So here’s a challenge for all parents — let’s practice making mistakes with our children (not intentionally, of course) and repairing them so that we and our children can grow and learn, and our connection can be strengthened. Are you up for it? Here’s how it works.

Choose a two to three day period when you will be with your child for most, if not all, of the waking hours in the day. Over the course of these days, be mindful to repair each and every mistake you make when interacting with your child. Whether you lose your temper, raise your voice, speak sarcastically, become frustrated, cut them off, fail to give them voice, ignore them, hurt their feelings…the list could go on. Regardless of whether the mistake is big or small, intentional or unintentional, be sure to quickly, humbly, and sincerely repair each and every mistake you make.

As you do this, make a mental note of (or better yet, actually write down) any observations that stand out, particularly in terms of your own feelings and your child’s response (to both your mistake and your repair). Also make a note of any changes in your relationship with your child that you witness throughout the course of this time. We have a hunch that by practicing making mistakes and repairing them, your relationship with your child will grow.

For more on the importance of parents repairing their mistakes, watch these videos featuring Dr. Karyn Purvis and Amy Monroe:

1. How Do I Handle Manipulation & Control?
2. Will Trust-Based Parenting Work for My Child?
3. Why Won’t My Child Act His Age?
4. How Do I Handle Lying?
5. How Do I Find the Right Professional To Help Us?
6. Should I Parent My Adopted Child Differently Than Birth Children?
7. How Long Do I Have to Parent This Way?
8. Is It Adoption Related or Not?
9. Will Trust-Based Parenting Prepare My Child for the Real World?
10. How Can I Be Fair?

Watch each of these videos below — and be sure to share them with other parents as well. You can also order a DVD containing all 10 videos from the ETC online store here.

Parents often find that children from hard places are prone to use manipulative and controlling behaviors. Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe offer insights to help adoptive and foster parents better understand these behaviors and respond effectively.

Parents often ask whether trust-based parenting — the type of parenting that Dr. Karyn Purvis teaches — will work for their child. Watch as Dr. Purvis answers this question, and explains why each of our children — regardless of their age or stage of development — need the same things from their parents.

In response to meltdowns, emotional outbursts, extreme neediness, and many other behavioral challenges, adoptive and foster parents are often left asking: “why won’t my child act his or her age?” Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe address this important question, offering insight about the needs of adoptive and foster children and how parents can effectively meet those needs to build trust and develop a stronger connection.

Knowing how best to handle lying is often a significant challenge for adoptive and foster parents. Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe offer insights to help parents effectively respond to lying while remaining connected with their child.

Adoptive and foster parents often need the help of professionals in order to meet their child’s needs. But how do parents know which professionals to turn to? Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe offer practical insight about how parents should view the role of professionals, and which criterion to use in selecting the right professionals to help bring about healing for their child.

Parents often struggle to blend the parenting approach they used before they adopted with the unique trust-based parenting approach they are now using to meet the unique needs of a child from a hard place. Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis explains how parents can effectively meet the needs of all of their children — biological, adopted, and foster — by using a parenting approach that focuses on building trust. In addition, Dr. Purvis offers valuable insight to help parents explain changes in their parenting approach to their older biological child and encourages parents to give all children a voice as the family welcomes home new children and embraces their needs.

As a result of early life experiences, children from hard places often miss out on some of the key development that is essential for helping them learn to trust and grow relationally. Because of their unique histories and needs, these children need parents that are willing to utilize the unique approach of trust-based parenting to help them heal and grow. Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis encourages adoptive and foster parents to embrace trust-based parenting as the “new normal” that God has called them to as an essential part of the journey.

Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis answers the challenging question that many adoptive parents ask: is it adoption related or just typical child behavior? In this brief video Dr. Purvis offers helpful insights and encourages parents to always be mindful of their child’s history.

Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe talk about the importance of meeting your child’s needs with an appropriate balance of nurture and structure in order to prepare them to be successful later in life.

Parents often feel pressure to respond to each of their children with ‘sameness’ instead of ‘fairness’ based on individual needs and development. Watch as Michael Monroe offers helpful insights about the important question of ‘fairness’ and encourages parents to focus on meeting the unique needs of each child in order to help their children heal and grow.

Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe offer practical insight about how parents should view the role of professionals and which criterion they should use in selecting the right professional to come alongside them in order to help bring about healing for their child.

I’ve found that parenting is often like that.  You look around and it seems that other parents (you know the ones) have it all together.  They say “stop” and their kids freeze, they say “no” and their kids instantly comply without a peep, and they say “jump” and their kids seemingly ask “how high?”  You just know it can’t be real; you know it can’t really be that easy.  But still, to watch and listen to them, parenting is a piece of cake.  And then, to add insult to injury, you come across a video of a parenting expert and he or she makes it sound so very easy.  So you go home and give it a try with your child, but much like the recipe gone awry or the repair job that fails, all you end up with is a big mess.  It was easy for them to say, but oh so very hard for you to do.

