Parenting in the Trenches with Karen Peters – Details, episodes & analysis

If you are a parent of a child in therapy or are considering it in the future, it may seem like a bit of a mystery what happens in that room when the door closes.  Chris offers us a look into the process of therapy that is informational and comforting.  As one who specializes in trauma therapies and serves a wide variety of clients, he helps to demystify some of the unknown.  

Through this conversation, Chris gives us some insight into the practical aspects of what therapy might look like for our children. He also shares his trust in the wisdom and intuition of children working through trauma and explains how providing a safe, open environment and a strong connection is the most powerful tool that we have in helping children heal, not only in the therapist’s office but also in the family home.

I’m grateful to Chris for having this conversation and he provided us with some great resources which are linked below.  

https://www.treehousetraumacentre.com/

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation https://www.isst-d.org/

https://drdansiegel.com/books/

https://www.complextrauma.ca/

And the earlier episode we mentioned of Parenting in the Trenches with Lisa Dion: https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/parenting-in-the-trenches-s8e3

Welcome to Part Two of this conversation!  

In Part One, Dr. Lark and I set the stage with some discussion around the types and forms of Anxiety we are seeing in our kids and the clear need for us to help them so that they can learn to manage their Anxiety.  If you missed Part One, please go back and listen - Lark helps us understand Anxiety in a way that honors its complexity and nuance while simplifying some of the more difficult concepts that we can find confusing as parents watching our children struggle.

Children are experiencing increasing rates of Anxiety and it is imperative that we provide them with help to stay connected and to work through their Anxiety. Unfortunately there’s no silver bullet to ease the worry and fears for our children, but there are many things we can offer them from connection and mindfulness to meeting their basic physiological needs that can bolster their ability to grow and build resilience.  Dr. Lark and I offer some tools and strategies in this episode that are known to be helpful.  

We also paint a no fault, no guilt picture of why we are where we are, with our children experiencing Anxiety that may at times stem from our own.  In naming what is happening in this process we are not laying blame, but instead acknowledging the reality that we are all affected by stressors around us, and that the resulting Anxiety exists.  It actually can’t be avoided, and none of us are immune.  It’s part of the human experience.  

Understanding the Anxiety we see in our Children is important so that we can support them and know when and how to reach out for additional help.  You are not alone, watching your kiddo in this hard space.  

Here with you,
Karen

To all those who work with, parent and support our children,

Have you ever come across a child who is so agreeable, sweet and seems to read people so well? It can feel lovely and easy to relate to kids who present this way, but you might also find it's like pulling teeth to get them to say what they want, like and think. Kindness is not a problem, but "fawning" indicates the child doesn't actually feel safe enough to be themselves - they've learned somewhere along the way that if they don't please others and keep them happy and unagitated, that they might be abandoned emotionally. That their attachment depends on their good and easy behaviour, how compliant they can be.

Fawning is one of the 4 F responses to feeling unsafe or threatened, but it typically has a unique profile and function - it's an attempt to preserve safety in the context of relationships. I've had so many teachers and parents asking amazing questions about this type of trauma response, wanting to understand it better. Let's explore this further today. Join me?

Karen

PS. Here's some further reading if you're interested:
https://www.amazon.ca/What-Happened-You-Understanding-Resilience
https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/the-trauma-response-of-fawning-aka-people-pleasing-part-one
https://drarielleschwartz.com/the-fawn-response-in-complex-ptsd-dr-arielle-schwartz/#.YjFCUXrMIT0
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/unlearn-fawn-response

Dear adopting and fostering parents and those who support them,

I need you to know about my guest today, Dr. Julia Bledsoe. When we began our adoption journey, we did not know people like her existed, and I cannot tell you how profoundly helpful it would have been to have access to her expertise both during and after the adoption application process. Some of the most difficult questions we needed to tackle but felt hugely ill equipped to answer, were related to understanding the risks associated with in utero trauma and prenatal substance exposure. We had no clue how to compare the impacts of alcohol and drug use, the differences between types of drugs and the expected long term effects on development. We so desperately wanted to ensure we were signing up for something we could handle well, but that's a tough thing to do when you don't have the information required to articulate those boundaries.

If you're in a similar position, or want to know what adoption medicine all entails, this episode is going to be very enlightening!

