Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care Adopting Older Children
Feb 5, 2025
53:17
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Are you considering adopting a child over the age of 5? Join our discussion with Dr. Stephanie Bosco-Ruggiero. She has a PhD in Social Work from Fordham University and is co-author of the book Adopting Older Children: A Practical Guide to Adopting and Parenting Children Over Age Four.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The greatest need in both foster care adoption and international adoption is to adopt kids 5 and older.
- Adolescents have a bad reputation in general in our society and those in foster care or international child welfare institutions have an even worse reputation.
- These kids and youth may have challenging behaviors that will be hard to parent. (They also may not have challenging behaviors.)
- Why have they developed these behaviors? (grief and loss, trauma, mental health)
- What are some typical behaviors that are more difficult for parents?
- Tips for creating trust and attachment with older children.
- How to prevent these behaviors from influencing other kids in the family?
- Special issues specific to older kids adopted internationally.
- Lack of ability to communicate.
- Cultural differences.
- Safety concerns, especially if there are younger children in the family.
- Sexually acting out.
- Physical abuse.
- Sibling relationships when adopting an older child.
- Contact with bio family members and former foster parents
- Trying to establish rules with teens/tweens who have had too much freedom.
- Helping kids academically.
- Neuropsychological evaluations, IEPs,
- Support for adoptive families
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building