First Steps in Parenting the Child Who Hurts : Tiddlers and Toddlers Second Edition

This text approaches attachment and developmental issues arising when the child is in your care. It offers practical, sensitive guidance through the dark areas of separation, loss and trauma in early childhood. It reassures that no problem faced as a result of the child's early experiences is insignificant or undeserving of a solution. Neither is the reader patronized by assumptions that some matters should already be common knowledge. It sets out purposefully to encourage confidence and thereby to enable enjoyment of the young life in your care. `This excellent book looks at the attachment and development of very young children in the fostering and adoption situation. It deals sensitively and practically with the young child's'hurts'to help adopters and foster carers understand and cope with the many traumas they may experience in integrating a young child into their family. Caroline Archer is a real adoptive parent speaking from experience so this book provides good, practical advice and encouragement for the mothering figure when things are not following the normal attachment and development patterns... This highly readable book is highly recommended for everyone fostering or adopting very young children.'- Adoption and Fostering`Written by an adoptive parent [this book aims] to give practical advice and parenting tips to other adoptive and long-term foster parents. The author's basic premise is that all children who have been adopted or placed in long-term care have undergone some form of psychological hurt. She argues that while some children will be more resilient to this hurt than others, many children will need their hurt to be acknowledged by their parents/carers, and be allowed to grieve for their losses in order to move forward to a life of greater well-being and fulfilment. [The book begins] by exploring such issues as bringing a child home, child development and what to do when things'don't seem quite right'. Other issues covered are the effects of trauma on a child, and how to handle specific difficulties that may arise with an adopted child. [It is] written in a clear easy-to-read format, and contain[s] a list of references for further reading.'- Family Matters Contents......Page 6 What is Adoption UK?......Page 10 Foreword......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 One: Coming Home......Page 18 Two: New Beginnings......Page 24 Three: When Things Don’t Seem Quite Right......Page 30 Four: The Effects of Trauma on Attachment and Development......Page 36 Five: Getting Back on Track......Page 46 Six: Special Difficulties Within Your Family......Page 90 Seven: The Spiritual Dimension......Page 104 Closing Thoughts......Page 108 Glossary......Page 110 Reading List......Page 124 Index......Page 126 A ""must have"" book for both adoptive parents and for those professionals who help adoptive families forge new family ties ... the author, herself an adoptive parent, addresses a wide variety of very complex topics with a marked sensitivity to the varying needs of children who may have had a wide range of early life experiences Suitable for adoptive parents and foster carers of young children, a title which offers practical, sensitive guidance through the areas of separation, loss and trauma in early childhood