MENTIONS
TBRI – Trust-Based Relational Intervention® – https://child.tcu.edu/about-us/tbri/#sthash.0Hx3N8P4.dpbs
Bessel van der Kolk M.D., The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma – https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748
TBRI Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWScSJKjn1A
Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships – https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Soul-Connections-Neuroscience-Relationships/dp/141433415X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=anatomy+of+the+soul&qid=1586221093&s=books&sr=1-1
Karyn Purvis & Lisa Qualls, The Connected Parent: Real-Life Strategies for Building Trust and Attachment – https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Trust-Connection-Strategies-Adopted/dp/0736978925
Daniel J. Siegel, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind – https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing/dp/0553386697
Jenn Ranter Hook, Joshua N. Hook, Mike Berry, Replanted: Faith-Based Support for Adoptive and Foster Families (Spirituality and Mental Health) – https://www.amazon.com/Replanted-Faith-Based-Adoptive-Families-Spirituality/dp/1599475375
Replanted Ministry – https://www.replantedministry.org/
Empowered to Connect Trainers – https://empoweredtoconnect.org/training/
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Jami Kaeb – https://curreyblandford.com/jami-kaeb/
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TRANSCRIPT
Currey (introduction) – Hey there everyone and welcome once again to the magic table. We’re excited you’re joining us today. We’re talking about a topic very near and dear to our hearts. Speaker 2 00:29 I think I say that about 700 times in this episode, but it is just something like trauma informed parenting is um, part of us that, that we’ve been doing for a long time. We’ve started training other people to um, parent in these ways and I feel like it’s just such a, there’s a lot that people don’t understand about what trauma-informed parenting even is out there. It’s like a word that gets thrown around and um, we don’t always know what we’re talking about when we, when we say those things or what trauma even is. And so this is just sort of a background to last week’s episode with Lisa, uh, calls and just sort of talking about our journey with, uh, becoming trauma informed, what that looks like in our lives and just a lot of great resources. There are a ton of resources in the show notes. I just encourage you to check those out. It’s awesome. Uh, this was a fun episode for us because it’s something that, uh, we live and we breathe. And, uh, I hope that comes across in this episode. I hope you enjoy hearing about it. Uh, you can make sure you’re following us @theologyofhustle on Instagram and Facebook and you can follow me @curreyblandford on Twitter just to stay up to date with what’s going on with the magic table and A Theology of Hustle. Um, and yeah, I hope you enjoy some time with the trauma, talking about trauma-informed parenting. If you have questions, if you have thoughts, if you just want to reach out, we would love to talk to you about this stuff. It is a, yeah. Then we do a lot of, so, uh, talk to us about it. We’d love to hear, I’ll keep the conversation going. So enjoy a little time around the magic thing.
Currey – Uh, all right, well, welcome back to the magic table, everyone. Uh, JJ, it’s always good to have you in the studio. You know, this is, um, okay. So we wanted to talk about trauma informed parenting, uh, just because it’s something that’s very near and dear to our hearts, right?
JJ – It’s a topic that we’ve been thinking about covering since we started doing the magic table. Um, and after Lisa’s episode last week and now that we are living in the midst of a global pandemic, we thought this might actually appeal to more than just adoptive families. So here we are.
Currey – Yeah, I love it. I’m excited to talk about it cause it’s something, I mean we literally teach a class monthly with Replanted Ministry when, you know, normal things happening. Right. But, uh, I mean it’s just been something near and dear to our hearts for, um, a long time. Even before adoption. Um, we were sort of headed down this road. Uh, I think first of all, what I want to talk about just to kind of kick it off is like trauma informed is such a buzz word I think in our world. Like, yes, just kind of people throw it out there and I don’t know that, like we always know what it means. So can you talk a little bit just about what like trauma informed means?
