Trauma-Informed Parenting Trauma-Informed Parenting

What about being spiritually prepared? Although the emotional and spiritual components are often intertwined, there is an aspect of spiritual preparation that stands alone.

When a Christian decides to become a missionary or start a ministry, training takes place. Often it involves Bible college or leadership training at church. Missionaries study the culture of the people they are going to serve. They learn the language, habits, and customs of the people. Why? Because we understand that no one should ever enter the mission field without being thoroughly prepared.

Most of us entering the adoption/foster care world and/or raising a kiddo with neurodiversity do not receive this type of spiritual training unless we seek it out.
Grab a cup of coffee and join Kathleen as she digs into this topic and shares some answers from a survey on this topic!

A couple of podcast listeners (during a TIP workshop) asked me to share about spirituality and kiddos with trauma histories/neurodiversities. 
Honestly, this is a tough subject because of what we expect. We expect our kiddos to accept our religion of choice when they come home to us through foster care/adoption or have a Capital Letter Syndrome.
If we don’t understand our own foundation and place in the family of God, we aren’t going to be able to share our faith with our children. If you’re a regular listener/reader you’ve heard me say - we must make sense of and peace with our past and we must reframe our beliefs. Sometimes this means reframing our beliefs about our spiritual beliefs.
Grab a cup of coffee and join me for this deep dive into the subject of spirituality and kiddos!

Today I have a special guest -Amber Trueblood
Amber is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, entrepreneur, speaker, author, wife, and mother to four sons. Amber is all about helping real moms shift their mindset, improve communication skills, and implement simple practices to be the absolute best version of themselves.
She joins me to talk about her book The Unflustered Mom: How Understanding the Five Anxiety Styles Transforms the Way We Parent, Partner, Live, and Love.
She digs into the Five Anxiety Styles. You can take her anxiety-style quiz here.
Grab a cup of coffee and join us to learn about your anxiety style and how to navigate it (and your kiddos too).

In this episode, I first lay the foundation for why we need investment parenting. It all has to do with co-regulation.
Children with trauma histories/ Capital Letter Syndromes have altered brain development. The main outward sign of past trauma is what we often refer to as “bad behavior” or the inability to self-regulate (if you want it to sound more science-y and less critical). The truth is, when it comes to behavior, we must remember that every behavior expresses a need.
When it comes to kiddos with a trauma history/Capital Letter Syndrome, the ability to self-regulate is absent. It’s CAN’T not WON’T Regulate. In simple plain language that means, he cannot calm himself. He can’t help but be overwhelmed to the point that he is either hiding under the table (flight), not responding to what you are asking of him (freeze), or running away from the situation (flight). He CAN’T. Not physically able. Not emotionally able. In this scenario, the adult must take the reins and help the child by co-regulating. Co-regulation helps a child develop a new pattern for stress regulation.
Grab a cup of coffee and join me to learn how to practice investment parenting with co-regulation!

You don't want to miss this episode.
Daughter Audrey and I get super real on autism, neurodivergence, and how to parent kiddos on the spectrum. (These tips work with kiddos with trauma histories as well!)
We are both on the spectrum, so not only do we share what we've learned about parenting our kiddos, but we do it through the lens of neurodivergence.
As far as parenting goes, we share the "Instead Of" Tips -Tips You can use instead of traditional parenting. 
Grab a cup of coffee and join us! If you aren't following Trauma-Informed Parenting, today is the day to sign up so you can get your own copy of the Infographic! *Linked in the show notes!

Alexithymia is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions. 
I’m beginning this episode/article with a definition for a reason. When we are parenting kiddos with trauma histories/Capital Letter Syndromes (or reparenting ourselves) we hear many terms. Alexithymia is one of those. Along with proprioception, interoception, and a slew of other words which leave us scratching our heads.
Often we parents don’t have time to create notes and look every new-fangled term up when therapists use them as frequently as we use the word “that. While I’m not a professional therapist, nor do I have lots of letters behind my name, I am a Trauma-Informed Parenting Teacher. I like to take concepts and break them down into bite-sized pieces and share them with you so we can all be better parents, grandparents, caregivers, and professionals.
Grab a cup of coffee and join me as I share about alexithymia!