Julia Bledsoe, M.D., is a board certified pediatrician at the Pediatric Care Center at UWMC-Roosevelt and the Center on Human Development and Disability at UWMC and a UW professor of General Pediatrics. She also works as a faculty pediatrician at the UW FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) Clinic, the longest standing FAS center in the US. She earned her M.D. at the UW. She lectures and teaches on topics related to international and domestic adoption, especially as these overlap with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Dr. Bledsoe specializes in adoption medicine: the care of children and families touched by adoption. She strives to create active partnerships with her patients to achieve the best possible outcomes. Her work with the Center for Adoption Medicine includes: pre-adoption consultations, on-call travel support and pediatric care for fostered and adopted children. To learn more, check out their website or read more about Dr. Bledsoe's work here. 

If you've subscribed to my podcast, you will have heard about my online course for couples who are in the process of adopting. You can access Adoption: What to do while you wait at 50% off for a limited time if you enter the coupon code ADOPTSTRONG.

If you haven't had the chance to listen to the rest of our adoption series on Parenting in the Trenches, please download those episodes into your listening list! We love it when our community of parents grows!

Follow me on FB or IG for more resources,
Karen

Dear adoptive parents and in particular those who adopted transracially,

I'm inviting you to come learn with me. We can never know it all, mitigate it all or avoid the reality that our transracially adopted children have experienced loss and trauma in so many ways, so what we need to do it learn as much as we can in continuous and humble ways. Our kids deserve it. The best perspectives we can glean from is those who have lived it.

My guest today is Lydia Faye, an adult adoptee adopted as a newborn and raised by white parents in essentially an all-white community. She had a pivotal, eye opening experience in college that shone a light on so many unexplained experiences she had throughout her life. She shares openly about her own experiences and also what she's learned through her work, mentorship and educating roles. In today's episode we hone in on loss and microaggressions and how white parents can support racial identity formation with their transracial adoptees. Please join us and share this episode with friends and family. Also check out the recommended resources below!

Check out Lydia's Becoming Lydia Faye website for more about her personal journey and her work as a mentor and educator, or follow her on IG.

Recommended reading:
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown
TIME article as food for thought: Realities of raising a kid of a different race.

If you are a couple in the process of adopting, I'd encourage you to take a look at the details of my online course which includes a module video on transracial adoption by adult adoptee and social worker, Angela Tucker. You can read all about it here.

And if you'd prefer to feel like you're in our living room for our conversation, you can tune in on YouTube for our video version!

Renae is back to show us P.A.C.E. in action! This bonus episode is in follow up to our conversation in S11E5 where we cover this model of parenting in the wake of kids having experienced developmental or relational trauma. If you want to know what it sounds and looks like to put Dr. Hughes' approach into motion with your kids, have a listen.

Dear caregivers of kids who have been through really messy and hard stuff,

We are so grateful for you - the way you show up for the kids in your lives even when you feel lost with how to best support them, when their behaviours look so overwhelming, and when you start to wonder if things can get better. Relationship trauma takes a long time to heal from, and when a young, vulnerable child is in an environment that for whatever complex reasons can't be present for and responsive to their innate needs for security, it can feel like the resulting wounds might be too hard to repair. When you are in a parenting role with a child who is relearning how to trust their adults, their expressions of their trauma, fear and mistrust can feel insulting, personal, and unsafe for YOU. We know this and we understand.

We're here to get real about the impacts of attachment trauma but also to provide models of understanding about what we can do to give our futures their best chance. Humans are shockingly resilient. Let's stay open to surprises, particularly when parts of us are convinced there's no way through to healing.

Renae is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and parent (both biological and adoptive) and she uses the P.A.C.E approach - a model developed by Dr. Daniel Hughes which Renae refers to as a "game changer" both personally and professionally.  Today she'll walk us through what P.A.C.E. means, how and why it works, and she's even agreed to come back for a bonus episode in follow up to this conversation which will serve as a "lab" of sorts. I'll provide her with some situations and scenarios that come up with kids who have had relationship traumas in their past, and she'll demonstrate how the P.A.C.E. approach would sound like in response.

If you want to check out Renae's work, you can find her information HERE.
To read more about Dr. Daniel Hughes' approach, go to his website http://www.danielhughes.org/
And if you want to learn more about complex trauma and brain development, we'd encourage you to listen to our previous podcast episode {S8E6} with Dr. Chuck Geddes, which you can listen to HERE or wherever you listen to Parenting in the Trenches.

If ever there was a deep trench of mud, it's parenting kids who have a history of trauma. We want you to have support and resources to stay well and to help your child find healing. 

Holding steady with you,
Karen

Parents, soon-to-be parents and hopeful parents,

Be honest - what thoughts, associations, pictures in your mind come up when you hear the diagnosis "Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder" or "FASD"? What have you been told about it, what are your assumptions, what are your worries? If you're parenting a child with FASD, what has your journey been in learning about it, supporting your child and adjusting your parenting approaches and expectations?