JJ – I think when we think trauma, we think of mostly abuse and neglect. And while those things are clearly trauma, there can also be really small or smaller traumas that kids endure or even things like, um, if you have a child who’s medically fragile in their early years that they could experience medical trauma, children can experience trauma and utero. And then there are, there are big T traumas and little T traumas. And I think, um, at least in the work that I do, a lot of times I will name for people their experience. I will name trauma within it. And people really want to downplay that because we like to compare trauma in a weird way of like what happened to me isn’t as significant as this story I heard or my friend’s experience. So I can’t be shaped by this thing that feels less significant to me. And I think it’s because we have such a narrow view of what trauma is. And so in trauma could even be losing a beloved caregiver who’s not a parent or you know, experiencing the divorce as a child is a trauma. And there’s a myriad of things that could be trauma. But I think so often we think it’s these huge life altering, horrible things. And yes, those are traumas, but there can also be smaller things or different things, you know, natural disasters or trauma for kids. But sometimes hearing about a natural disaster can be traumatic for a child even if it’s not something they experienced. And so I think as we’re living through this pandemic, as parents, we have to be mindful about how we’re talking about this to our kids and realizing that like, even though maybe our family isn’t impacted specifically that we may have super sensitive kiddos that are taking on like worry or grief or anxiety based on what they’re hearing, overhearing from adult conversations or if you have been having the news on, like our kids are always picking up things that w and we may not be aware of. And so I think it’s a really important time to be attuned to our kiddos. And their social or their emotional, mental health.
Currey – Yeah, totally. Uh, I mean that was sort of a paradigm shift for me. I think. Um, I thought before we like really delve into it, maybe we could talk a little bit just about like qualification sort of, cause this isn’t just like we’re just like throwing out trauma. Like this is something that like you do professionally in some ways and then the uh, yeah. So can you, yes.
JJ – So I guess when we talk trauma informed, we use TBR I principles and that’s kind of the, the um, the tools that we use to address trauma. And so I often say, you know, like I’m very comfortable in that even as a clinician, there are definitely other areas of trauma that I’m not comfortable in because I don’t have a lot of training or experience or knowledge. And so I guess we’ll be talking more about TBRI and I think R O, which is trust based relational interventions. And I think that is, it’s evidence-based for children, um, from hard places, adoption and foster care. We always say when we teach our class their parenting principles, they’ve just been evidenced based for adoption and foster care. So yes, while I started with kind of a broader overview of trauma are what we’re knowledgeable about is trauma within the adoption and foster care world.
Currey – Right. Well and in addition to your practice, we’re uh, empowered to connect parent trainers. So we take parents through a nine week intensive course on, uh, on parenting kids from hard places, kids with, with trauma history specifically in the adoption and foster care world. But this could apply to all sorts of stuff. I mean trauma can be all sorts of things.
JJ – Yes. And so I think that goes back to this idea like TBRI principles. It’s really connected parenting and I think no matter what your child’s experience, whether that’s big T trauma, little T trauma, potentially zero trauma to this point, there is so much knowledge to be gained from these principles.
Currey – Yeah. So maybe we should talk about maybe our journey with like,
JJ – sure. So we went to our first like adoption. It wasn’t even a conference, it was just like a day long workshop. And we had probably just, we were a couple months into our adoption journey. Yeah. Like actually adopting, I mean we’ve been on an adoption journey since you were like 15, right? Yes. We’ve, we were like three months into paperwork when we went to this event and our friend Jen was just talking about, she was doing a, a session on trauma and what that could look like and behaviors that were related. And she started talking all the different kinds of trauma and she included medical trauma and just some of the behaviors that could come with, um, trauma. And we made eye contact and I just started sobbing because we realized, um, and also if you’re listening to podcasts, you probably don’t know this about us, but both of our biological kiddos had a genetic disorder that their bodies didn’t produce enough growth hormone, which regulates blood sugar and tiny humans. It was a whole weird, crazy thing that we learned a lot about. But because of this disorder that the kiddos had, they had to get daily injections, um, from us. And so part of medical trauma is for kids is the people who are supposed to care for them are inflicting pain. And even though for our kids, that was something that was like part of them like living and growing as humans as you know, blinds started when she was like eight teen months. I think doing that, you know, at 18 months she doesn’t understand like mommy and daddy are hurting me but it’s to keep me alive. You know, all, all her body knows is the people who provide me care are inflicting pain. And we were just starting to see, I mean when we started this then it was for, I’m blind, you know, life was four and Bennett was two. We were just seeing some behaviors that as it was kind of outlined for us, we realized we’re due to trauma. And it was really eye opening and it was really heartbreaking. And because I had never considered, um, providing, you know, life-giving medical care to our children could be interpreted by their little bodies is trauma. And once I heard it, it made total sense, but it, it was devastating. I think as a parent and really was a paradigm shift for us and that really started us. We felt really strongly, um, of course at that time we didn’t know it’d be three years till Britten came home. Um, but we felt really strongly that we didn’t want to be like parenting in a way and then we would bring home a baby and be like, well now we’ve adopted. And so we’re changing the whole way. And so for us, when our kids were four and two, we started on this journey of trauma informed parenting because we just wanted, we knew adding a baby to the mix was going to be complicated and we wouldn’t know that scenario. And we thought if we can already kind of be parenting in this capacity, it will feel more seamless. Which honestly, I think that it did and it made us better parents for our bio kids in ways that we just, yeah, we didn’t know. Yeah.
