Minnesota's Waiting Child:  Cloey makes the case for adopting teens

September's Waiting Child feature was written by Cloey, 15:

My name's Cloey. I'm a sophomore and I look forward to going to school every day. What I like about school is being around my friends and sometimes learning about the things that I'm interested in. Some of the things I like to do are shopping, skateboarding, football, BMX, hanging out with friends, social media and watching late night movies.

When I'm older I would like to be a corporate lawyer, and for college I would like to go to the University of Minnesota, then Harvard, Stanford or Yale for graduate school. Where I see myself in 10 years would be finishing up school and traveling around the world. The most important things to me in my life right now are my family, friends and being successful.

What I think an adopted family is for is to protect you and make sure that you are getting everything you need and always being there for you. Also helping you stay connected with your birth family. What I think an adoptive family should know about me is I'm very connected with my birth family. I'm very funny, caring, helpful, sassy, sometimes stubborn, helpful at times, and like to be independent.

I feel people should consider adopting kids/teenagers because even though they want to continue to keep relationships with their birth families, they still deserve to have a consistent loving caregiver. At first it may be hard to accept the fact that their families can't provide for them, but deep down they know they are going to need someone who can care and guide them in their future. As teens we also need an opportunity to be nurtured so that we can become prepared for the future that we've always wanted.