This week's episode is a discussion with parent-in-the-trenches, Natalie Vecchione. We talk about the misconceptions, the stigma, the need for person-centred parenting and resources, and what "interdependent" living can look like throughout development. She has lived experience home educating her two children (who joined their family through adoption)and advocating for resources, increased awareness and policy change for assessment and treatment support services around the 5 diagnoses that fall under the FASD umbrella. She's real, she's wise, and she's filled with hope and light.

Natalie left us with some amazing resources and I hope you'll check out her podcast and book!

CANFASD

natalie@fasdhope.com

https://www.fasdhope.com/

Instagram - @fasdhope

Facebook- @fasdhope1

Twitter - @fasdhope 

Clubhouse - @natalievecc

FASD Hope Podcast on Apple or find it wherever you listen to your podcasts!

Blazing New Homeschool Trails: Educating and Launching Teens with Developmental Disabilities

Have you ever met someone and immediately felt safe? Like this person is trustworthy, warm, would see you through the hardest of things? Meet Dr. Eshleman - Lark, as she prefers to be called. She embodies the work she does by modeling safe relationships, bringing her deep knowledge and experience of attachment and trauma, and by demonstrating her life long passion for helping children heal from ruptured connections early in their life.

I don't know about you, but relationships and healthy attachments feel so foundational to all other wellness in our lives and also the most complicated to understand and repair when things have been severed. Lark brings so much understanding, grace, warmth and clarity around both the hardest of the experiences and the steps towards healing.

If you are parenting a child who has experienced ruptures in their early attachments, Lark wants you to know what you can be actively doing to facilitate healing in your families. So please tune in for this episode, you won't be disappointed.

If you want to read Dr. Lark Eshleman's book, you can find it here: Becoming a Family

To learn more about Dr. Lark's work and the resources she mentioned in our episode, check out these links:

https://www.larkeshleman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/AttachmentandTrauma/

Lark’s colouring book: https://forallseasonsinc.org/product/color-me-closer/

Other resources mentioned in the recording:

https://www.amazon.ca/Neurofeedback-Treatment-Developmental-Trauma-Fear-driven/dp/0393707865

https://drdansiegel.com/

Dr. Lark talks in this episode about the healing qualities of Coregulation. To learn more about how to do this effectively with your children, check out 10 Strategies for Coregulation.

And if you are a couple waiting to adopt, I'd encourage you to check out this self-paced online course: Adoption: What to do while you wait, available for the month of February at 50% off when you enter coupon code ADOPTSTRONG

With you in the trenches,
Karen

Adoptive and foster parents, you are in for a treat!

In my practice, I frequently get asked about how to help current children in the family unit adjust well to folding in a newly adopted sibling - understandably - it's not straightforward. We want everyone involved to transition well! I wanted to know more about the transitions experienced by the adoptive triad directly from people who have walked the journey.

Low and behold, we found the amazing Jeanette Yoffe! She shares her experience as a child in foster care and what her transition was like into her forever adoptive family. We're learning today about the stickiness and the incredible importance of establishing permanency for children who have had attachment disruptions and what we need to know about the transitions adoptees and adoptive parents/sibs often experience. As a psychotherapist supporting adoption processes in the US, she has witnessed and been intimately part of many transitions, including reunification, and has generously shared her wisdom through a number of resources including YouTube videos and books she's written. I wanted you to know about them ALL, so please take some time to check out the following links, spread the word with adoptive and foster parents you know, and soak in the knowledge so we can all do better in our family relationships and in our mental health.

https://yoffetherapy.com/

Jeanette Yoffe's YouTube Channel

Follow Jeanette on Facebook

What is Adoption: Just for Kids

And here are some of the resources Jeanette talks about in the podcast, in case you want to learn more!

https://www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org/

https://www.pactadopt.org/home.asp

https://celiacenter.org/

https://postinstitute.com/

https://nacac.org/

https://affcny.org/

https://www.infant-parent.com/

https://adoptionsupport.org/

For all the couples out there preparing to adopt, we want to equip you with the tools to do this well TOGETHER. To know ways of partnering well, managing conflict, finding ways to attune to one another's needs and to the needs of your child, learning about openness, transracial adoption, attachment trauma, post adoption planning and SO MUCH MORE! I've combined what we know to help adoptive families thrive into my online course, Adoption: What to do while you wait. And until the end of February, 2022, you can register for this at 50% off using the coupon code YOFFE50. Invest in your family - it's soooooo worth it!

Truly with you on your journey,
Karen