown along with them. And it doesn't sound like that's the situation you're
considering. So I don't think that is a factor you should consider in making your
decision. However, one downside, depending on how strongly you feel about parenting
younger kids, you don't mention how old you are. But if you have a strong desire,
you may not want to wait until you are too much older to bring younger children
into your family. Younger kids demand more energy. And if it works out that you
have the option--
Either way is inherently better. Also, as you know, you have no idea how long any
child will stay with you. Generally speaking, you will get a placement of an older
child sooner, although that depends a lot on what kids and youth are coming into
care when your license is ready, and how large of an agency you are working with,
so in other words, how many kids they see coming into care. One option would be to
be open to a broad age range and then see where the need is, Which one comes up
first? That would be another way to handle this. Carly, I hope this has been
helpful. I am so glad to know that you are enjoying both our regular podcast,
"Creating a Family," as well as our "Weekend Wisdom" podcast. And thanks for sending
in your question. And before everyone leaves, let me remind you that "Creating a
Family" has a monthly e -newsletter. It is a great resource. We curate some of the
best resources we have found that month. It's easy, it's free. It's easy to
unsubscribe. If it doesn't melt your butter and you're not interested, you can easily
unsubscribe. You can sign up at creatingafamily .org /newsletter.
Thanks for listening and I will see you next week.