Therapeutic parenting recognises children's behaviour as communication and focuses on nurturing connections to help children who've experienced trauma develop trust and security. Unlike traditional parenting approaches, therapeutic parenting requires understanding a child's inner world and developmental needs rather than simply managing behaviours.
• Therapeutic parenting is not about being a therapist but about healing through nurturing relationships
• Children who enter care have experienced trauma and have different developmental starting points
• Traditional parenting techniques like time-outs can trigger feelings of rejection in care-experienced children
• Children learn who they are through how others respond to them
• Care-experienced children often function at a younger emotional age despite their chronological age
• Children with early trauma often develop internal working models where they feel unsafe and unlovable
• Building predictable, safe experiences helps traumatised children slowly develop trust
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Learn more about fostering and adoption with Barnardo’s:
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/fostering-and-adoption
To learn more about fostering and adoption in NI, visit our Linktr.ee:
https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni
To ask a question, give us some feedback or make a topic request, email us at:
BFANI@barnardos.org.uk
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