Good Lawyer Guide's response

Adoption is a lengthy process and, importantly, involves obtaining the consent of the child’s parents (in this case the mother) before adoption can take place. If the mother consented, she would lose all parental responsibility (ie rights) for her children on adoption and it would be rare in cases such as yours that the natural mother would give up all rights in relation to the children. It is therefore unlikely that you could go down the adoption route with your step-children.

If you are very keen to assume legal responsibility for the children, you do have other options to get ‘shared parental responsibility’ for the children. You can apply to the court for a joint parental responsibility order; you could be named in a residence order involving the children, or you could enter a joint parental responsibility agreement with the birth parents which would give you shared parental responsibility.

However, whether this is practical depends on the nature of your relationship with the children’s mother. You should sit down together to talk about the issues, and whether it is necessary legally and practically for you to have legal parental responsibility or whether the status quo is sufficient. Either way, you would not want to harm any good relationships that exist right now.