If you have adopted an older sibling group, you may need to encourage each child to seek their own friends and hobbies. That might not be as easy as might expect it to be. If the siblings had to depend on each other in their previous home for comfort, food, and protection it may be difficult for you to establish yourself as the parent. The children will naturally try to continue their established roles in your home. The older children, who provided the parenting roles, may not appreciate having their roles usurped.

It can also be difficult to get the younger children of the sibling group to turn to you for assistance, instead of their older trusted siblings. However, if you can get the older children interested in some extracurricular activities, like youth group, bowling, or music, to get them out of the house, the younger children will have to turn to you for help.

You can also let the older children know that you would like to help the younger children, now that you are the parent. Let them know that it is ok for them to be children now, too, and let you worry about taking care of things. They will be suspicious at first, but if you are persistent, you can establish your role as parent.

When our adult daughters came to us, at seven and 13, they had an established pattern. The seven year old would call for the 13 year old to help her wash her hair and comb it. She would ask her older sister to help her learn to read or to read her bedtime stories.

At first, we believed the girls would only be with us for a couple of months as a temporary foster care placement, so we didn’t intervene much. After we realized that they wouldn’t be returned home, it was a little more difficult to change the status quo. However, the older sister was quite the social butterfly, so eventually she wasn’t around much to help her younger sister.

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