By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Monday, April 18, 2011As promised, here are the handouts (containing the text of Dr. Purvis’ slides) from the recent Empowered To Connect Conference in Denver, Colorado:
● Handout for The Attachment Dance
● Handout for Empoweing Our Kids to Succeed: Understanding Sensory Processing and the Neurochemistry of Fear
● Handout for Foundations for Behavioral Change
By: Lisa Qualls
Monday, April 4, 2011I was pouring a cup of coffee when my friend called. She asked if I had a minute to talk and when I answered, “Yes,” her resolve quickly faded and she began to cry. She told me about a conflict with her newly adopted son that had occurred the night before. Despite her best intentions, she was convinced that she had failed to handle it well. Then she said these words that made me catch my breath – they were all too familiar: “I used to be a good mom.”
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Wednesday, March 30, 2011Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis talks honestly about the need for adoptive and foster parents to expect trauma responses from their child. While long-term challenges, of various kinds, should be expected, Dr. Purvis reminds parents that there are many answers that offer hope and healing. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Monday, March 28, 2011Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis explains why children from hard places need a balance of both nurture and structure in order to feel safe, develop trust and heal. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
Read Chapter 6 from Created To Connect: A Christian’s Guide to The Connected Child for more about why balancing nurture and structure is important for children from hard places.
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Wednesday, March 23, 2011Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis explains the importance of sharing appropriate levels of power with children from hard places in order to help them learn to trust and to heal. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Tuesday, March 22, 2011Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis talks about the importance of predictability for children from hard places, and how parents can help children succeed by enabling them to know what to expect. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Sunday, March 20, 2011Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis focuses parents on the need to use playful engagement to help disarm their child’s fear response and enable a stronger connection. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
To learn more about the importance of playful engagement and how parents can use it to both connect and correct, check out the Playful Interaction DVD from the TCU Institute of Child Development.
By: Amy Monroe
Friday, February 25, 2011One of the things I’ve learned in my journey as a mom is the need for me to raise the level of nurture I bring to parenting in order to help my children build trust. My children need to trust that I will consistently meet their needs in ways that help them understand that they are precious and that their voice matters. Telling them I will meet their needs helps them to “know it;” showing them (over and over and over again) helps them experience it and learn to trust.
I’ve learned that one of the best ways to accomplish this is to give my children as many “yes’s” as I can. It is through my “yes’s” that I can best give my kids this gift of trust. In order to improve in this area, during a recent Saturday at home with my kids I committed to giving them as many “yes’s” as possible. Trust me, this wasn’t easy, but I need the practice and they need this gift. Throughout the course of that day I was intentional about catching myself before each and every “no” I was about to give. As I stopped to think every time I considered saying “no,” I asked myself a simple question: Can I give my child a joyful “yes” instead?
By: Dr. Karyn Purvis
Tuesday, February 8, 2011In this brief video, Dr. Karyn Purvis offers some simple, yet tangible steps that families in crisis can take in order to find the hope and help they need. To see what these steps looked like for one family, read How We Found Help in the Midst of Crisis.
By: Lisa Qualls
Tuesday, February 8, 2011In this short video, Dr. Purvis highlights a number of strategies for helping families, many of which we used when our family was in crisis. The over-arching theme is that we cannot parent children from “hard places” alone. As she says, we need to “pitch our tent” with others who understand and turn to them for help. As we struggled to find our way, we learned that we needed a “team” for our daughter because we could not meet her needs and the needs of our other children at the same time. We were exhausted, emotionally and physically, and we were stressed beyond belief.
But there is hope. This is our story of how we found help in the midst of crisis.