'I Was Really Excited': 11-Year-Old Inv...

An 11-year-old Arkansas boy recently invited his fourth-grade class to share a very special moment in his life — his adoption

Published Time: 31.05.2024 - 00:31:18 Modified Time: 31.05.2024 - 00:31:18

An 11-year-old Arkansas boy recently invited his fourth-grade class to share a very special moment in his life — his adoption.

"I told my attorney that it would be really necessary for my class to see my adoption,” Luke Kissinger recalled to ABC's Good Morning America this week. “So I was really excited about just having my class be part of where I'm heading next, you know?"

Luke’s May 14 adoption was months in the making for his new parents, Cassie and Bradley Kissinger, they told GMA.

Cassie said she always knew she wanted to foster and possibly adopt another child, something she has been dreaming about since she was a teenager.

After meeting Luke at an adoption event in 2023, the mom — who shares son Aiden, also 11, and daughter Alena, 14, with her husband — said she immediately bonded with him.

"We started playing games at the event and those events can be a little awkward but it was actually not at all with Luke," Cassie Kissinger told GMA. "I just kind of jumped in and started helping him with things and we walked around and we talked a lot. We got lunch together. So all the awkwardness went away really quickly."

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Two weeks ago, Luke’s adoption was finalized and his middle school classmates in Brookland, Arkansas, took in the happy occasion via Zoom.

The Kissinger family’s sweet story has been getting widespread attention, the mom of three shared on her Facebook page, and Luke is loving every minute of becoming “famous,” she wrote.

However, Cassie also had words of caution for those who have anything negative to say about their newfound notoriety.

“We in no way are using our son for clout, have not intentionally put his face all over the world, were never looking for attention, and every time someone praises me for what we have done for Luke, I tell them that I don’t want or need praise,” she wrote. “We simply made legal what we were already doing: raising our son.”

Cassie added on Facebook that “bringing awareness to the number of children like Luke needing homes” was top of mind for herself and her husband.

“We always knew our son had the potential to change the world,” she wrote. “He just happens to be doing it a lot sooner than we thought he would!”