What are some of the questions and worries people have about fostering older kids?

But babies are so cute. School age kids are cute too. They have a mouthful of teeth; they (usually) sleep through the night; they eat with a spoon (most of the time); they are (usually) toilet trained.

Don’t the older kids have lots of problems? Yes and no. If the child has been in the foster care system for a long time, they may have problems, related to being in multiple placements. We’ve had a couple of kids who were sent to us because the previous foster home couldn’t handle them. Sometimes, the kids were the problem. Sometimes the other foster home was the problem.

If the “older” kids are the older kids in a sibling group, we’ve noticed the younger children in the family are often the most disturbed. We’ve never seen any research on this, but we have a couple of guesses as to why it might be.

Most families come into the child welfare system because of some combination of drugs, family violence or criminal behavior. Those families function for a while, and get progressively worse. When the older kids were infants, the family may have been doing well enough to meet their infant attachment needs. But by the time the younger ones come along, the family system has deteriorated to the point that the infants are left to languish, or are cared for by the older kids.

So, in a family a four or five kids, the older ones may be capable of bonding with your family, while the little ones are attachment disordered. The older kids may have had the psychological resources to deal with the family disruption, and even understand it. But for the little kids, it was just disruption and chaos.

Yet foster and adoptive families often prefer having younger kid placed with them, thinking that their problems will be easier to deal with.

Our advice: Don’t sell the older kids short. They can be a lot of fun, and less trouble than you think.

How do your own kids feel about doing foster care? The unspoken question here is: aren’t your own kids jealous of the attention you give the foster kids? Our experience is exactly the opposite: our kids are usually the ones who want more foster kids. When we are between placements, they start agitating: “Mom, it is getting boring around here. We need some more siblings.”

Decide what age group will fit in with your family. Our kids have enjoyed having brothers and sisters close to them in age. When we go places, we are an instant “kid magnet.” Whether it is the beach or the park, or just around the neighborhood, kids attract more kids. Over our years as foster parents, we’ve drawn small kid crowds wherever we go. Our kids love that. Continued...