Having Two Kids the Same Age When Adopting or Fostering - Weekend Wisdom

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Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome to weekend wisdom by creating a family weekend wisdom is our short form podcast here at creating a family. We discuss one topic or answer one question, we try to keep it for five to 10 minutes. And do keep in mind that we do have a long form. It is a one hour interview with experts. But today, this is weekend wisdom. And we'll be talking about the topic of having two kids the same age in your family when adopting or fostering. And there are a couple of different ways in quite a few different ways that a family can end up with two kids in the same family who are either the same age or really within nine months of each other one, parents can adopt or foster a child who is similar in age to a child already in the family. This happens not infrequently, especially in foster care with foster parents. Another way is parents can adopt two unrelated children at the same time who are similar age. This can happen in different ways. But the way that I primarily see it is in international adoption. Another way would be parents could start an adoption process and then get pregnant and choose not to stop the adoption. So they end up with two children a couple of months apart in age. So there's a lot of different ways and probably some other ways I haven't mentioned that it can happen. And this process this having two kids in the same age within nine months of each other is called different things in your so just so you know when you're looking at up, you can call them artificial twins. It's also sometimes called virtual twins are false twinning are forced twins are pseudo twinning, or even I've seen it called judicial twins about that seems a little sterile. But still I've seen that. So if you are making this choice, or you end up in this situation in your family, there are certain things you need to think through that will make things easier for the children and for you as parents as well. One, you need to anticipate the constant questions that your family is going to generate and get, you're going to hear a lot Are they twins. Now obviously, if they're of a different race, you may hear that less, but you're still going to be drawing a lot of attention and getting a lot of questions. You need to decide how you're going to answer those questions. And it's best to have a couple of different responses. You know, depending on the circumstances, whether you're standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, or whether you're speaking with somebody who's considering adoption, or whether you're at a dinner party or whatever, make sure you are modeling for your kids? How to Answer the question, because from our discussion with parents who have kids of the same age, by kindergarten, your kids are going to be getting the same question. And you're not going to be around to help them. So however you choose to answer it, you need to choose in a way and help them learn that there are different ways that they can answer it depending on who who is asking. A second thing you need to consider is you must highlight the uniqueness of each child, you know, your goal should be to nurture them as individuals, just because you're driving to taekwondo for one kid, doesn't mean that the other one should also take it as well, because you're already there. We do that for all siblings. But I think it is even more important when you have siblings of the same age. The other one is carve out time in your yes, your busy schedule, but carve out time to spend with each child individually. And make it a priority for both parents to do this. Because you do need to have separate relationships with the kids. And while you're at it, talk with your extended family, friends and teachers about some of the downsides of the inevitable comparison that's going to happen and ask them to work against comparing the children. And as tempting as it might be, do not dress them the same. If the children themselves are asking to be dressed the same, that's one thing but I would not encourage it. And don't always refer to them as a unit. The boys are the kids are and certainly not the twins celebrate their birthdays separately. Each child is unique. They have different birthdays, even though it might be easier because they have some of the same friends just to have one party if at all possible, particularly when they're past very young toddler stage, try to have a separate birthday for each and do not hold a child back in school just because you want them to be a different grade. Yes, ideally, they wouldn't be in the same grade for the all the reasons we've discussed the comparisons and things like that. And they're going to have different academic strengths. And so we don't want those comparisons. But I would not intentionally say Well, you're the younger one. Therefore I'm going to hold you back you need to look at that child individually and see if that's in his best interest. If however, one child sits on the cusp of the cut off date, and could benefit from the extra year in preschool Then it might make sense, especially if the child is smaller in stature. If they're in the same grade, however, do your best to put them in separate classes. And as always, we try to look for the adult adoptee perspective, everything we do here at creating a family is supposed to be in the best interest of the people we serve. That is former foster youth, as well as adult adoptees at creating family we do have the voice of an adult adoptee. She shared her perspective of being a virtual twin she I believe it was a brother. She was raised very close in age and she talks about the ups and the downs of that. So you can look about on our website, creating a family.org search for virtual twins through adoption, colon and adoptees perspective. So check that out as well. And thank you for joining us today. I want to take this moment to remind you that creating a family has free courses on our education center that I think you will thoroughly enjoy they can be used. If you're a foster parent and need continuing education, they would likely qualify for that. But there are great courses just for continuing your education regardless of whether you're required to you can find them at Bitly slash J B F support and there are 12 courses there. So check it out and tell your friends Bitly slash JBf support. And thank you for listening today. Please tell a friend to subscribe to the creating a family.org podcast

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