I was directed to a very interesting blog post by
Camryn Fouroux about a child avi's first experience at looking into being adopted. I feel for Ms Camryn and understand her being uncomfortable with the whole process. It is scary and yes seems weird at first. When you walk into an adoption agency its like WOAH! You are almost immediately IMd by not just one, but usually a few people asking you if you have a family, do you want a family, how old you are... etc. It is so very overwhelming. So I thought I would give you future kid's and parents a little insight as to what to look for, what to expect and so on.. Well at least from my point of view.
Adoption agencies seem so confusing and scary.. there are all these kids and adults alike just wandering around, you see panels all over the wall of what seems like a million kids and a million adults. But you really want to give it a try. First of all. A parent usually is not allowed to ask a child if they can adopt them and then tp them to their house. At MAW it is defintely not allowed. Its for your own good really. I will be the first to admit there are pervs out there. I myself was tpd one time when I was all new to this myself, and asked to be a child escourt. It freaked me out so bad, I almost left SL. So if someone wants to talk to you about them being your parents, make sure you ask them to see their adoption panel.
Okay first step, you make your panel, which you will include your application. When you fill your application out, be as honest as you can, and make sure you put in there anything and everything you can think of, that you want from a family. What you feel you need as a child, what you want out of them. There are lots of questions in the applications, fill it out as completely as you can.
After you have made your panel, its time to go look at the parent panels. Each of the parent panels have nc's in them too. which tells what they would like from a child avatar. Be choosy, take your time.
I will tell you what I think is best to look for when you are looking through the parent panels.
I really would want to find parents that were more than a few days old. I would want them to already have a place to call home. Wealth wouldn't matter to me at all. I think you should IM them before you click like, see how they react-explain to them you like their panel but wanted to say hi before you actually clicked the like option. You ask them questions when you IM, and decide they are someone that you really like, so you take a deep breathe and click the like option, and all the sudden the hover text above your panel turns red. They had clicked like on your panel already, and you have matched. They IM you again, saying well looks like we are matched, and they tp to see you. Now here is the tricky part.. do you automatically go with them, or do you want to just hang out before you go see your *new* house. I really think it depends on how you feel when you see them, how you guys hit it off.. stay at the agency a little while, talk and then decide.
