u/RocketPowerPops

I know open adoptions are ideal. We are in the process of adopting. Our son is 18 months old, has been with us permanently since 11 months old, and stayed with us a lot prior to that. It is a kinship placement and he is the biological child of my wife's younger brother and his ex.

They have made it very clear they don't want involvement. His bio mom last saw him when he was 11 months old. His bio dad has since moved out of state and have been very vocal about not wanting to see him. Because it is a kinship adoption, we still have birth family connection on my wife's side. My wife is extremely close to her parents and her older brother. We see them all multiple times a week. We also have contact with our son's half sister. His bio dad had a baby with another woman shortly after he was born, so they are close in age and we meet up with the other mom whenever we can.

Still, we will very likely not have much/any contact with his bio parents as he grows up. Anyone else navigating this dynamic? How is it playing out for you? Any recommendations? We currently have a picture of him and his bio parents in his room and we talk about them all the time. Anything else we should be doing?

I will try to make this short and sweet. Wife and I are married with 3 bio kids (ages 11, 9, and 5 weeks) and are in the process of adoption our bio nephew (about 18 months).

My wife and I both kept our last names when we got married. I will use fake names for privacy reasons, but lets say my wife is Jane Smith and I am John Brown. Our 3 bio kids have both last names, so they would be Brown-Smith in this situation.

Our soon-to-be adopted son just has my wife's last name since my BIL is his bio dad. So he would just be Smith. When we adopt we are thinking about changing his last name to Brown-Smith. Our thought process was that it could make him feel like our other kids. He and our youngest will also only be 1 grade level apart in school, so we figured it might save him the trouble down the line of explaining why he is just Smith and his sister is Brown-Smith. We would be leaving his first and middle name alone. We would just be adding my last name to his last name. Any reason why this would not be a good idea?

Interested in all perspectives but would really like to hear from adoptees if possible

I am going to do my best to make sure this doesn't come across as a brag post.

I have a 9 year old who does very well academically, particularly in math. He is working well ahead of grade level and gets pulled out for math instruction. He finished 3rd grade last year completely 7th/8th grade level math with ease. We met with his math teacher last week in preparation for the school year to start this week. She said her biggest recommendation to kids who excel academically is to push them in something outside of academics. I completely agree with that. We have a family rule that our kids must do at least one sport and one instrument because we think both of those help give kids lifelong tools to be successful.

He currently does flag football, swimming, and wrestling for sports. He is about to start violin in the school orchestra after years of playing piano. He also does boy scouts. In his free time he taught himself things like skateboarding and speed cubing. The kid just seems to pick things up and nail them without much effort. He tells us all the time how he is the fastest runner at his school and how no one at recess has ever beat him. Typical kid stuff, but we want to prevent him from having a huge ego just because things come easy to him and we want to follow the teacher's advice of finding something to challenge him.

If you or your kid were similar and just seemed to be good at whatever you picked up, what actually challenged you? He did space camp this summer, loved it, and learned a lot. I would love if he could do that more and am open to all suggestions from academic to music to sports or whatever else you guys have. I was thinking maybe drama/theater club? Having the learn lines and get into character must be a challenge for most kids, right?

My wife and I have 4 kids. 11, 9, 17 months, and a newborn. The 17 month old is a kinship foster to adopt situation and has been with us permanently since 11 months but we babysat a lot prior to that so he has always been very comfortable with us.

He has always had a slight preference for me but with the addition of the newborn it has gotten more intense. I am on paternity leave until the end of September and am worried about how things will go when I go back to work.

Right now I am co-sleeping with him in one room while my wife sleeps with the baby in another room. We tried all sleeping in the master but the baby kept messing up the toddler's sleep so we moved upstairs to the guest bedroom. He also has always come with my on my morning runs. I put him in his jogging stroller and we head out, just the two of us. I also almost always bring him along to my older kids' sporting events. Whenever I am away from him, he loses his mind. Tantrums, screaming, crying, etc. My wife is struggling to calm him down. Prior to the baby and when I was working, he would let him hug him and leave but I guess since I have been around everyday all month he is having a really hard time with it now.

Anyway, how do we deal with this? We "give in" because with his abandoment history I don't want to make it worse but eventually I will go back to work and my wife will be the only one home with him and the baby. Any tips on how to survive not only now but once I return to work?

I have a 9 year old son going into 4th grade. He is a pretty typical 9 year old boy who happens to be really talented at math. Since the beginning of last year he has been getting pulled out for math, along with 2 other kids in the school. They do math at their level rather than the level the class is working at. By the end of last year we were told he was completing 7th and 8th grade math assignments with ease.

