The oldest of our three kids was 14. We had adopted 3 babies from foster care. At this point in our lives you would think that we had a at least a clue about parenting…. Think again!
I talked about in a previous blog that we were inspired to continue fostering, even after adopting 3 kids, when we heard about the great need for foster families in our area.
Of the three kids we adopted, 2 were medically fragile and one was a sibling of one of them. All three were considered ‘ready for adoption’ when we welcomed them home.
Now we were getting our ‘general’ license.
This is the program where the kids are first coming into foster care and the goal for them is reunification with their birth parents.
So we get our license and the very next day welcome 2 adorable little toddler girls.
Our youngest 3 adopted kids were also toddlers. Already you can see the recipe for disaster.
I thought, this will be fun.
It will be like running a preschool. And I started pinning preschool themes, schedules, and activities to make my home Pinterest worthy.
After a week we realized we hadn’t created a preschool. We only half joked that it was more like a house of horrors.
The honeymoon period ended with in a week with our newest munchkins. And then, they began to scream.
For about 6 hours a day, each. If I wasn’t holding them, they screamed. If someone looked that them funny, they screamed.
We were beside ourselves. What was up with these kids?! They were so hard to keep happy. And they went from 0 – 200 decibels in half a second.
The only thing that soothed them was being physically attached to me.
I spent my days rocking the little girls. And nothing much else.
Things got a little better over the weeks, and then months, and then 9 months later both girls were moved into their forever home.
The family had suffered.
We made it out of that by the skin of our teeth.
How could we move forward with fostering after such a humbling and unpleasant experience?
While we had the girls, we were in survival mode.
There had not been time to figure things out. We were just trying to make it through the day.
Now, I had time to do some research and what I found was: TBRI.
TBRI = Trust Based Relational Intervention.
This method was developed by psychologists Dr. David Cross and Dr. Karyn Purvis at Texas Christian University. They wrote about it in their best-selling book: The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
If you are a parent: please, please read this book!
When we started our adoption journey, The Connected Child was required reading by the agency we were using to adopt. I remember thinking, “This is the best book about parenting that I have ever read.”
And I also remember thinking “I wish I had read this book before I had even had my birth children!”
And… That’s about all that I remembered.
After I read it, I put it aside and forgot all about it because I began learning how to care for Kavasi, a baby with many medical special needs.
Years went by and I reverted to whatever parenting style I had picked up by osmosis from my own parents and had worked pretty well on all my other kids.
But was it the best I could do?
Science is all about finding new and better ways to do things. God wants us to do our best in everything we do, and in this way we bring Him glory.
TBRI, or connected parenting, is the new and better way to parent.
We owe it to the kids we foster, or any kids we parent, and God, to be the best parents we can be.
TBRI is what I came to see as the ‘Gold Standard’ for parenting children who had experienced trauma ON THE MAINLAND.
But it was not offered anywhere in Hawaii. So, my husband and I found ourselves flying to Texas for Parenting Boot Camp.
Over 3 days, and 20 plus hours of training we became certified Empowered to Connect trainers.
We were, and still are, determined to bring this method to our community.
So, what is TBRI and Empowered to Connect?
Its all licensed, trademarked, and systematically laid out in a curriculum so I’ll just give you little overview in my own words, but please do your own research (there are great videos of the late and amazingly great Karyn Purvis on YouTube), get the book, and take the classes if can… this is the story as I remember it and as I tell it…
TBRI was developed by psychologists. It is evidence based.
They did this by holding fun day camps where kids with behaviors associated with trauma (like the screaming tantrums my little ones had) were immersed in these connecting techniques.
They tested the kids' cortisol levels (stress hormones) and found them to be decreased by the techniques.
They also conducted surveys of the kids' behaviors, and they also of course observed during the camps that the kids' behaviors were improved.They could see with their own eyes that their hearts were healing.
The problem was the effects did not last.
Once, the kids went back to their homes, they reverted back to their old behaviors and their cortisol levels were back up with in about a month.
They discovered that these kids needed to be immersed in these techniques full time, forever, not just in a clinical setting.
To create real healing, the parents would have to be trained in these methods.
The lifestyle of the family must be changed. This is where they developed the parenting curriculum, Empowered to Connect.
The course takes 18 hours over several week. We teach our course in 2 hour sessions over nine weeks.
It’s a commitment! But it's worth it. Our kids, our stress levels, our sanity, is worth it.
The curriculum covers the effect that trauma has on a child’s brain, how to discover your own parenting and attachment style (and how to improve upon them), as well as practical techniques to develop positive connections within the family that can heal the negative effects of trauma.
It works! We can personally testify! It really works!
Trauma causes a lack of trust. Trauma causes fear. Trauma causes the dreaded ‘attachment disorder.’
The good news that was discovered by these incredible psychologists is, in a way, the same Good News that Jesus brought us:
There is hope for everyone. People can change.
You can change your parenting style.
You can help your child. Your child can change their behaviors. Your child can heal.
The cure for a broken heart is connection.
With the Empowered to Connect curriculum parents learn the powerful connection techniques that can heal a child’s trauma.
We support each other as we change our lifestyles with the goal of healing children’s hearts.
My husband and I need this class as much as anyone else- Join us!
We are excited to be facilitating the class again, after a break over the Covid years in which we the curriculum was revamped, and we were recertified. We begin the last week of March 2023 and at the time of this posting we only have 4 spots left!
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