Description

Parents help shape the most complex organ in the universe – the human mind!

Becoming a parent creates one of the greatest identity transformations we will ever experience. When we go from being “non-parents” to suddenly parenting a baby, child, teen or siblings, a seismic shift occurs in our heart, body and mind. This new role brings significant emotional, physical and psychological demands, as well as challenges we never saw coming. It changes how we see ourselves, our relationships and our world.

It’s easy for parents to absorb the losses, trauma, hurt and anger that are triggered within the emotional intimacy of the parent-child attachment relationship. Toxic stress embeds itself into our heart, body and mind, making it difficult to emotionally attune to the needs of our child.

Parents are the most valuable therapeutic modality available to a traumatized child. Empowering parents to prioritize their own emotional, physical and mental health is the best gift we can give to a hurt child. Join us for a day of laughter, connection and learning as we focus on the needs of parents who are living in the trauma trenches.

Objectives:
1. Participants will learn and practice ways to attune to their own internal emotional landscape so they can better assess and manage their own trauma symptoms and toxic stress.
2. Participants will be able to identify various types and symptoms of traumatic loss for children, as well as ways to intervene to help children identify, understand and express painful or unprocessed experiences.
3. Participants will recognize the signs of complex developmental trauma in children, especially as it relates to attachment disruptions, neglect, and lack of attachment security; which leaves the child in a constant state of hyper-arousal (toxic stress) or distress, without the connection, rootedness, belonging, and the committed relational permanency needed to heal from earlier attachment or relational trauma.
4. Participants will learn to use the conceptual framework of the seven core issues as a way to assess and understand the needs of complex family systems connected to kinship care, foster care and adoption.
5. Participants will learn practice tools to explore, understand and address the effects of grief, loss and trauma within the primary attachment relationship. Utilizing a developmental, trauma-informed lens to intervene in ways that empower and strengthen identity, self-esteem and emotional regulation competencies.

Locations