For many years, adoption meant bringing a newborn into your home, to love and cherish as if you'd given birth to them. Nowadays, adoption means bringing a four, nine, or twelve year old into your family and celebrating the many ways that families can be created.

Older child adoption provides parents with an opportunity to learn about their child's interests, health, and abilities before they adopt. What medical conditions do they have? How do they interact with their peers? Are they attached to a particular caregiver or foster parent?

Along with the benefits of adopting older kids there can be challenges. Due to difficulties in their early years, older kids may suffer from issues of trauma and stress, have difficulty with attachment and bonding, or may have undiagnosed physical or mental health issues.

The most successful older child adoptions tend to include the following: parents who are educated before adoption about potential challenges, honest disclosure of a child's health and history, the ability of parents to resolve differences between their expectations and the reality of their child, parents who are able to combine structure with affection, and, support by extended family and friends.

For those considering older child adoption, become educated about both the positives and the negatives of older child adoption. For those parenting older adopted kids, search out the support and resources needed to raise a child to be a successful, well-adjusted addition to society.

Older child adoption can be an exciting, fulfilling way to grow a family. Without knowledge and education, however, parents adopting older kids may struggle until they find the resources that they and their child are in need of. When those resources and supports are in place, parents and children in older child adoptive families can grow together in love and joy.