Currey – Before. Well, just speak to like some of that too. I mean, even in that, when Jen was talking, I mean, and we’ve heard it a thousand times now after the fact, but even like a difficult birth can be a trauma, which is like, I think mind boggling to people, like they don’t understand how like the body, like even though the brain, like the child’s brain can’t remember what’s happening, uh, that the body knows and that like there’s still inputting signals like are, are, you know, like kids who are adopted from birth parents are like, Oh, I got them from birth. It can’t be any sort of an issue. Uh, not realizing that like they’re, they still like heard. They were still comforted by their mother in the womb. Like that’s all they knew for the entirety of the life that they had. And so when that’s broken, when that relationship is broken early on, it’s still traumatic even though they may not like be cognizant of that
JJ – for sure. I think this would be a perfect place to step in and say, there are so many people who have much more education, experience and knowledge than us. And so if you’re listening and thinking this is voodoo magic, I would encourage you to read. Um, the body keeps the score by Bessel Vander Kolk. Van Der Kolk we’ll put it in the show notes. Um, I recommended yeah, because y’all are buddies like that, but he, his work, I recommend it to clients all the time. And if even if you’re listening and thinking that you might have some trauma in your background, it’s a life changing book and I’m not overhyping it because I use it in practice and that’s what my clients tell me. But it just talks about this connection to trauma and how your body stores that and how it presents. And so yeah, we’re talking from our super limited narrow experience and we would love to give you all the resources of all the books that you could read to learn more about all this.
Currey – Right? Yeah. Cause it is, it’s very, it’s not a parent like it’s not something you can just like figure out by observation. It’s not like part of our, our normal like, Oh yeah, that person has trauma because a, B, and C and that makes sense because their body’s reacting. Like people with a post traumatic stress disorder like shaking all the time, like that doesn’t make sense. Like there’s no reasonable way that an outsider could perceive that. That makes sense, right? Because it’s so complicated. This body brain connection and yeah, it’s like, so it feels like voodoo to a lot of people. It feels like, Oh, you’re just making excuses for these kids all, you’re just being way too easy on them. Oh, you’re just letting them off. Um, when in reality by not addressing those traumas, your, uh, widening the gap of like they, those relational issues that were there because of the trauma. Right, right. Yeah. And that’s, I mean, this whole, the whole TBR eye thing, uh, which we’re not representing officially here, but you know, the TBI method is all about a connected parenting. It’s all about, um, connecting even before a correcting or like everything just revolves around connection, right? Yes. We always joke. So when we teach our class, there are 25 principles that are a part of our curriculum and the first 24 are connecting principles and our 25th principle is correction. And so what we have found in just this and working towards connected parenting, we are connected to our kids in a way that is beautiful. We enjoy being with them, our children are delightful. And I think a huge part of that is because we’ve done the work to really create connection to our kids. Right. Yeah. It’s a lot of work.
