Parenting

The Survival Guide for Making and Being Friends
by James J. Crist, Ph.D.

Preparing to welcome a new child is one of the most intense, emotional, and demanding times in any waiting parent’s adoption journey. It’s also when friends and family are likely to have the most questions! Keeping everyone in the loop can be overwhelming. One way to handle it is to write a letter. Here’s a heartfelt and inspirational example from a waiting (now adoptive!) parent, who shared her letter on Facebook.

Respite is a vital support for many adoptive families, but it can be a challenge to access funding and to find trustworthy and reliable caregivers. In this article, an adoptive mom of many explains how to make respite a basic part of your family lifestyle rather than a last resort.

“I can’t deal with this right now”

My beautiful daughter’s hair was plastered to her head, soaked in sweat. Her clothes were covered in dirt from her tantrum, which almost always has her kicking and screaming on the floor, or the ground, or wherever.

AFABC’s education program has changed and grown a lot! In this article, our education team lead explains what we do now and how we do it.

Timberline Ranch Camp is the highlight of the year for dozens of adoptive families, many of whom have attended for years. With the eighth year of Timberline just around the corner, we thought it was time to celebrate camp and reflect on what makes it so valuable and special. This article is from the fall 2016 issue of Ni Hao, the newsletter of Families with Children from China BC (FCCBC). It does a fantastic job of capturing the experience of Timberline Ranch Camp!

This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared in Focus on Adoption several years ago. It explains parental benefits in Canada and why adoptive families currently don’t qualify for maternity leave.

In Canada, biological parents are entitled to a longer parental leave than adoptive parents, kin caregivers, and customary caregivers. But research shows adopted children need more time to attach. Time to Attach is a research and advocacy campaign lobbying for 15 more weeks of attachment leave for families formed through adoption, kinship, or customary care arrangements. In this article, two researchers explain the basis for the campaign and how we can bring about change together.

When Ellen and her husband adopted a child from foster care, they were blindsided by the challenges. Now, Ellen is the happy mother of a successful adult daughter. She hopes her story encourages other parents to hold on to hope.

Post-adoption depression is a common experience. In this article we tell the stories of parents who have been through it and share what you can do to find help.

Karon first wrote about her adoption journey in the article “Finding Lucan,” which appeared in the spring 2014 issue of Focus on Adoption. In this article, she shares an update on their life as a family.

This year, when many families celebrated Father’s Day, my son and I enjoyed a very special celebration: eight years as a forever family. June 17 marked the 8th anniversary of the day that I was granted custody of my baby boy in a courthouse in beautiful Hanoi, Vietnam.