Creating a Family Adoption & Foster Care Education

There are many children over 10 years old waiting to be adopted in US foster care, as well in orphanages throughout the world. Are you the "right" family to adopt them? What special issues do families face when adopting a tween or teen? In this course, we talk with Mark Lacava, adoption therapist with the Modern Family Center at Spence-Chapin Adoption Services, about what families adopting teens or tweens should expect.

This course covers the following topics:

• What issues adopting a teen or tween might bring?
• How is adopting a teen or tween different than adopting a younger child?
• Under what circumstances would it be unacceptable to adopt an older child when you have younger children already in the home?
• How can parents make sure that the child is stable enough to not endanger other children in the home?
• Parents worry that tween/teen behavior (sneaking out, drug or alcohol use, sexual information) might affect kids already in the home.
• Not all tweens/teens have behavioral issues that make them a danger, but how can parents prepare for the steep learning curve of dealing with an "angsty teen" that you don't know well?
• How can you effectively set limits at the beginning when the parent and the tween/teen are getting to know each other?
• Once a teen has learned to be independent and self-sufficient due to a lack of adequate parenting in their previous life, is it hard for them to accept rules and boundaries in a new environment? And what can parents do to help ease the transition?
• Do parents who adopt teens have enough time to bond with the child before they turn 18?
• What are some things we can do to bond with our older adopted or foster child?
• Often times when adopting an older child, openness is not an option because of a safety reason or because it is an international adoption. How can we help children with identity formation when we have little information on their biological family or what information we have is negative?
• What are strategies to help get through difficult periods when adopting a child over the age of 10?

*Your course will remain active for 180 days from purchase date.