During the month of September, we are re-releasing your favorite episodes of all time. Listen along and find answers to your common questions. Whether or not you have heard these episodes before, we are excited for you to be encouraged, equipped, and find hope. You don’t have to journey alone!
Parenting is not for the faint of heart. It takes work every day to understand how to best love our kids, teach them, and correct them. Add to that learning how to parent a child who has gone through trauma, and you realize you need a completely different set of tools. Strategies that may have worked for our biological children now seem to have the opposite effect on our kids.
Kristin Berry is the co-founder of The Resilient Caregiver (formerly The Honestly Adoption Company), an author, podcaster, as well as a foster and adoptive parent. She is passionate about helping caregivers learn how to reframe their perspective on their child’s trauma history and respond to behaviors with compassion and connection. Kristin and her husband, Mike, have fostered for nine years and have had 23 children come through their doors.
In this episode, Kristin gives practical insight into why traditional parenting doesn’t work for kids who have experienced trauma, how you can parent in a way that promotes connection, and how to take away the power of negative behaviors.
- [BOOK] Born Broken: An Adoptive Journey
- [BOOK] Promoting Healthy Attachments: Hands-on Techniques to Use with Your Clients
- [BOOK] The Connected Child
- [BOOK] Winning The Heart Of Your Child
- [BOOK] Jesus Storybook Bible
- Follow Kristin on her website, Instagram, or Facebook
- Give to The Forgotten Initiative
- Foster Care & the Church
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TAKEAWAYS FROM TODAY’S CONVERSATION:
1. It’s our job to help a child regulate their emotions.
Many things can trigger the brains of our children with traumatic backgrounds and cause them—without thinking—to jump to survival mode (fight, flight, or freeze). Our first job as parents is to help our children regulate their emotions and come to a place of calm so that learning and healing can begin. From a traditional parenting lens, parenting this way can look like spoiling or enabling. But as a trauma-informed parent, you know this is part of intentionally building trust.
“When we are parenting with an understanding of trauma, we are looking at a child and seeing what was missing.”
2. We are always trying to intentionally rebuild trust.
For a child that did not have their needs met for years, they typically either have a response that is an overreaction or an underreaction. The underreaction looks like them meeting their own needs and never vocalizing that they need help or are hurting, whereas an overreaction is when they have a meltdown at something seemingly trivial. In each case, we need to take steps to assure them that we can be counted on to meet their needs.
“I’m still trying to build the trust with her that is missing from 18 years of not knowing that she can count on the people around her.”
3. Look for connection opportunities with the child in your care.
As we consider our relationship with the children in our care, we can learn from God’s relationship with us. How often do we push Him away, rebel, question His authority, or fight Him? And yet, He pursues us. He loves us. He waits for us, for as long as it takes. He is the ultimate Pursuer. And He loves our children even more than we do. Let’s learn from Him, lean on His strength, and consistently pursue the children He has given to us.
“When I can view my relationship with my children in the same way as the Lord’s relationship with me, that has been a help and encouragement. How often have I pushed away from the Lord? How often have I said, I’m not sure I want to be in a relationship with you?”
Meet Our Guest
Kristin Berry is the co-founder of The Resilient Caregiver (formerly The Honestly Adoption Company), an author, podcaster, as well as a foster and adoptive parent. She is passionate about helping caregivers learn how to reframe their perspective on their child’s trauma history and respond to behaviors with compassion and connection. Kristin and her husband, Mike, have fostered for nine years and have had 23 children come through their doors. Today, you can find them on their farm in Central Indiana with their nine children, four grandchildren, and a host of farm animals including show horses, a miniature cow, and 40,000 bees.
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