Parenting Children Who Have Experienced Trauma

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Are you often bewildered by your child's behavior? Check out this interview with Dafna Lender, a LCSW and a certified trainer and supervisor/consultant in both Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. She is also an EMDR therapist. She is the author of “Theraplay® – The Practitioner’s Guide” and “Integrative Attachment Family Therapy: A Clinical Guide to Heal and Strengthen the Parent-Child Relationship.”

In this episode, we cover:

Impact of Trauma

• What is trauma? 
• Trauma vs PTSD vs. Development Trauma Disorder
• Neglect
• How does trauma impact the brain?
• How does this impact affect the child?
• Does the age of the child, when they experienced trauma, or the type of trauma affect the degree to which the child will be impacted?
• Impact of preverbal trauma- before the child has language and memory.
• If a child is able to leave the abusive situation, can it lower the impact of trauma or PTSD?
• Attachment trauma. 

How to Best Parent a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma

• What is a typical behavior for a child who has experienced trauma?
• Internal working model formed with earliest caregivers that forms a template for future relationships with caregivers.
• The children often “reject you before you can reject them.” 
• Importance of awareness of one’s own vulnerabilities and insecurities that may be triggered by caring for children with a history of trauma.
• How to help our kids heal and attach? Tips and Techniques.

How to Discipline a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma 

• See behavior as developmental, not moral.
• Don’t spin into the future by predicting the worst. Deal with your fears.
• Recognize that ultimately, you can’t control your child. Understand what you can control, and you can only control yourself.
• Provide a balance of structure and nurture.
• Time-out?

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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

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• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building