Age Questions

 Eva at age 3 -  the day we met Declan (age 4.5?)

 

 Declan,day 3 in China

 On the airplane to Guangzhou - about 7 days 

after he became our son

We’re thinking about Declan’s age (7.5)…and how it might be really wrong.  We’ve had numerous professionals – his teachers, the speech therapists at the hospital, the dentist, the endocrinologist, his pediatrician – all question how he could possibly be 7.5 years old.  The bone scan says he’s 4.5, the dentist says his teeth are that of a 5 year old, he’s 43” tall and weighs 36 pounds, and is in Kindergarten because that's where the school feels he fits in best. Absolutely no one who has ever met him can believe that he is 7.5.  The looks of surprise and sometimes shock when people ask him his age - like at the grocery store or church - are hard for him to take.  

When we met him 3 years ago, it was like he was barely 3.  His foster mother told us that he was a tiny, sick baby when they took him home from the orphanage, but his paperwork said he was 18 months old when he went to foster care.  “Bobo” and “Mumu” had him for 3 years. His foster parents took such wonderful care of him – they even had him attending the local preschool, which they paid for.  They live in a lovely apartment, and his foster father took him everywhere he went.  Wonderful people, who spent much time caring for him – they sobbed when we left with him.  Thankfully we are still in touch with them by email.  He definitely was not in an environment that would cause significant delays.

So how do we explain this?  He was transferred from one orphanage to another.  Could the paperwork have been changed?  And why?  We know that there is some question of the ethics at the orphanage he came from…I don’t think we’ll ever unravel his early history.  I thought for awhile that his paperwork was well documented…but after reviewing it again I can’t be so sure.  

That brings me back to our dilemma.  We might have a child who is younger.  I thought for awhile that his delays were from being babied in China – but three medical professionals have expressed their surety that he is younger – and they think it’s by two years or thereabouts. His teacher and the special ed staff at his school all concur that he doesn’t have cognitive impairment or global delays.  He figures things out quickly, is physically very dexterous, but he functions as if he is 5 or so.  He’s slightly behind Eva in development (she’s 6.5), and he’s had every advantage here for three years – speech and occupational therapy both in and out of school, a hearing aid, ELL 3 times a week…and he’s doing so well.  His English is great – he functions normally in class.  

As it stands now, he’ll be 20 when he graduates from high school, because he’s in Kindergarten for the third time.  Really, the third time.  And he fits in perfectly now.  Last year was awful – he struggled to write his name and was miserable and frustrated.  And the year before that he was in a self-contained hearing impaired classroom where his teacher thought he was 3 or 4.

We haven’t filed for his Colorado birth certificate yet – bad mama.  Others who have adopted older children internationally have been sure their child’s ages were off – and have used doctor’s letters to petition the court to change the age.  

So what do we do?  There are pros and cons to changing it…the obvious benefit would be that it would mean that a 7.5 year old child isn’t feeling like he’s so far behind everyone else.  He expresses his dismay that he’s so small (he wears a size 4) compared to other kids his age, and that he can’t read yet.  He feels “stupid” and says so when he’s particularly frustrated about homework or his math game on the computer.  If we could explain to him that these things are hard because he’s younger than we thought, it might – maybe, hopefully – go a long way to improve his self-esteem.

The main con would be that it just adds one more layer of ambiguity to his history.  It means that the only history we have – his referral and adoption paperwork – is wrong.  What does that do to him later in life when he’s trying to figure out his identity?  Where he came from and why? 

Please leave me a comment about your opinion on this…we want to try to ferret out all the possible negatives about doing this.  Or email me at alyssa.ericksen@gmail.com.