News & Impact

Adolescence is a time when children and parents begin to spend less time together. It is a time when teens begin to develop their independence, understand their place in the world, and begin to work out their own values and beliefs. It can be especially challenging to connect with teens who may seem like they don’t want anything to do with you. And with busy schedules it can be all too easy to share the same space with another family member without really connecting. Your child still needs a strong relationship with you to feel safe and secure as they… Read More

From the first day of life humans are social beings. Upon a separation from a caregiver a baby rightfully senses danger and their nervous system pumps hormones, cortisol, and adrenaline through the body to activate the flight or fight response. Separation anxiety at this age of development is not just common, but expected. While the purpose and function of anxiety is to trigger our nervous system to respond, adapt, and survive a dangerous situation, our response systems can misfire. We can cause a “false alarm” to our nervous system when we misperceive an experience or situation as dangerous when it… Read More

Maysie, 6, and Kendra, 14, are sisters living on the Peninsula. Last year was a very hard year for Kendra. Right when she started high school, a friend in her circle committed suicide and Kendra suddenly wasn’t doing well socially or academically. Alarmed, her parents, Elisa and Daniel, contacted JFCS’ Parents Place for help. Elisa wasn’t new to Parents Place; she had visited many times when Maysie, who has Down Syndrome, was a toddler. “Dan and I thought we had been through the worst after Maysie was born and I went through post partum depression, but it was horrible seeing… Read More

Increasingly we rely on technology, email, voicemail, Facebook, Snapchat, and texting to communicate with others. It is not uncommon for groups of children and teens to gather for a social outing only to be found looking at their phones and not at one another. Our level of engagement and the way we spend time with one another is changing rapidly and with great consequences. One of the main reasons young children held my attention for decades is because of their keen ability to engage us with creative, entertaining, and very humorous, conversation. The way that children weave their colorful stories… Read More

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh) –  We all want our children to be kind. In fact we find ourselves stunned and embarrassed when we witness them being anything but kind. But childhood is a series of growth lessons and learning to be kind is one such milestone. We all assume our children know what being kind means, however it is important to define it for them and discuss it just as you would any other value that’s important to you. So what is the definition of kindness? According to… Read More

  By Tara Noone, MSW When Adoption Connection opened its doors over 30 years ago, open adoption was starting to blossom, but still in its infancy. As one of the first adoption agencies focused on open adoption, we found ourselves working to correct three common misconceptions, many of which are still common today. They are: that the adopted child would be troubled and confused by contact with birth parents; that continued contact would exacerbate birth parents’ grief; and that adoptive parents would remain in constant fear of losing their child or children. Although there has been plenty of anecdotal evidence… Read More