The Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development has answered the call once again!
Last month, our clinical services team was honored to receive an advance copy of their latest offering, The Connected Parent, which is on sale now and receiving rave reviews. This book is fantastic. It adds a much-needed dose of adoptive parenting reality to the lessons we learned in The Connected Child, informed by what parents have experienced over the past decade of using TBRI at home. If you are actively parenting, this book makes The Connected Child so much more relatable, with chapter highlights and tips about how to implement TBRI strategies at home. We are confident it will be your new adoptive parenting manual!
For almost a decade now, adoption professionals at Holt have rallied around the holistic and connection-based approach to parenting known as Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). It’s one of the very few evidence-based caregiving models that actually help children heal from past traumas and learn appropriate behavior through connected relationships.
For almost a decade now, adoption professionals at Holt have rallied around the holistic and connection-based approach to parenting known as Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). It’s one of the very few evidence-based caregiving models that actually help children heal from past traumas and learn appropriate behavior through connected relationships.
Even just 20 years ago, we didn’t understand much about why children with difficult beginnings struggled in areas like trust, communication, relationships, with behavior, and in their overall health and wellness. We saw the tough behaviors, but not the needs behind them … or the healing that happens when you can understand and meet those needs in alliance with your child. We now know so much more about how the brain develops in response to our experiences in childhood. And we know that the experiences of losing birth parents and important caregivers, enduring traumatic circumstances (even before birth), or receiving inattentive or harmful care impacts a child’s path forward in many ways. We also have research that demonstrates how connected parenting can help shape where that path leads. We’ve learned that:
- HOW we connect and correct our children matters
- We can parent our children in a way that builds trust, teaches important skills and HEALS past trauma all through relationships!
- OUR own histories and attachment experiences affect the ways we relate to our children, and reflecting on those experiences can help us become better parents
- We WILL see amazing healing, growth and progress if we commit to this style of caregiving
There is a lot to making connected parenting work and it can feel monumental at first. In truth, it takes dedication and lots of practice! Dr. Karyn Purvis used to say that TBRI is “investment parenting” and encouraged us to think of it as a marathon, not a race. If you’re like me and feeling too old and tired for either metaphorical option, you’ll appreciate the real-deal lens that adoptive mother Lisa Qualls provides as she shares how TBRI changed her entire family.
TBRI and The Connected Child gave us the information we needed to see the needs behind the behaviors, and the tools to help us meet them. The Connected Parent offers parents validation, solidarity, new ideas, permission (to mess up and adapt things), and most importantly — HOPE! Dr. Purvis’ powerful words intersect beautifully with adoptive mom/coach/author Lisa Qualls as their two voices educate and illustrate how to use TBRI in real life. You will love Lisa’s raw, and sometimes downright funny, stories that offer great insight about making TBRI work for your family.
This is truly a GEM of a book. Do yourself a favor and pick up your copy today!
Marissa Robello LMSW, CSWA | Clinical Social Worker
Celeste Snodgrass, LCSW | Director of Clinical Services
