You’ve heard the old saying “It takes a village to raise a child” and online communities can be great resources as your extended “village”.
But not all parenting forums are well-regulated or maintained, and wading through all the bad to find the good ones can be a daunting task. Which is why we did it for you.
Below are our favorite forums. Some are more situation-specific than others, so read through and see which one best suits your parenting needs.
General Parenting Advice
If you just want to get your feet wet and have some basic questions, there are our favorite general forum.
Reddit – Made up of many communities (also called subreddits), Reddit has an active and lively parenting community. Before you move from browsing to active participation you will need to set up a free account and read the community rules or risk getting banned.
This forum cover a wide range of topics, but some may be better covered in other forums that are dedicated to that particular issue. However, it still are a great place to start.
Forum For Parents With Addicted Children
Along with seeking specialized therapy for your addicted child, there are other struggles associated with dealing with an addicted child. Such as:
How to help the non-addicted siblings deal with their addicted sibling’s issues.
What courses of action can you take to help your child recover.
How to work through your feelings without lashing out.
All these questions and more you can throw out to this forum, knowing you are among others who have struggled like yourself.
Addiction Recovery Guide – The forum we linked is specifically for the families and partners of addicts, but there are many other forum threads on other addiction-related topics on this engaging site. They have been organized by addictive substance type and it can give you a glimpse into how others are recovering from their addictions. Participation is free, you just need to set up a username and password.
Parenting Adopted Children
It is a wonderful thing to open your heart and home to a child that has lost theirs for reasons out of their control. But no one said it would be easy for anyone involved.
There is all ranges of adoptive parents and children: parents with biological children and adoptive, international and domestic adopters, parents who adopt handicapped children and so many more combination. Which is why we were happy to find a forum that can address all the combinations.
Adoption – This site has decent-sized community which offers support, advice and funny stories surrounding adoption. It is not as robust as the more general parenting forum but your posts also will not be lost in the general wash of new posts.
Parenting is a hard gig and even if no one wants to admit it in their Facebook posts, you can find communities full of support online.