Trauma-Informed Parenting
Check out some of Pact’s most timely and popular publications. For permission to reprint or repost, please contact Beth Hall at beth@pactadopt.org.
by Rona Renner, RN published 2010 “Do you think my child’s fearful approach to everything new is because of his early experiences, or is it just his nature?” “My daughter’s high energy is really hard for me, I wonder if she’ll always be so hyper.” These are typical...
by Kenneth W. Watson published 1996 Parents have been trying to make sense out of the behavior of their children since Adam and Eve. This wish to understand people’s behavior (our own and others’) suggests wide acceptance of the belief that our behavior has meaning...
adapted with permission from Holly van Gulden published 2009, updated 2025 Regression (noun) a return to an earlier or less developed condition or way of behaving a going backward or a backward movement or progress, especially through the earlier stages of forms of...
by Lisa Moore 2024 We do not often have opportunities to talk about what it is to parent as a Black or Brown person. Nobody reminded me, when I was preparing to parent as a Black woman, that I was about to revisit the “firsts” of oppression. The experience of...
by Sloan Nova, Psy.D. 2024 “I don’t think the trauma ever goes away fully. I think you either are lucky and you learn how to deal with it, or it takes you out.” The quotes in this article are from interviews with adoptees about their lived experiences of being placed...
by Sloan Nova, Psy.D. 2024 As expressed in Twice Removed: Adoptees and Residential Treatment Care, it is critical for adoptive parents to take cautious, compassionate steps before considering residential treatment for their child. Start by seeking adoption-sensitive...
by Schai Schairer, LMSW 2024 While in recent years conversations around racial bias, policing, and systemic injustice have gained national visibility, for many adoptees of color, these issues are more than headlines—they are lived realities. I have made it my life's...
May 2024 Bryan Post is the founder of The Leaf Company, a program of Parents in Training serving adoptive families in Northern California. He is an adult adoptee, former foster child, child behavior expert, and the author of From Fear to Love: Your Essential Guide to...
by Laura Anderson 2015 I confess that, as a child psychologist, I thought I might have an advantage when I became a parent. Yet I admit that, as an adoptive parent, aspects of my clinical training have backfired with my son. Royally. As I learn and grow in the...
by Bryan Post 2020 Along the stress-full journey we shall go In his seminal work, “The Emotional Brain,” neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explores how traumatic experiences in early childhood, whether remembered or not, can impact adult behavior. “In times of stress,” he...
2014 When we asked Pact members what they wish they had known before they adopted, we weren’t sure what kind of response we would get. The feedback we received, overwhelming in volume, was primarily from white parents parenting children of color. Clear themes emerged,...
by Beth Hall 2009 To prepare: To provide a person with the necessary equipment for an expedition or journey, to defend, to guard, to keep, to look after, to care for, to shield, to shelter or to watch over. To protect: To prevent somebody or something from being...
by Beth Hall and Martha Rynberg 2012 One of the most popular themes in children’s movies is loss of parents, often followed by some variation on adoption. It is hard to think of a recent animated kid’s movie that doesn’t touch on these family themes. And that means...
by Holly van Gulden 1995 “How do we tell our daughter she has an older brother living with their birth mother?” “The records state our son’s birth mother was raped. Should we tell him his birth father raped his birth mother?” “We wrote to the agency requesting more...
Book Review: Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency: A Comprehensive Guide to Promoting Understanding and Healing in Adoption, Foster Care, Kinship Families and Third-Party Reproduction by Sharon Roszia and Allison Davis Maxon reviewed by Susan Dusza Guerra...
by Jae Ran Kim Fall 2008 As an educator, social worker and adult adoptee, I search for ways to help adoptees, adoptive families, and those who interact with us better understand the nuances and complexities of our experiences. Ambiguous loss is a concept that provides...
Book Review Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge reviewed by Pact Staff 2005 In Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (Delta, 1999) Sherrie Eldridge does an excellent job of encapsulating...