Hi all! I’m Amy, wife
to my amazing hubby, Chris, and mother to my beautiful 3 year old daughter,
Ava, and hopefully soon, another precious little Taiwanese child!
Our daughter came home from The Home of God’s Love in Taiwan when she was around 3 months old and it’s been a wonderful, crazy ride since! Ava has fortunately adjusted and attached well to both Chris and I. I was thankful to have an amazing group of adoptive mommas supporting me that gave me a loaded arsenal of books on attachment!
Our daughter came home from The Home of God’s Love in Taiwan when she was around 3 months old and it’s been a wonderful, crazy ride since! Ava has fortunately adjusted and attached well to both Chris and I. I was thankful to have an amazing group of adoptive mommas supporting me that gave me a loaded arsenal of books on attachment!
The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis has been such a great
tool for us as a family. I wanted to
share a little bit about the book, its contents, and how we have integrated the
principles into our family life. First
let me start by saying that no matter what age you adopted your child, birth to
teenage years, all our children are ”at-risk” simply by being adopted. Dr. Purvis often terms these children as
“from the hard places”.
“As much as we might wish for a quick
answer, no single treatment works perfectly with all at-risk children. …The key is to treat the whole child, with
all his or her interrelated needs, not just one small aspect of behavior or
illness.”
“Effective coaching and parenting of an
at-risk child, as explained in this book, is multidisciplinary and
ongoing. It involves building EQ
(emotional intelligence) as well as IQ (intellectual mastery). It supports your child’s senses and
physiology along with his or her psychology.
It means helping your child get in touch with his own feelings as well
as his needs, emotions, hunger, pain, and fear—so that he can then connect
comfortably with the world around him and you.
It means teaching your child communication skills and coping mechanisms,
so she can succeed in life. It means
demonstrating that you are in charge, yet sensitive to your child’s needs. This book contains practical techniques
designed to help you and your child achieve these goals.”
There is a vast amount of information in the book, almost
overwhelmingly the first time you read it.
I recommend reading it, then going back and slowly going through the
areas that you are currently facing as a parent in the here and now. There is also a DVD series through her
Empower to Connect Seminars that are amazing!
Our local adoption group got together to watch and discuss them
weekly. (We rented them through our
local library.) It is the same info
contained in the book, only a bit more in depth. It’s great for visual and auditory learners
like myself.
There is a nice balance of theory and application in the
book. Dr. Purvis is very adept at giving
real life examples and walking you through each situation and how to address
not just the behavior but the underlying motivating factors. She walks you through step by step: getting out of crisis mode if you’re dealing
with a particularly challenging child, helping your child feel safe,
understanding how your child’s background effects their behavior, establishing
your authority, tools for correcting behavior, teaching your child to
self-regulate, setting appropriate boundaries, encouraging your child,
problem-solving with your child, building self-confidence with your child, teaching valuable life skills, and ultimately
healing. She even tackles some more in
depth issues like sensory processing disorders as well as addressing food
insecurities (i.e. food hoarding). One
thing she does incredibly well is teach you how to work with your child instead
of fighting against your child. She
discusses how to turn your child’s defense mechanisms into safe, positive,
attachment building behaviors that meet your child’s needs but breaks down the
ultimate need for the behaviors in the first place.
The biggest take away we have in our family personally is
probably the IDEAL approach that Dr.Purvis lays out. Here is a link to a short video about the
techniquehttp://vimeo.com/6965006. Below is my paraphrase of the technique as
laid out in the book.
Immediately responding to
misbehavior within 3 seconds.
Directly
respond by making eye contact with your child, giving them undivided attention,
and bringing them NEARER to you to
teach and guide them.
Efficiently
give your response: least amount of firmness,
correction, and words as possible.
Action-based
redirection and correction: physically
doing a real life “do-over” and giving them an opportunity to learn the correct
behavior and be successful at it.
Level
the response at the behavior not the child.
Chris and I use this daily in our household. I admit Chris is much better at the approach
than I am, and much more consistent. It
is not the only method we use, but I must say, it is very effective for
us. Anytime we correct behavior or discipline, we
always follow it with “I love you” and a kiss.
Then it’s back to business as usual.
She also gives a lot of scripting ideas that are short and
sweet. We love these in our house! It’s a great trigger to quickly and easily
help Ava right her behavior on her own and “self-regulate”. While our words are not exactly the phrases
that she always uses, the basic concept is the same. Some of the phrases are:
Dr.Purvis’ Scripts
“Are you asking or telling?”
“Is that showing respect?”
“Use your words.”
“Is that gentle and kind?”
“Listen and obey."
Common Earhart Scripts
“Are you whining?”
“Use your words.”
“Can you ask me?”
“Listen the first time.”
“Try it again.”
One of the things I love about this book is that, in
general, it’s just good parenting. The
strategies are great for at-risk kids, but also for any kid! Many families built through adoption also
have biological children in the mix too.
This parenting method is great for dealing with the everyday challenges
no matter what the background of your child or how they joined your
family. This way you not only have an
individualized way to deal with each
child, but also a consistent approach that fits for the whole family,
not just your adopted child.
My biggest criticism is that I felt like the book started in
the middle of her approach and at times feels a little disorganized. The end chapters of the book have some good
lessons about normal, healthy development of a child, as well as some basics on
brain chemistry and how our brains work.
I wish this was at the beginning of the book. As she talks through her methods, she has a
tendency to assume that you already understand the foundation she’s working
from. However, the video series does a
great job of setting up the foundation of philosophy, normal growth and
development, and how the brain works and it’s chemistry, before it delves into
the nitty gritty of parenting. So it
might be beneficial to watch the video series in conjunction with reading the book.
Overall, for us, this is a must-have book for parenting and
developing secure attachment with Ava and any other child we bring into our
home. I am including some links to some
great resources for her approach to attachment and parenting. She also does a conference twice a year
called Empower to Connect. She has a ton of free resources on the TCU
child development page http://www.child.tcu.edu
as well as her Empower to Connect website www.empoweredtoconnect.org.
Purchase the following DVDs at http://www.child.tcu.edu/DVD%20sales.asp
Trust-Based Parenting Creating
Lasting Changes in Your Child's Behavior
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