Currey – Do you wanna talk about the uh, attachment cycle? I’m so excited. Yes. Yeah. I love the attachment cycle because of its simplicity and like it was the thing that sort of made the whole thing make sense to me. I think, um, I’ve actually preached on it a couple of times. I just think it’s so, yeah. So the attachment cycle basically is, uh, a child expresses a need and that need is met by the parent. Right. And so, I mean, it’s a pretty simple cycle that happens, but if you think about it, like as soon as a baby comes out of the womb, what, what does it do? Great. Christ Christ and crying is an expression of need. It’s saying, I need something. I’m cold, I’m hungry, I’m ABC. And that crying doesn’t stop for a long time. Right? But, um, but as, as a new parent, we instinctually take that baby and we meet that need. Right? And I remember when Blythe was tiny, you know, our first baby, and we’re like trying to sort of comfort her. I mean, new parents, like you literally do every, like you’re checking stuff off the list. Is she cold? Is she hungry? Is she tired? Is she wet? Is the, you know what I mean? You’re like checking things off down the list. And, um, what you do as a parent is, is a consistent child expresses a need through crying when they’re young and you meet that need. And that happens over and over and over thousands of times a day. And when trauma enters the equation, that attachment cycle is broken. So that no longer has a belief that that need is going to be met when they express that need. And that causes a relational division that that causes disconnection between a child and their caregiver and, and trauma. Yeah. Trauma causes that relational rift, so to speak. Um, and so I just think it’s such a vivid, I mean we’ve, we’ve all seen parents, we’ve all been around parents, we’ve all, maybe, you know, a lot of us have had children in our care and that, that like you don’t realize what you’re doing when you’re like talking to the baby and when you’re like cuddling the baby is meeting a need, but you are over and over. You’re like, when you have a young child, your life is devoted to meeting needs for that child. Yup. Yeah. So attachment cycle. So that’s how attachments formed. Attachments form through the meeting of, of needs. Yeah. And so when that cycle gets broken, we have, we have trauma and we have trouble with attachment. Like attachment theory is this whole other thing we can’t possibly get into right now. Um, we could put some actual, uh, great resources, uh, in the show notes for that too. But, uh, once that attachment’s broken, like what, you know, what happens?
JJ – I mean it’s broken so you have to work to fix it. And I think that is one of the hardest pieces about adoption is you are always working on this attachment, but it’s so hard to know where you’re at. I remember with um, Britain, we were at the doctor for some checkup and, um, I was expressing a concern about something that was like very trivial, but I was so hyper focused on attachment that sometimes I would get lost. Um, just in that. And I remember our doctor being like, Oh, he looks happy. I’m sure he’s fine. And she, she meant that in such kindness and to be reassuring to me and I wanted to say like, you can’t look at him and see if he’s attached. Um, and so I think so often I think stereotypically adoptive mothers, um, can really struggle with this idea of attachment just because you have longed for this child for such a long time. And then to think like, am I going to screw it up? Am I going to cause something? Am I going to cause harm by, you know, not doing this attachment thing. Right. And so, you know, I think so many of us, like for us, no one fed Britain his first six months besides Curry or I, and it’s just kind of that it’s re it’s affirming to him that like we are the caretakers are the ones who are meeting your needs. Um, you know, we, I’ve worked with families who have adopted older kids and like they are still the only ones who provide food to their children. Um, you know, even if there’s somewhere else, they don’t let another adult serve their child. Which I think if you are not familiar with adoption, seems like controlling and super overbearing, but you’re just trying to affirm to this kiddo who has joined your family, like, I am safe, you are safe here and I will meet your need.
JJ – And I think even so often, you know, we, we parent really differently even at this point with Britain than like when our other kids were three. We just have more knowledge. And so we’ve realized like part of it is you had three kids and you realize some of this stuff you got the not ashamed about didn’t matter. But I think we have, well, we hope that there are so much more nurture in our parenting. So much of TBRI is creating a balance of nurture and structure and um, I feel like a lot of traditional parenting can really, um, be heavy on structure. Um, and then I think we also see a lot of people who are just nurture and want to be the buddy instructors hard. And I want my kid to like me. And I think there are downfalls to both. I think finding that perfect balance between your turn structure is like challenging. Um, but I think that’s the goal that we’re always striving for. And so, um, yeah, I think that’s really, yeah, that’s the goal of TBI is being connected parents who can balance and nurture and structure. Yeah. Can I caveat again? I feel like, um, and I think it’s something that we’ve talked about before. I think if you are listening and are parenting a kiddo from a hard place, one of the most important pieces of being a connected parent is dealing with your own stuff. That’s literally where I was going. Oh, are so smart. It’s like we’ve done this before, had this conversation. Um, yeah. If you have not addressed some of your own things from childhood, some of your own family dynamics that might not have been healthy, you are going to bring those two as I think dr purpose calls it the parenting dance and maybe have unrealistic expectations for your kiddo. And so it is a disservice to them if you refuse to take responsibility as the adult to get healthy yourself. And so I, before you consider connected parenting, you’ve gotta be a healthy grownup.
