In my last post, I wrote about older child adoption in my Transracial Adoption ABCs. In this post I will give a quick summary of our experiences adopting older children.

We have adopted three children who were six years of age or older at adoption. Each of their adjustments into our family were all very different. Some were more challenging than others, but even on our worst days the good far outweighed the bad, and we are grateful to have them in our home and family.

Our son, Ben, came home at age six over a year ago, and has been a breeze from day one. While he did experience great loss in his short life, he also knew love and security. He has been happy, loving, trusting, easy-going and a joy to parent. He did some grieving in the beginning, but he came to us with open arms and an open heart. He has slept well and eaten well since the beginning and has thrived in school. He is well bonded to us and his siblings and has truly been one of our easiest kids.

Our girls were six and nine years old when they came to us, and even though they were sisters and had lived together (and through the same struggles) they had very different reactions and adjustments when we adopted them. They came from a very difficult background of abuse, neglect and heartbreak.

One of the girls went through her emotions fast and furiously. She was happy one moment and crying the next. She could throw a doozie of a tantrum one minute, and be sweet as pie five minutes later. She talked about her emotions, and let us know when she was sad, mad, excited, nervous, etc.

Within a month or two she “leveled out”, and her true personality started to emerge. She started to become very well attached and bonded to us shortly after that, and now, almost three years later, she continues to be happy and settled. She can talk openly about her first family and life and her adoption. She loves us and trusts us and is an amazing young woman that we are blessed to parent. She has struggled in school some because of learning delays and a lack of education before her adoption, but she works hard and makes us proud.

Her younger sister was much different. She came to us and acted very much like “the perfect child”. She rarely cried, she never argued, she didn’t talk back or step out of line in anyway. She showed very little emotion, which we knew wasn't a good. She seemed afraid to “ruin a good thing”. About six months later she finally felt safe enough to start to open up and to “test” our love for her, and boy did she test us!

Things got better over the course of a year or so, and then she finally seemed to settle in and find her place. Since then she has blossomed into a happy and secure girl who knows how to love and trust and share her emotions.

Were our older child adoptions easy? No, (well, Ben's was!). Was it the same as when we adopted our babies and toddlers? No. Have they been worth the challenges? Absolutely.

Overall I know that we were very lucky and very blessed, as our challenges were minimal. I know that there are families who face long-term, significant struggles with their older adopted children. I also know many other families likes ours, who have had it relatively easy and were very blessed by older child adoption.

You can connect with other parents who have adopted older children at the Older Child Adoption Forum.

*The picture above is of Mercy, now 12, adopted at age 9, cuddled up with her brother on our recent vacation.