For many, yes! But unfortunately possibly not for many of the adoptive families that we work with here at TCPS. Christmas can be a stress-filled time for many families but...
What is Sensory Processing? Everyone experiences the world a little differently although we all experience the world through our senses. Our nervous system receives messages through specialised receptors and relays...
Hello! My just two-year-old son is very aggressive. He hits and kicks his older sister, as well as our pets or other children. He sometimes does this in anger or...
Reflecting back on the early weeks, months (or even years) following a child joining the family is something I spend a fair amount of time doing with the majority of...
Lenny the Lion This is the story of a ferocious lion who is now learning to be brave like a cub. Lenny the Lion is on an adventure of a...
Many adopted and fostered children experience high levels of shame. Shame is a complex emotion that feels desperately uncomfortable for children and usually children will learn to limit behaviours which...
What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is the practice of accepting but simultaneously letting go of negative thoughts and emotions. An analogy that many carers and adopters have found useful in our...
Lots of children who have had abusive and/or neglectful early lives are delayed in their abilities to understand and use their senses in the same way that non-traumatised people do....
I so often hear that foster carers and adopters feel that their knowledge of their child(ren) is not taken into account by the powers that be. The struggle in getting...
Parent and child foster placements are in greater demand than ever before. The following is a summary of the literature available on Parent and Child Foster Placements by Grace Bowmer,...
Going on our annual summer holiday is a time we all look forward to. It’ll be a time when we have a break from the day to day routine, we’ll...
What is Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)? FAS comes under the banner of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), which is a broad spectrum of completely preventable intellectual and developmental deficits in...
Sexualised behaviour in fostered and adopted children is very common but it is an incredibly difficult subject for adults to think and talk about openly. As a result we often...
Stealing is a reasonably common behaviour seen in fostered and adopted children. It can be alarming for parents and carers but it is frequently an expression of attachment behaviour and...
Many children who have started out in homes that were abusive and/or neglectful face significant challenges around food. This can be due to a relatively simple association with a lack...
Fostered and adopted children are often very controlling of their environments and the people within it. It’s often tough to know how to approach the controlling behaviour or even why...
Competitiveness between adopted or fostered children and others is incredibly common and can be very disruptive to family life. It frequently results in bickering and falling out and can leave...
Children who attention-seek, i.e. monopolise their primary caregivers’ time and who struggle to tolerate your attention being elsewhere, can be an extraordinary challenge. It is not uncommon for these compulsive...
Many fostered and adopted children have difficulties with wetting (aka enuresis) and soiling (aka encopresis). Indeed there are many children with happy, healthy enough lives who have such problems. There...
Many adoptive parents are puzzled by the apparent change in behaviours during the adolescent period. They describe their children who were previously warm, loving and kind-natured as turning into something...
To past, present and future parents, I see you desperately trying to hold everything together, why would you trust me to hold you as well when you have fought and...
PICA is the eating of non-edible, non-nutritious items such as stones, plastic, wood etc. It is more common in children on the Autism Spectrum, children with a learning disability and...
The attachment system can operate a bit like a book, closing down due early traumatic experiences (i.e. abuse or neglect). This means compassion and affection from adoptive parents or carers...
What is Blocked Care and how do I know if I have it? I recently wrote about why, as a therapist, we often prioritise work with parents over working directly...
“My child flies away somewhere and I don’t know where she goes or what she’s doing!” This was one of the comments a foster carer made to me when we...
In this piece I wanted to think about the importance of your self-care. “My self-care!” I hear you cry! I’m guessing that between trying to parent the traumatised children in...
Protecting our Online Reputation – Self Care as a Digital Parent “Secure your own mask before helping others” Introduction In my previous article on digital parenting I wrote about how...
What is Child to Parent Violence? Child to Parent Violence (CPV), also known as Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse (APVA) or Parent Abuse (PA) has been gaining increasing attention...
There is no escaping the rapid advances in technology, social media and a young person’s online world in recent years. For our children born into this world as digital natives...
Your child or adolescent harming themselves can be a terrifying prospect. It may leave you, as their parent(s) or carer(s), feeling powerless, scared and unsure about the best way to...
Life is full of beginnings and endings and one of the social skills that school teaches our children is how to manage these. Every school and family have their own...
