Help your preschooler process the world around him by pointing out the ways you are alike.
Stepping Back at School
As your child progresses through elementary school, she should take more responsibility for handling tricky assignments. Here’s how to hand off the reins.
Adoption Through a Child’s Eyes
By tuning in to what children understand about adoption at different ages, our talks become richer, more intimate, and ultimately more effective.
“Why Was I Adopted”
Your preschooler may hit you with surprising questions at the most unexpected times and places!
Conscience Development in Preschoolers
Many children in foster care have delays in conscience development. A few have no conscience. It is important that parents understand conscience development and identify ways to facilitate growth in this area.
Teaching Kids to Say Thanks
What do you do when your three-year-old announces that he doesn’t like the new socks your mother gave him as a gift? Or he’s too busy devouring a cookie to show his appreciation for it?;
Teaching Emotional Regulation to Preschoolers
Little ones can be overwhelmed by excitement during the holidays. Here’s how to help your preschooler regulate her emotions.
Make Believe or Lies?
When to encourage your child’s flights of fancy, and when to insist on truth-telling.
Ready to Read
The best ways to promote your preschooler’s literacy skills.
Off to Preschool!
As kids meet new friends—and their families—they face new questions about their past.
What Preschoolers Can Understand About Adoption
When your preschooler asks questions about adoption, use these age-appropriate answers that emphasize your family’s love.
Ask AF: Talking to Preschoolers About Racism
We’re ready to talk to our child, who is black, about racism before she starts school. What should we say?
Helping Preschoolers Understand Adoption
Through normal, imaginary play, children in the preschool years can conquer their fears, conjure their birth mothers, and learn to understand their stories.
Budding Curiosity – Adoption Talks with Preschoolers
AF takes you inside the mind of your preschooler, and offers tips for answering their first questions about adoption and talking about how you became a family.
Adoption Goes to Preschool
Sometimes, a behind-the-scenes talk with the teacher better serves your child than a class presentation.
Family, Far and Near
Planning a trip to see second cousins or great aunts? Before you travel, help your child and relatives expand their conceptions of family.
Helping Your Preschooler Feel Good About Race
Preschoolers are starting to notice racial differences. Adoptive parents have a responsibility to talk about them.
“Was I Alone in the Hospital?”
Seeing where she was born—where she stayed with her birth mom and where we met her—gave my daughter greater confidence in her adoption story.
Why Didn’t They Keep Me?
Answering kids’ questions about birth parents.
Giving Your Child a Vocabulary of Feelings
Our children learn from us how to express emotions.