Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
Sep 5, 2026 · 11 min · 7 segments
Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Are you considering whether your family is ready to foster or adopt a sibling group? Keeping siblings together can…
When people hear about sibling groups, they often focus on the logistics of Do we have enough bedrooms? Can we afford it? How do we manage everyone's schedules? Do we have enough cars? Do we have enough seats in the cars that we have? These are the questions that matter, of course.
But I also want to encourage families to start thinking about whether or not they're ready for a sibling group with a different question.
Can I meet the needs of these specific children at this specific time with the resources that we have available to us? Every sibling group is different, and so you might be talking about two children who are very close in age, or you might be considering three or four siblings spread across a wide age range.
Others may have experienced maybe different levels of conflict or trauma or parentification or sibling rivalry or even sibling aggression.
Can I do this specific sibling group in this specific season of my life with the resources available to us? So you're going to gather as much information as you can about the individual children from the caseworker, including notes and input from former foster families or previous caseworkers if you can get a hold of it.
You want to learn as much as you possibly can about each child and about their sibling dynamic.
So that will include asking questions like, what is each child's strength and challenge or challenges? How do they relate to one another? Have they lived together consistently in other settings? Are there mental issues? emotional, educational, or medical needs that we should understand, what supports are already in place for these children, and what supports should we consider adding.
At the same time, you're also going to be looking at your family's capacity, where you are right now, not where you want to be, not like some idealized view of your capacity, but your actual everyday real-life capacity.
This requires a level of self-awareness and honesty that will matter significantly both in the short term and in the long run of your involvement or potential involvement with these kids.
So you want to think about your time, your energy, your finances, your support network, and the emotional bandwidth that your family has.
How does adding multiple children to your home affect your daily routines, your ability to pay attention to each individual child, and the relationships between you? It's not selfish to consider these things.
And so we want to talk about how we can do all of that responsibly or if we can do all of that responsibly.
When people hear about sibling groups, they often focus on the logistics of Do we have enough bedrooms? Can we afford it? How do we manage everyone's schedules? Do we have enough cars? Do we have enough seats in the cars that we have? These are the questions that matter, of course.
But I also want to encourage families to start thinking about whether or not they're ready for a sibling group with a different question.
Can I meet the needs of these specific children at this specific time with the resources that we have available to us? Every sibling group is different, and so you might be talking about two children who are very close in age, or you might be considering three or four siblings spread across a wide age range.
Others may have experienced maybe different levels of conflict or trauma or parentification or sibling rivalry or even sibling aggression.
Can I do this specific sibling group in this specific season of my life with the resources available to us? So you're going to gather as much information as you can about the individual children from the caseworker, including notes and input from former foster families or previous caseworkers if you can get a hold of it.
You want to learn as much as you possibly can about each child and about their sibling dynamic.
So that will include asking questions like, what is each child's strength and challenge or challenges? How do they relate to one another? Have they lived together consistently in other settings? Are there mental issues? emotional, educational, or medical needs that we should understand, what supports are already in place for these children, and what supports should we consider adding.
At the same time, you're also going to be looking at your family's capacity, where you are right now, not where you want to be, not like some idealized view of your capacity, but your actual everyday real-life capacity.
This requires a level of self-awareness and honesty that will matter significantly both in the short term and in the long run of your involvement or potential involvement with these kids.
So you want to think about your time, your energy, your finances, your support network, and the emotional bandwidth that your family has.
How does adding multiple children to your home affect your daily routines, your ability to pay attention to each individual child, and the relationships between you? It's not selfish to consider these things.
And so we want to talk about how we can do all of that responsibly or if we can do all of that responsibly.
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