Downloads
Free Resources for Parents/Caregivers and Coloring Pages and Activities for the kids!
Resources
Books for Parents
Brain-Based Parenting – Daniel Hughes and Jonathon Baylin
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew – Sherrie Eldredge
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control – Heather T. Forbes
Nonviolent Communication – Marshall B. Rosenberg
The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
Stop Walking on Eggshells – Paul Mason and Randi Kreger
The Connected Child – Karyn B. Purvis
The Connected Parent – Karyn B. Purvis & Lisa Qualls
The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel Van der Kolk
Building the Bonds of Attachment – Daniel A. Hughes
Books for Kids
Sometimes I Feel Awful – Joan Singleton Prestine
The Runaway Bunny – Margaret Wise Brown
Blogs/podcasts
Muddling Through Mayhem – marythemom-mayhem.blogspot.com
Therapists
Attachment Institute of New England – Attachment/Trauma-based therapy – Worcester, MA
Shelli B.W. Rose, LMFT, LPC, RPT-S Nurtured Heart Approach – Longmont, CO
Wilderness Programs
Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness – GA
Therapeutic Riding
Emerald Hollow Therapeutic Riding Center – Brewster, MA
Therapeutic Boarding Schools
Calo – Lake Ozark, MO
Chaddock – Quincy, IL
Whetstone Academy – Mountain Rest, SC
EFT Tapping Resources
Nick Ortner’s The Tapping Solution website has a free book (just pay shipping and handling). This technique has helped calm down many a tirade in a short amount of time.
The Tapping Solution app
Journal Ideas
Reflection Journal
Have them write what they did, how they were feeling at the time (sad, scared, or shame), and what they could do to turn that around next time. Then we discuss it and get a hug!
Gratitude Journal
Have them write 5 things they are grateful for every morning
Fidget Toys
Fixes (Repairs)*
Mom, I am sorry for (stealing money out of your pocketbook), the message I sent you was (I don’t respect you or your things), and the fix I will do is (massage hands with lotion, organize the bookcase), Is that acceptable?
The fix should be something that will help out the parent: Massage Mom’s hands, Paint toes, fingernails, make beds, Re-organize bookshelf, Feed the animals, etc.
*Ken Frohock, Attachment Institute of New England
Holding/Rocking
For 5-10 minutes, sitting in a rocking chair, cradle your child like you would a baby and feed them yogurt, applesauce, or other sweet treats while looking into each other’s eyes lovingly. While I understand that in the face of such difficult behaviors this is difficult to do, but it so essential to giving them what they may not have gotten as infants. My kids are teenagers and still ask for it.
Apps
Insight Timer app (meditation)
The Tapping Solution app (EFT Tapping)
About Attachment/Trauma based Disorders
(Developmental Trauma Disorder)
Reactive Attachment Disorder (R.A.D.) and Developmental Trauma are attachment-based disorders that affect many adopted and foster children. When children do not get their needs met in early childhood between 0 and 3 years of age, the brain does not develop properly. The neurotransmitters normally in place to establish healthy growth in the brain are disrupted leaving gaps in some areas and other areas unable to make the connections needed for unimpaired functioning. For example, some kids have no ability to relate cause and effect, they may have no impulse control, or they may be able to function cognitively at a high level one day and below normal another day.
These problems are exacerbated over time, and without interventions, many children grow up and have mental illnesses in the form of personality disorders in adulthood. Children exhibit many of the following behaviors:
- Indiscriminately seeking affection/comfort from strangers
- Anti-social behaviors (e.g., lying, stealing, defiance, opposition, manipulating, destructiveness, cruelty, fire-setting, aggression)
- Lack of authenticity, spontaneity, flexibility, and empathy
- Lack of physical affection and closeness and/or inappropriate clinginess
- Poor eye contact
- Hypervigilant
- Problems with learning, attending, self-regulating, self-monitoring
- Abnormal eating and elimination patterns (e.g., wetting, soiling, hoarding food)
- False allegations of abuse from caregivers (adoptive parents, guardians, foster parents)
- Triangulation of adults (school staff, other parent, therapist, etc.)
- Persistent social and emotional disturbance into adulthood
- Failure to ask for support or assistance
- Attention-Seeking
- Lack of a preference for parents over other people (indiscriminate sociability)
Together We Can Change a Child’s Life!
The effects of childhood trauma, left untreated, affect society as a whole. These children are at risk of drug use, incarceration, homelessness, teen pregnancy, becoming victims of sex traffickers, mental illness in the form of personality disorders; and at best, they make very poor relationship choices and have consistently failed relationships throughout their lives.
I adopted my 2 children from Guatemala in 2008, and shortly thereafter, we found out that they both had Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), and my son had Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) as well. They both needed intensive attachment/trauma-based therapy, but Insurance wouldn’t pay for it, and I couldn’t afford it. Talking to other foster and adoptive parents, I found that this was a consistent problem. We have started this foundation so that no other child or family has to suffer without the necessary help like we have. Kids who don’t get the help they need can end up becoming addicted to drugs, victims of sex trafficking, pregnant as teens, homeless, or in jail. Clearly, this places the burden of those consequences back onto society. For example, 70% of the prison population was in foster care at one time or another. This can be prevented! You can help!