Reparenting the Child Who Hurts: A Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma and Attachments

Christine Gordon · Caroline Archer

Dec 2012 · Jessica Kingsley Publishers

About this ebook

Finally, a parenting book which demystifies the latest thinking on neurobiology, physiology and trauma and explains what the research means for the everyday life of parents of children who hurt.

As experts on adoption and fostering who are adoptive parents themselves, Caroline Archer and Christine Gordon explain how this knowledge can help parents to better understand and care for their child. They explain why conventional parenting techniques are often not helpful for the child who has experienced early trauma and explore why therapeutic reparenting is the only way to help repair the unhealthy neurobiological and behavioural patterns which affect the child's development. They do not shy away from how difficult reparenting is, acknowledging how hard it can be to recognise our own fallibility as parents and to change our own parenting patterns. The authors also offer hard-won advice on a range of common parenting flashpoints - from defusing arguments and aggression to negotiating bedtimes and breaks in routine, and making sure that special occasions are remembered for all the right reasons.

Reparenting the Child Who Hurts is a humane, no-nonsense survival guide for any parent caring for a child with developmental trauma or attachment difficulties, and will also provide information and insights for social workers, teachers, counsellors and other professionals involved in supporting adoptive and foster families.

About the author

Caroline Archer is an adoptive parent, an independent consultant in post-adoption support and a therapeutic parent mentor. She is also the bestselling author of First Steps in Parenting a Child who Hurts: Tiddlers and Toddlers 2nd Edition, Next Steps in Parenting a Child who Hurts: Tykes and Teens, and co-author (with Christine Gordon) of New Families, Old Scripts: A Guide to the Language of Trauma and Attachment in Adoptive Families. Christine Gordon is an adoptive parent with many years' experience of working with adoptive and foster families. She was a co-founder of Family Futures Consortium, London. Alongside her 'hands on' supportive role to parents, she is active in training and promoting the professional role of parent mentor as an integral part of the therapeutic team.