Currey – Yeah. The one of the greatest lines ever is you can’t take someone somewhere you’ve never been. And if you have relational trauma in your history, that is undoubt with you can never take that child into a whole a whole place. It’s just not possible. You like as much as you love that child and want the best for them. And, and want to work and do all the right things. If you don’t have your stuff right, it’s, it’s never gonna work. And like for me, uh, when we going through our training for the empower to connect, uh, parent trainer program, uh, it was intensive. We did like weeks and weeks and weeks of, I mean, we just read and like had a three days of like nonstop homework to make sure you actually read the 12 books. It was, it was intense. And, uh, one of those books was called the anatomy of the soul by Kurt Thompson. And that book, uh, I hesitate to say changed my life, but it changed a lot of paradigms in my life. I would say it changed her life. It opened up conversations, uh, that I’d never really opened up for myself. I, I never really wanted to go to some of those places. Just like thinking back to my past, and I don’t have like a super crazy trauma history or anything, but I think we all have things in our past where they’re like, these relational, you know, there’s relational issues or these, these, these struggles, you know, and, um, that can look different for a lot of people. But, uh, the, the biggest learning in my journey is how I react to my kids. Like they know how to push my buttons. And as children, as children, do, they, they, that’s the first thing that they learned after they will feed me. It’s how to push buttons. And, um, those buttons are because of, of my own stuff and my decision, my choice in how to react to those things. Like whether — — it’s screaming or it’s like being present, you know, uh, is effected by how much work I’ve done myself. Yeah. Right.
JJ – Yeah. And, and so I think in the work that I’ve done as a clinician and the work that we’ve done through adoption ministry, we have just seen time and time again when parents choose to get healthy. You see, you often see growth in kids because they’re just approaching it from a different way. Yeah, right.
Currey – For sure. No, I uh, that stuff that’s, that’s the most important part of our class. We spent two weeks on that when we talk about
JJ – definitely people’s favorite two weeks. We like have two weeks that we like kind of like get to know people and start with some of the basics and then we’re like, Hey, it’s week we’re going to delve into you and your trauma history and what you’re bringing to this. And then we’re like, and guess what? We’re doing it again next time. Um, and, and the people who choose to like really engage with that work come, you know, based on the discussion when they come back to class because it just shifts paradigms for people and it’s probably the most beautiful part in my opinion of what we get to do is help parents get healthy so that they can be better parents for their kiddos.
Currey – Because so little of parenting is about the kids like, and this, this is so much bigger than that. Trauma, adoption, foster care. I know we keep getting on like unintentionally our soap box about this. Yeah. But it is you, we walked through a lot of difficult situations with a lot of families and our roles in ministry and in the adoption and foster care work we do. And it is incredible how many people are unwilling to do the hard look inside. Right. Like to really like delve into their own stuff. And if you’re unwilling to do that, if, if anyone is unwilling to do that, um, there will never be healing, uh, for, for your children. You can’t, you can’t connect to your children if you’re not capable of connecting, you know? And so, uh, yeah, it’s a really important thing. It’s really important part of this whole conversation. Yes. Whether you have adopted children or not, do your own work, you totally have to. So that’s free that, you know, that’s, you know, that’s outside of this whole trauma thing. That’s, that’s free advice right there. But, um, don’t be afraid of that stuff. I know it’s scary and I personally literally know that that is scary and um, but worth it. Yeah. So we ended up in a hole, go see a therapist sort of thing. That’s most of our episodes, see a therapist. There’s a lot of people doing telehealth. Right now I’m seeing a spiritual director via, um, you know, via zoom and it’s, uh, it’s wonderful. Uh, it’s, yeah, it’s really good. Yeah. So, um, so what, what does it mean like, like from a practical perspective, you know, what does it mean to like prepare it in a trauma informed way to you?
