Adopting sibling groups

I am about to post a very unpopular opinion. I think that many times it is not in the best interest of the children to be placed and adopted together.

I know several people who have adopted siblings, or have taken placement of siblings. Most of them say it is not in the best interest of the child. We also had siblings with Kory and Mackenzie. When they left our home, the next home they went to took both of them, and after two years ended up moving Kory to another home. There he flourished and was finally adopted.

Siblings can sometimes be stuck in a “trauma bond”. They have lived through horrors, abuse and neglect together, and understand what the other feels, but is it a healthy bond?

Another issue is children victimizing each other. As much as we don’t want to talk about it, sometimes children who have been a sexual abuse victim become perpetrators. The obvious place for them to find their victim is within their own home. When the children are moved together, the victim moves with the perpetrator. The victimized child has no way to escape, or to heal. They often keep this abuse secret from others.

It may not always be sexual abuse, sometimes it’s physical. Hannah was placed in her first adoptive home because they had her brothers. The boys are only slightly bigger than she is even though they are two years old than she is. She physically assaulted one of the boys and tried to choke him. It was not the only time she tried things like this.

There is also the issue of kids with emotional issues requiring a lot of attention. Some children are very high needs, whether it’s physical or emotional. This is part of the reason that it is recommended not to adopt out of birth order. This allows the youngest child in the house to gain the most attention, and to feel that they are getting attention because of being the youngest, not because of the emotional damage.

I am not saying that there are not times when children should be placed together, but far too many times children are placed together because of “procedure”, not because of the best interest of the child.

There is a discussion taking place on the special needs adoption forum on adoption.com that proves this point. There was a sibling group placed in a pre-adoptive home, and one of the kids needs more help than the other. The adoptive family asked for services, and asked for the child to be placed in a residential center or to get intensive treatment to allow both children to heal. Now the agency is threatening to remove both children so that they can maintain the placement together. This is lunacy.

Sometimes the emotional trauma of losing a sibling by separating children for different placements makes it necessary to place children together. At other times, children are far more damaged by remaining together. Maybe keeping contact and visits with siblings is the best option for everyone involved. Each case needs to be evaluated on its own merit, without a unilateral procedure declared.

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