Why a child who has been in care may not respond to normal discipline
Trauma responses are reflexive, not deliberate. Why ordinary consequences can make things worse for a child who has been in care, and what helps instead.
Category: Parenting and support
Coercive attachment therapies: what to avoid, and why
Practices involving enforced holding or restraint have no empirical support and have been associated with serious harm, including death. How to recognise them.
The first two weeks after a child arrives
Routines, belongings, introductions and sleep. What actually helps in the first fortnight of a placement, and what commonly goes wrong.
Contact with birth family: what the evidence actually says
Most adoptive parents fear contact will unsettle a child. Sustained contact with birth relatives is linked to better adjustment in adulthood.
When a placement ends: grief that nobody warns you about
Success in foster parenting usually means a loss for the foster family. Why carers need preparing for that, and what helps.
Secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and asking for respite
Living alongside someone else’s trauma has a measurable effect on carers. The symptoms, what protects against it, and why families do not ask for respite.
