Sleepovers and play dates give our kids an intimate glimpse of life in a different family — and may prompt reflections and questions.
The Family Picture
Grade-schoolers need to know how they connect with their adoptive families.
Friendship Lessons
Expert tips for adoptive parents to help your child make and maintain peer relationships.
Adoption Support Groups for Teens
An adoption support group can provide a safe and comfortable venue for your teen to explore adoption and his larger identity in a new, more complex way.
Finding a Pediatrician
If you know nothing about the birth family’s medical history, or your child’s medical records are incomplete, you’ll want a medical professional with first-rate diagnostic skills to focus on areas of possible concern.
Bonding While You Work
Adoptive Families readers received, on average, 9.6 weeks of leave from work. Here’s how to make an informed childcare decision, and keep the transition from disrupting your bond.
AF Picks: Best Adoption Blogs
We scoured the blogosphere for the most funny, heartwarming, honest online reads. Our congratulations to these 18 outstanding picks!
Summer Reading Special
AF’s 2011 picks for best adoption books.
Connecting with Other Adoptees
As they progress through grade school, most children want to “blend in” and be part of the crowd. But what if a child feels that the way she joined her family–through adoption–sets her apart?
Ask AF: Adoption Stigma at School
My daughter took a picture of her birth father to school. She proudly showed it and, when asked where he was, said “prison.” Since then, her best friend’s mother has forbid her daughter from playing with her.
The Games They Play
Along with tea parties and superheroes, our children may incorporate themes like birth and adoption into their play.
Ask AF: Behavior at Day Care
Answers to your parenting questions.
What’s Happening to My Body?
How can you help your child deal with the physical and emotional changes that puberty brings?
Standing Up to Bullies
How can you respond to bullying or protect your teen from becoming a target?
For Adoptive Parents: Helping Adopted Teenagers Stand on Their Own
In the middle-school years, parents must step back and help their child learn to stand up for herself, in school and in the larger world.
Raising a Moral Child
Helping our children develop empathy in a me-focused world.
Paradoxes of Adoptive Parenting
After writing Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother, Jana Wolff returns with more candid insights into the emotional highs and lows of parenthood.
Crazy or Gutsy? Parenting in Your Forties and Fifties
Older, wiser — and adopting more than ever.
Talk to Me! — Treating Speech Delays in Adopted Children
Concerned about your child’s speech or language development? About 10 percent of all children have difficulties in this area. But early intervention can turn the most reluctant talker into a chatterbox.
Ask AF: Keeping a Child’s Immunizations on Track
Answers to your parenting questions.