Nicholas

Description

Meet Nicholas! This adorable young man is 8 years old and was adopted from Asia when he was 13 months old. He is in the 2^nd grade at his local public school where he excels academically. Nicholas lives with his adoptive parents and their biological son (14) and biological daughter (11). Nicholas has a limb difference in his left hand (he is missing the fingers), but it has very little effect on his ability to perform his regular daily activities.

From the time he came home, Nicholas has struggled feeling attached to his current family. He has always felt a strong urge to compete for his parents’ attention and has a lot of resentment towards his siblings. He desperately wants to be the center of the family’s focus and longs to feel loved and appreciated. Despite his current family’s efforts to meet this need, he has rejected them and has established the thought pattern of assuming they don’t love them. His relationship with his adoptive mom is particularly bad or non-existent.

When Nicholas is away from home, he is an absolute delight. He is kind, thoughtful, generous, and smart. He makes and keeps friends with little effort. He is VERY good at soccer and loves sports in general. He also excels at Math.

Nicholas seems so happy when he is away from home, then at home he becomes a shell of a boy. His parents feel like they don’t even know who he is and doubt he will be able to mature to his full potential while he lives with them. For this reason, they are looking for a new family for Nicholas who has the bandwidth to invest time, attention, and affection towards him so he can finally attach and thrive. They aren’t particular about the make-up of the family—just that the parent or parents have the time and energy to meet his need and let him know he is loved. They are open to both religious and non-religious families but prefer families who are not overly strict religiously as Nicholas has not grown up going to church. They also prefer families who have no other children or who have adopted before to ensure the family knows they can attach to a non-biological child.

Unless otherwise noted, we require that all of the children in our program be the youngest in their new family by at least two years. We ask that you honor this requirement and not ask us to bend the rules. These children need the chance to be the “baby” of the family and to receive much needed attention so they can attach and have a healthy start in their new home. When a sibling is close in age or younger than them, this will usually foster jealousy and competition which won’t lead to a successful placement. Thank you for understanding. If you are married, we also ask that you have been married for a minimum of 2.5 years before applying to adopt through our program.

Nicholas is highly energetic, competitive, and very skilled athletically. He loves soccer, riding his bike, and swimming. He could spend hours at the local park or ball field playing with friends. He’s excellent at throwing and catching a football and really enjoys running. Nicholas also loves his iPad and playing various games on it. He reads chapter books and enjoys the “Dog Man” series. Nicholas loves the classic American diet of cheese pizza, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers. He does not love vegetables, but he’ll voraciously eat the foods he likes.

This is a private adoption, so a state or foster home study might not work. A private domestic homestudy is generally required. You will need to have a current, or easily-updated homestudy for this adoption. If your homestudy is current or you’re within 3 weeks of it being completed, feel free to inquire further. Our goal is to find a new, successful adoptive family for this child. We do not facilitate long-term respite care, nor do we allow for “trial periods” or visits between you and the child before the match is made and the child changes homes. By inquiring further, you are implying you have a desire to adopt, and not to offer other creative placement solutions.

Due to state laws, we are not able to place this child in CT, MA, NY, or DE. If you live in OR, you may need to travel to the child’s state to finalize this adoption. If you live in WI, please let us know, as the adoption process may be longer and a bit more expensive than what is listed in our paperwork. NJ residents will need to check with their home study agency or an adoption attorney to see if their home study will work for this type of adoption. If you live in AL, we will need a pre-placement meeting between the child’s parents and a social worker after you are matched to a child. This will be an additional cost to you.

If you have never had a home study before, we cannot help you adopt this child. However, we would love to share with you the process of starting a home study so you could be approved for a child in the near future. The easiest method is to Google “home study” and the name of your city. You can then call the agencies on that list and compare prices and timelines for getting a completed domestic home study. Once you’re within three weeks of having a completed home study, you can begin pursuing a match to one of our waiting children.

If you are a U.S. citizen living overseas, we may be able to work with you depending on a few details. Please let us know your situation.

Adoption is a legal process so there will be costs associated. This adoption may qualify for the IRS Adoption Tax Credit.

Contact us at secondchanceinfo@wiaa.org to request this child’s redacted school and medical files.

*To protect the privacy of our waiting children and their families, Second Chance does not share real names for our waiting children on the Internet. It is our policy to only share a snippet of a waiting child’s details as well as the type of adoptive family we are looking for. If you fit the POSTED REQUIREMENTS, are home study ready (or can be soon!), and interested in adding this child to your family, please write to us for an honest, in-depth profile on the child including medical, educational, and behavioral information and learn the full story of why this child needs a secondary adoption. Our program social worker and program director have worked together with the child’s family to carefully set the requirements for the new family. These requirements are not negotiable, so please honor the needs of this child by not asking us to bend them for you.