Children love to place their hands and feet beside a parent’s limbs and assert that they are almost as big as Mom or Dad. What I love about You Are (Not)Small by Anna Kang is that it taps into this touch point of childhood. With delightful illustrations by Christopher Weyant, it deftly and humorously, highlights that size is relative… He is both little and big!
A lifebook says, “Your story begins before adoption and because we love you, we value the history of your life from the beginning. We do not expect or require you to wipe the slate clean in order to embrace our joint life.”
The wonderful adoption classic, Forever Fingerprints by Sherrie Eldridge is being reissued by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. An adoptee and a staunch advocate for adoptive families writes, who LIVES the adoption journey, Sherrie connects with adoptees’ hearts and validates their experience. Forever Fingerprints, a picture
Children enjoy being able to decide things for themselves. As parents we often make the bulk of the decisions in our children’s lives. Most of us understand that decision making is a skill. Like all skills, mastery only comes through practice. Long before kids become proficient decision makers, they will plod through many errors in judgment. As parents, we face a learning curve too–when is it “safe” for kids to make a choice and when must the decision fall on our shoulders?
As an adoptive parent and now as an adoption coach, I search for books that support adopted children and help them learn how adoption influences their lives. Many books have been written on the subject. How does a family identify the
Young readers will identify with Henny’s struggle to face and accept her personal differences as well as the differences in others. Many will want to talk about how kids can be kind or mean to each other. This could include discussion of bullying as well—how it feels, what to do, etc.
Kids are challenged not only by mislabeling their emotions but also by an inability to read the body language cues of others. Whether it is an adult’s raised eyebrow or another child’s hands on hips, often times kids are completely clueless to the silent message such body postures convey. So, what is a parent to do?