Airs and graces initially adopted by children (5)
I believe the answer is:
songs
'airs' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'graces initially adopted by children' is the wordplay.
'initially' says to take the initial letters.
'adopted by' indicates putting letters inside (I've seen this in other clues).
'children' becomes 'sons' (son is a kind of child).
The initial letter of 'graces' is 'g'.
'g' put inside 'sons' is 'SONGS'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for songs that I've seen before include "Verse" , "Vocal pieces" , "Arias" , "Musical compositions with words" , "Lieder, chansons etc" .)