JJ – Um, okay. I don’t want to steal yours because I think that I’m going to, um, but for us, the biggest, um, not even biggest challenge. Like I think the thing that makes us weirdy parents to most people, especially people who don’t know as well, is, um, we do time outs, right? We do time ends. Um, and so the idea is when you, and this is not a shame thing, we did timeouts a long time until we learned a different way that felt better to us. Right? We’re not saying we have the best way or the only way. This is just our way. Right? Um, so just what changed our minds. We were at this same talk, um, and our friend Jen was talking about, you know, when we send children away, what we’re saying is go away, regulate and when your whole you can come back and join the family. Um, and then, you know, we, we do this over and over and over again for children. And then we get moody teenagers who are reclusive in their room. And what we don’t always realize as parents is that that’s the behavior that we taught them. We don’t deal with things as a family. You need to go away to your space, you need to figure things out. And then when you’re ready you can come back and join the family and you know, our little kids share everything and overshare. Um, and so we really want to create an environment now that they will come to us and that we regulate together, hopefully, you know, in the developmental regulation. Can you just talk about that real quick? Sure. Well in general, I just mean you’re seeing regularly together. But I don’t know that like even that sort of, that feels like a, a jargon to me. Okay. You know what I’m saying? Yes. So the idea is like, oftentimes when kids are put sent to their room or to a timeout, it’s because they’re angry. They’re screaming right there. So in our world we call that dysregulated and flipped lid. Yes. They flip their lid. And so we want them to learn to self-sooth and then come back to us. Soothed. Is this what you’re asking about? And so, you know, even if you’re looking at like traditional development, like, you know, we’re the regulator, co regulator and then children should at some point be able to regulate by themselves. This is different than that. Right. Um, so the funny thing why we joke about this principle a lot is so a time in, we saw it when we started doing this was just instead of sending the kid away, you just like in our house, they sat on the stairs. So they were still a part of the family. We could see them, but they were still calming by themselves. So we’re at our parent trainer training and they were talking about like, you know, you sit with your child and you help regulate and when they’re calling. And we’re like, Oh, so we’ve been doing those wrong for three years. Whoops. Um, and so I think part of the reason we love that principle is it was one of the first that we got to see like, Oh, we thought we were doing this parenting thing pretty well and we weren’t. And being able, instead of being like, Oh, well let’s throw that one out the window to be a bit humble, I hope and say like, Oh, we need to kind of realign how we’re doing this. And so typically it’s our youngest at this point who needs those times. And so when he is dysregulated, kicking, screaming, yelling, being a three year old who can’t get his way, we scoop him up and we hold him sometimes standing, but oftentimes on the stairs and we help him, buddy, I’m here when you’re ready. What do you need? Can you use your words? I want to help you and just reaffirm to him like, I am safe. When you’re ready, I’m here, I’m here while you’re angry, I’m here while you’re screaming and I’ll be here when you’re ready to have a conversation. And it’s incredible. I think especially because we didn’t necessarily do this with our older two that he’ll get to a point that it’s not prompted by us anymore because we’ve done this so often. And he’ll say, I’m ready to say sorry. Right. Or he’ll calm and you’ll say like, Hey buddy, are you ready to apologize to your brother? And he’ll say, Nope, I need to sit here. And like it’s funny cause he’s not here. But I mean it’s funny in those moments, but he knows like, I’m not ready yet and I’ll sit with you. And then when I do really feel calm and settled, I can go find the sibling or the parent that I have wronged and I can ask for forgiveness. And it’s, it’s my, it’s my favorite because it also, I think why it’s my favorite is it gives and what they don’t always talk about and we are, we talk about when we teach our class is it also gives me time as a parent to calm down with him because oftentimes I may have escalated as I stepped into an argument or a physical altercation that’s happening between my children. And I shouldn’t probably be speaking to anyone either. And so to be able to step away with one of our children and we say we’re combing our kids, but so often we’re calling ourselves too and it’s this place of like, okay, we’re going to get, we’re going to like calm down so that we’re not saying things out of anger or spite and then, you know, we’ll go make amends. And I think that has been really transformative for our family.