They plan to continue having him get pulled out for math this upcoming school year, but I keep thinking about what happens after that. By 6th grade he will have to do the standard curriculum but if he is already doing 8th grade level math now, I worry that he will be extremely bored in a 6th grade math class when that time comes.

We thought about the gifted program, but he is a pretty standard student is other subject areas. He is pretty good at science too but for reading/writing, he is on target. Not excelling so I am not sure if a gifted program is right for him. The gifted program in our district is also self contained and goes to 8th grade. I don't know if that would be the best envrionment for him. He is very social and wants to be in class with his friends.

We have thought about homeschooling since my wife was a teacher, but again, we worry about how that would impact him socially. So, what do teachers think? Keep him where he is for now? Switch to the gifted program? Homeschool? Maybe a private school (though I am not sure how much better they would be at this)?

Other than Bluey?

With my older kids, now 11 and 9, when they were little we pretty much exclusively stuck to the above shows since they are pretty low stimulating and usually ended with teaching some sort of lesson. We liked how they were calming and didn't rile the kids up, especially since we mostly relied on it mostly when we took international flights.

We haven't really introduced our 16 month old to screens yet but we have another baby coming very soon (wife is 38 weeks) and I recognize there may be times in the future where my wife is trying to calm a newborn and uses a screen in a pinch to occupy the toddler. Again, we are not going to be sitting him in front of a screen all day and ideally want to hold off for as long as possible. We just want some fresh ideas we maybe haven't considered for low stimulating shows we can try out IF we need it. He is a very high energy toddler so we don't want anything too fast moving or with very flashy colors.

I have posted here before but a quick recap.

1. We have bio kids who are 11 and 9

2. We are currently fostering our nephew. He is 16 months. The situation will likely move towards adoption as neither biological parent is interested in working towards reunification. He has been with us since before his 1st birthday.

3. We are expecting. My wife is 38 weeks pregnant so baby could come any day now.

Our main focus is doing right by all of our kids but I have seen a lot of negative opinions on raising bio kids with adopted kids. What are some things people typically do wrong and how can we ensure we do right by everyone?

Posted in the adoption sub but looking to hear from more adoptive parents as well.

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How do we best talk about a kinship adoption as he gets older?

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To make a long story short, my wife and I have an 11 year old daughter, a 9 year old son, and are expecting a baby next month. In addition, we took in a kinship foster placement (nephew) back in February. He was almost a year when we took custody, but we have been babysitting him since he was a few months old so he was very familiar with us. Now he is going on 16 months. Him and the new baby will be 16 to 17 months apart in age.

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The situation is likely moving towards permanent given that neither of his birth parents are interested in regaining custody. We want to make sure we do right by him so I am reaching out to adoptees.

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How do we best handle discussions on why we adopted him when he ask in the future? We do not want to make it seem like his bio parents are bad people but we need to be honest. How do you balance that? At this point in time neither birth parent has any interest in him. Bio dad moved out of state. Bio mom has not seen him since February even though she has weekly visitation rights.

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Our adoption is somewhat transracial. My wife is black and I am white so we are an interracial couple and our bio kids are mixed race. Our nephew (wife's side) of the family has two black bio parents. Any advice for dealing with comments in the future about the difference between his skin tone and our younger child's skin tone, especially since they will be close in age and only one grade apart in school? We don't want him to have to disclose his story if he doesn't want to. Any advice on that?

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To make a long story short, my wife and I have an 11 year old daughter, a 9 year old son, and are expecting a baby next month. In addition, we took in a kinship foster placement (nephew) back in February. He is going on 16 months. Him and the new baby will be 16 to 17 months apart in age.

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The situation is likely moving towards permanent given that neither of his birth parents are interested in regaining custody. We want to make sure we do right by him so I am reaching out to adoptees.

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How do we best handle discussions on why we adopted him when he ask in the future? We do not want to make it seem like his bio parents are bad people but we need to be honest. How do you balance that?

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How do we handle him calling us Mama/Dada right now? We have just been responding but now I am wondering if that is the wrong move. We talk about his bio parents and he has pictures of them but he has taken to calling us Mama and Dada lately.

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Lastly, our adoption is somewhat transracial. My wife is black and I am white so we are an interracial couple and our bio kids are mixed race. Our nephew (wife's side) of the family has two black bio parents. Any advice for dealing with comments in the future about the difference between his skin tone and our younger child's skin tone, especially since they will be close in age and only one grade apart in school? We don't want him to have to disclose his story if he doesn't want to. Any advice on that?

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Thanks in advance. We just really want to do right by our little guy and I figured this was a good place to start to get advice from people who were actually adopted.