Month: May 2022

Attachment Trauma

If you struggle with relationships, you are not alone. There are some dominant cultural narratives that assumes there is something wrong with us, but science and research offers us a more expansive view. Our relationship challenges may be rooted in what is known as “attachment trauma”. Attachment Theory We need to first understand attachment to understand attachment trauma. Attachment theory argues humans are born with a need to form a close emotional bond with a caregiver and that attachment is critical to a young child’s development. Both the presence and quality of attachment matter. If our bonding is strong, we

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Parenting A Child With Trauma

            As a parent it can be really difficult figuring out how to help your child or teen who has experienced some type of trauma.  We can’t take their pain away.  Or make them forget their pain.  We can’t ignore that it happened.  So how do we help them?  What do we do to make it better?  How do we fix it??? How to Support Their Journey to Healing            HA, that’s the golden question!  And the simple answer is…we can’t.  I think when we finally come to that realization, it makes helping our kiddos and teens navigate through their trauma

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How Fostering Challenged My Relationships

There are many relationships that happen through being a foster parent. If I had to name them all, it would probably take up most of this blog. Then there are relationships with friends and family that were there before we became foster parents. When I became a foster parent in 2016, I heard about all the challenges with behaviors and all the challenges I would face in relation to the child coming into my home, but what I did not realize is the challenges it would add to my own relationships. Relationship with significant other It was about 6 months

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Importance of Positive Relationships for Our Mental Health

Relationships of all types have a direct effect on our day to day lives and emotions.  I’m sure you’ve experienced having a fight with your kiddo or teen, partner, family member, boss, etc. and it just put you in a bad mood…I know I have!  That’s because interactions and connections affect our mind and our body.  Positive vs Negative Talk I often find myself having a talk with my clients about positive and negative language.  Consider the social experiments schools had their students do a plant.  If not seen it, watch it here.  Definitely worth it!  The school took two

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