What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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Love is usually not enough for traumatized adopted and foster children.

Caregivers need additional practical tools to support, correct, and guide these children.

These tools must be applied repeatedly, kindly, calmly, and firmly to help the children heal.

These tools can benefit all parents and health professionals.

This post is part of a series on adverse childhood experiences. Read the other parts here.

Many adoptive and foster parents earnestly believe that love will heal their children’s traumatic wounds, only to encounter unexpected challenges that they’re ill-prepared to handle. Overwhelming childhood upheaval, including separation from biological parents, neglect, abuse, and other trauma and attachment disruptions, impairs normal brain development. What looks like defiance and retreating from affection really reflects damaged brain wiring and learned distrust, fear, and survival strategies.

In The Connected Parent, renowned child development expert, parent, and foster parent Dr. Karyn Purvis and co-author Lisa Qualls offer practical parenting skills for children with a hard start—skills that all parents and health professionals will find useful. Purvis optimistically notes: “I’ve never yet seen a child who couldn’t experience dramatic levels of healing. The greatest predictor of a child’s capacity for healing is a safe, nurturing adult who can help them learn to trust.”

To help their brains heal, “children from hard places” need parents whose love and dedication are matched by special skills (many common parenting strategies are actually counterproductive for traumatized children);

Physical support to........

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