Well there is good news – you’re not crazy and you’re not alone.  It turns out that many of these things are in fact ‘easier said than done.’  Experts have even given this reality a name: the illusion of expertise.  In overly simple terms, this regularly occurring phenomenon describes how we often observe others explaining or demonstrating something and we mistakenly believe that we can replicate it with a similar level of mastery or competence, if not also ease.  But therein lies the illusion.  True expertise, true mastery only comes with consistent and quality repetition and with constructive feedback regarding mistakes.  That’s just a fancy way of saying that you have to practice. There is simply no substitute, and parenting is not exempt.

Practice is not a foreign concept to us parents.  Our kids are involved in a bewildering array of sports, activities, and school performances.  We have no problem pushing our kids to practice.  Even homework can be thought of as practice.  But practice our parenting?  That sounds crazy. 

Yet that is precisely what we need to do.  Let’s all admit it – parenting is hard.  At times, it’s downright impossible.  And I am convinced that it is supposed to be, in no small part because through the hard and in the midst of the impossible God is at work in our lives to shape and mold us in ways that He can only do through the parenting journey.  Dan Allender, in his terrific book How Children Raise Parents, puts it this way: “parenting is the space in our lives where we are most open to the work of God to change us – if we will only allow our children to lead us into spiritual maturity.”

So as we pursue a more holistic way of understanding and relating to our children; as we learn to love our children the way God loves us…let’s not forget that we have the privilege and opportunity to put our faith and commitment into practice each and every day.  But there are no shortcuts – at least none worth taking.  Giving your child voice, creating ‘felt safety’, connecting while correcting, giving choices, using playful engagement, implementing an effective time-in, repairing your mistakes…these all require practice.  A lifetime of faithful practice and learning from our mistakes.  And although practice won’t make perfect (there’s no such thing when it comes to parenting), God will use it to change you and your relationship with your child.

For more on the importance of practice in parenting, watch this short video by Amy Monroe:

The Orlando ETC Conference will be held on Friday & Saturday, February 15-16, at First Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida.

Registration for the Orlando conference is open! In fact, the early bird rate of only $35 per individual or $50 per couple is still available through January 11!  In addition, for a limited time you can register for 1/2 off due to a generous grant from Focus on the Family. Simply use the code FOCUS when registering online to receive this discount.  This additional discount is only available for a limited number of registrations, so be sure to register today at www.etcconference.org.

Training certificates for foster/adoptive parents as well as CEU credits for social workers are available for those attending the ETC Conference.

Help us spread the word about this great opportunity for parents, professionals, and ministry leaders alike to find help and hope!

Empowered To Connect has been blessed to serve those who are traveling the adoption and foster care journey for the past four years. We are truly honored by the opportunity that we have to equip and encourage adoptive and foster parents.

In 2012 we held three Empowered To Connect Conferences and were able to teach thousands of parents and professionals.  In addition, we continued to produce new resources, opened the online ETC store, and laid the groundwork for new and much needed resources in 2013. And that’s where you come in.

Empowered To Connect has been approached by a generous individual who is offering to match all donations received between now and the end of the year. In other words, give to Empowered To Connect now and your gift — no matter how big or small — will be matched (up to a total of $10,000). That means your gift of $25 becomes $50, $100 becomes $200, $500 become $1,000, and so on. We hope you’ll consider helping us take advantage of this matching opportunity.

We’re always grateful for your prayers and your kind words about Empowered To Connect, but we want to invite you to support the mission of Empowered To Connect financially as well. There are two ways you can do this.  Feel free to choose one or both:

• Donate to Empowered To Connect online or by check*
• Purchase resources in the ETC Store

In fact, all online orders of $25 or more from the ETC online store are 20% off for the month of December. Click here for more details.

All of your donations and purchases go directly to sustaining and furthering the efforts of Empowered To Connect — so please, take a moment now to consider how you can support our work. We’re excited about what lies ahead.

*To give online, click here and use either your Paypal account or debit/credit card. To give by check, make your check payable to Tapestry and mail it to Irving Bible Church, 2435 Kinwest Pkwy, Irving, TX 75063. Tapestry and Empowered To Connect are ministries of Irving Bible Church. All contributions are tax deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.

In that moment I began to be confronted by much of what I had brought into the journey of adoptive parenting – most significantly my expectations about my child and how this journey would unfold. In reality I hardly knew my son, still that did not stop me from creating expectations about the things he would like and how he would act and think.  On top of that, I expected that the adoption path God had led us down would be relatively easy and straightforward once we were home.  I convinced myself that adoption was little more than a historical fact of how we came to be, rather than an ongoing reality of the journey that lay ahead.

All parents bring expectations with them into parenting – some realistic and others not.  For adoptive families, however, lingering unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment, frustration and even a real disconnection between parents and children.  When a child’s history of pain and loss begins to taint the beautiful picture of what a parent expected their adoption journey to look like, parents are tempted to protect their image rather than embrace their child’s feelings and struggles.  When a child’s behaviors (rooted in fear and an instinct to survive) begin to collide with the “way we do things as a family” and are only made worse by a parent’s attempts at discipline, parents can find themselves exhausted and quickly nearing the point of despair.