Currey – Yeah, I’ll tag off of that actually for mine, because I speak a lot of times in this adoption and foster care world, I’m around because like I can speak to the dads, like these things are normally run by mostly women, mostly moms, right? And so there’s not as many male voices in this world as there should be. There’s some great male voices, but it’s, it’s usually not the bulk of what’s going on. And so one of the big beefs that a lot of dudes have with TBI principals is like, Oh, you’re letting them off. It’s, it’s like, you know, these kids are just getting by with too much. Back in my day, we used to discipline children, you know, like, Oh my gosh, it’s like shut up. But uh, but one of the things about TBRI is you never let a behavior go, right? Like you, you are all, you always make sure and go in, like redo whatever was done. Right. Like, uh, I, and I find that in parenting in general, one of the worst things you can do for your kids is do the whole, like, never not follow through. On the stuff that you say you’re gonna do, you’re like, ah, I’m gonna spank you, boy, I’m going to give you the count of three, one, two, two and a half, two and three corridors, and then it just sort of like disappears. Literally. The worst thing you can do to your child is let them believe that you’re not going to do what you say you’re going to do. Right. And one of the main TBR I principles is that you never let those things go. It’s that you connect first before you do those redos. Right. The, the, the punishment is not done out of anger, which thank God I literally think that is saved me on several occasions from doing things I would regret. It’s never done out of anger. It’s, it’s, it’s done once the child is regulated and can truly learn from that experience and then goes and does whatever they’re supposed to do or apologizes or you know, whatever the, whatever the, the, the correct behavior is, you practice doing those things, but you never let your child skate by without talking about those things. Cause it’s so easy as a parent to like, ah, it’s not that big a deal. You know what I mean? Like next time, you know, we’ll, we’ll talk about that next time or like just push it off and that’s, that is not safe for your child. They need to know that you are who you say you are and you do what you say you’re going to do. Right? Yeah. It’s that one. I think that’s that structure, but yeah, totally is. But even, could you talk about like what a redo looks like? Yeah. So I mean like let’s take for instance, sorry, little little man, but when, when he, uh, when he does something he’s not supposed to, uh, once he’s calm back down and can actually learn from that experience, he doesn’t have the flip lid. Right. He’s all there and, and we go back and we do what we should have done in the first place. Like a lot of, like, he’s in that independent phase. Right? Then a lot of times he gets dysregulated because he didn’t get to do what he, what he wanted to do, but he never asked with good words. Right. He never, he never used his voice to ask. He just lost his mind cause he didn’t get to do what he wanted to do. So we’ll go back and do that thing after he has used good words to ask nicely to do whatever it is and then he gets to do it.
JJ – Yeah. And I think even, it doesn’t even always have to be even asking nicely. It’s just like, let’s try it again with respect or let’s like, Oh, that probably wasn’t the best way to do that. Why don’t we try it again? And the, to me, why I love the redo is then you get to praise your child for doing things the right way. And it’s that connection piece again. Like, Oh, that was such a nice way to, you know, put your plate in the sink, you know, or doing the right things. Right, right. And yeah. And so redos are just such a beautiful way. And sometimes like you don’t ask for redoing the kids. Like, Oh my gosh, thanks so much, mom. Let me try that again. But you know, it’s like, Oh, that’s still, wasn’t it? Like could we try again? A big thing about TBRI is like kind of this playful engagement piece. And so it’s, it’s not like, Oh, you didn’t do that right, but it’s like, buddy, that’s not how we do it. Can you show me one more time what you were trying to do? And that kind of playful piece of disarms fear, um, I think is important, but then it is this beautiful opportunity to be like, that’s exactly right. Or I knew you could do it. Thanks for, you know, using your voice and, right.
Currey – Yeah, totally. Um, I mean, and a big reason we did this is because last week’s episode with Lisa, she has a book coming out in July called the connected parent, which is a lot of what we’re talking about, but with somebody who’s done it a lot longer, more Speaker 3 40:50 kids. So I think you should link it again in show notes. But I also think if you’re wondering like what is a flipped lid? There’s a book by Dan Siegel called the whole brain child. Um, and it really talks about if you’re a sciency person, I’m not, I’m not really bad. I really liked his book, but it really talks about like the brain and kind of what your kid is thinking. And it’s a great kind of companion to all of this. So I feel like a resource heavy episode potentially. But also I think if you’re interested in it, you’re gonna want all the them. Well, if you are at a church that is interested in helping families at this, our good friend Jenn Hook has a book called Replanted. Yeah, you could also port a replanted group at your church. But I, I also think like we should put the website for empowered to connect parent trainers because if you know someone who’s an adoptive parent who’s struggling, the classes are great and we don’t just say that because we teach it, we teach it for free year after here to families because we believe that it transforms families and it’s a gift. Yeah, we’ll put all that under there. These have been transformative things for us and so we hope they are for you too. Normally I like to say that we like covered everything we could have. You know, that we like really nailed an episode and I think, um, we scratch the surface if that, but there’s just, yeah, there’s a lot out there and a lot of really good stuff and so yeah, we hope you enjoyed a little time talking trauma informed parenting at the magic table. We are certainly glad you got to join us to talk a little trauma informed parenting around the magic table. Again, those resources at the bottom, uh, in your show notes, super important. Go check those out. You can also swipe to the bottom of your, uh, app, your iTunes app and you can leave a rating and review there. That just helps get the word out about what’s going on here, what we’re talking about now. We greatly appreciate that it goes a long way and it means a lot to us. So we appreciate you doing all of that and, uh, we can’t wait to see you next time at the table.
