Giving and receiving love may seem like an easy thing, but for many adopted and foster kids it is hard. They have given love to people only to have those people disappear from their lives or not return their love. They have received love only to be moved to a new home, or the “love” they received was not love at all.
These kids are confused about what it means to give and receive love.
When parents make mistakes it can actually be healthy for both them and their children, so long as parents are quick to repair the ruptured connection. This is certainly good news, given that all parents are prone to their fair share of mistakes.
So here’s a challenge for all parents — let’s practice making mistakes (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?
This video collection contains ten short video interview sessions with Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael Monroe, offering helpful insights and practical advice in response to many of the the questions that are commonly asked by adoptive and foster parents.
Watch the first video in this series – How Do I Handle Manipulation & Control – or click here to watch all ten videos.
Dr. Karyn Purvis and the Institute of Child Development have released their latest DVD entitled Attachment: Why It Matters.
This new DVD explores the critical role of attachment in a child’s development. In this 2-disk set, adoptive parents share their struggles and successes in pursuit of answers to the all-important questions about attachment. In addition, experts (such as Dr. Karyn Purvis, Dr. David Cross, and Dr. Dan Siegel) share fascinating and encouraging research, particularly in the field of neuroscience, that reveals how secure attachments can help counter the effects of early trauma.
Trust-based parenting was developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis and focuses on the parent-child relationship. However, the principles and strategies that it teaches are no less effective when applied to other relationships — most importantly the marriage relationship.
Watch as Michael Monroe explains how trust-based parenting can positively impact your marriage to bring about greater connection througout your family.
In this brief 20 minute talk, Dr. Purvis shares some fascinating insights about the way in which we were created by God to connect. As revealed in Scripture and confirmed by science, all humans are designed as relational beings. Yet ‘children from hard places’ have missed out on so much of the nurture and development that is ideal and serves to build a strong foundation of trust early in life. As a result, adoptive and foster parents must be committed and uniquely equipped to lead these children toward healing.
In order to truly understand children from hard places — what they have experienced, the impact of those experiences and how we can help them heal and grow — it is important that we understand some of the basics. That’s why we have put this collection of eight Empowered To Connect videos together — to introduce (or re-introduce) you to some of the most important basics that we believe every adoptive parent can benefit from.
Click here to watch all eigth videos.
Children from hard places often experience pervasive and overwhelming feelings of sadness, and these feelings are often rooted, at least in part, in their personal history. The challenge for parents is that many times children express these feelings of sadness through anger and disrespect. In other words, their sad can often look mad — sometimes very mad.
Watch as Michael Monroe talks about some of his experiences with this, and encourages parents to look beyond the “mad” in order to help their children begin to identify, express and deal with their true feelings of sadness.
As 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
Watch as Dr. Karyn Purvis talks about the importance of parents exploring their expectations and motivations, as well as the impact that their own history can have when parenting children from hard places. This video is part of the Insights and Gifts video series, which includes a small group discussion guide that you can download here.
For more resources to help as parents explore their motivations, expectations and histories, click here.