Any helpful books about adopting, an emphasis on adopting older children and siblings would be best?

Question

My husband and I have given birth to a son, lately we've been thinking about expanding our family with adopting. I would like to adopt the harder-to-place older kids (maybe 3-15 years) and sibling groups. Idealy, I'd like two sisters around age seven or so. Any good books to get me started? I feel like a lot of books focus on adopting babies and dealing with infertility, neither of these are issues for our family.

Answer 1

Hi - I'm not sure about any good books, though I will supply you with some links. I'm fourteen years old and having major home problems. I am working to get put up for adoption and would love to get more information about your family.

For parents looking to adopt, though:

www.adopting.org

www.parentprofiles.com

www.photolisting.adoption.com

On these sites there are often pages of resources that can be helpful to parents looking to adopt.

Hope this helps! ;-)

Answer 2

Anything written by Lois Melina!  She is an adoption expert, and has written numerous books.

Good luck!!

Answer 3

Depending on how old your biological child is, you may want to hold off on adopting older children.  While adopting older, hard to place children is a wonderful thing, these children are traumatized and can have a variety of emotional, behavioral, and mental issues.  Sexually abused children tend to prey on younger children, abusing them in the way that they were abused, so be careful if you have young children in the home.

That being said..

the top link in the space below if for tapestry books.  They publish books that deal with adoption and adoption related issues.  They have sections for older children, children who have been in foster care, as well as books that deal with some of the major issues that children who have been removed from their biological home by the state tend to have.  Some of these books are going to scare you, most if not all are going to make you cry.  A book you are definitely going to want to read is one called "When Love Is Not Enough"  I believe that one is a Foster Cline book, but I havent had my coffee yet this morning, but I know I have the title right.

Parenting traumatized children is very, very hard.  The rewards are great, but only if you can appreciate the very smallest of steps, and can put absolutely no expectations on the child, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Some of these kids have had to fend for themselves since they were babies as those survivial skills and the behaviors that go along with it, are not just going to disappear overnight.  

The second link is for the shop at adoption.com they have a huge selection of adoption related items, including books.