I know these experiences well.  When faced with the challenging realities of adoption, my initial instinct was to respond by pointing an accusing finger at my child as if to ask, “What’s wrong with you?”  I have since discovered that “what’s wrong” is not with him, but with me and my expectations.  As I laid down my assumptions and took a closer look at my expectations, I discovered that my truest calling was to meet my child right where he was and compassionately lead him forward.  As I let go of my idealized notions of the future, I was able to find far more beauty and joy in the present moment.

Rightly understood the adoption journey invites parents to move beyond what we want and embrace what our children need. To travel it well, we must shift our focus from satisfying our own expectations to discovering all that God has in store. Far from lowering our expectations for our children and where we are headed as a family, we should expect more – much more.

I see this truth in the words of the Apostle Paul when he wrote: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9 – NLT).  The challenge is to hold our expectations loosely, always willing to surrender them to the One who has called us to this amazing adventure.  And as we let go, we find that God’s desires for our family are so much greater and better than what we ever expected. 

This is not a promise that the road ahead will be easy.  The adoption journey seldom is.  But it is worth it.  In both the good times and bad, amidst both the joy and the pain, God is writing a story of hope, redemption, and love with our lives.

As for my son, I am still learning who he is.  But along the way I have come to understand that he doesn’t have to become more like me or even what I thought he would be in order for us to become the “we” that God intended. Instead, I simply need to continue to let go of my expectations and embrace the wonder of discovering all that God has created him – and us together – to be.

A version of this article appeared in the October/November 2012 issue of Focus on the Family’s Thriving Family magazine.  Click here to read.

All online orders of $25 or more from the ETC online store are 20% off for the month of December. Use code: Christmas2012 at checkout.

Visit www.etcstore.org to find helpful resources for adoptive and foster families – including the Created To Connect Study Guide and the DVD — What Every Adoptive Parent Should Know.  The discount also applies to Tapestry store, including DVDs and CDs from past Tapestry conferences, Tapestry t-shirts and more.

If you are not familiar with the Tapestry store, here are a few of the most popular items to get you started:

Listen to Our Hearts DVD - This event offered the unique opportunity to “listen in” to the experiences, stories, and perspectives of adopted persons from diverse backgrounds and featured Carissa Woodwyk, speaker and author of Before You Were Mine.

Attachment Workshop: Parenting With Your Brain in Mind - This workshop, led by Curt Thompson, M.D., author of Anatomy of the Soul,  focuses on fundamental elements of the mind and its function, the process of attachment and its essential role in parenting, the importance of “making sense of your story, practical exercises related to the development of emotional and spiritual maturity in your child.

Complete DVD Set – 2012 Tapestry Conference  - The complete set of DVDs from the 2012 Tapestry Conference – 16 DVDs in all — for the price of 13.  This set includes the general session (What Story Do You Believe? – presented by Dr. Curt Thompson) and all 15 breakout sessions.

Check out these great resources today and help support Empowered To Connect!

I’m currently reading The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Bryson; it has given me so much to think about. Chapter 4: Kill the Butterflies! Integrating Memory for Growth and Healing is packed with fascinating information about the brain and how to help our children process memories. Making sense of their memories helps them better understand their thoughts and feelings in the present.

The authors explain that implicit memory is when “past experiences influence your behavior in the present without any realization that your memory has even been triggered.” In contrast, explicit memory is a conscious recollection of a past experience. They also state that during the first 18 months of life, all memories are encoded implicitly.
They would advise us to help Ebenezer process his experience by telling the story – making the implicit memory explicit – so that he can make sense of what happened. We need to help him take the scattered memories of that experience and put them together in a way that forms a complete picture.

This leads me to think about Dr. Purvis who teaches that in the first months of life, our babies form memories and are “primed” for future experiences. They cry, we comfort them. They cry, we feed them. They cry, we pick them up and change their diaper. They cry, and we come to them. The baby develops an expectation that they have “voice” and their needs will be met.

How is this different from our children who came from “hard places”? I have a child who cried, and nobody came. She was terribly hungry, and not fed. When there was food, it was given to more favored children. She was cold, and there were no blankets. Numerous implicit memories expectations were formed.

1. I cry and nobody comes; I am alone.
2. I’m hungry; I will probably die.
3. People are dangerous; I must not trust them. I will take care of myself.

How do I help her make sense of her overwhelming reactions to hunger, fear of trusting and attaching to parents, and a deep sense of competition with siblings? Being intentional and consistent and seeking help so she can work through these fears and understand her story – together with lots of prayer – is key.

But there is something else I can do on a daily basis – meet her needs over and over again. When she cries, I need to comfort her. When she is hungry, I need to feed her. When she doesn’t trust, I must be trustworthy and safe.

This is very difficult to do with a child who is volatile – but I need to press on, with compassion and the belief that God is for her, He sees her, and He can do great healing in her heart and mind.

Click here for more on The Whole-Brain Child, including discussion guides by chapter as well as links to blog posts (written by Annie McClellan at Tapestry) detailing each of the 12 strategies in the book.