Do the “Roundpen” Work with Your Children

by: Nancy Spoolstra

It was over five years ago that I relinquished the position of Executive Director of ATN. After more than a dozen years of eating, sleeping and breathing this organization and the families it serves, I finally hit the wall. I actually hit the wall before that, but there was no one ready, willing and able to pick up the reins … until Julie Beem. Since she assumed leadership of ATN, she has been most gracious in allowing me to pick and choose my level of involvement. She understood how much of my life was on hold for so long.

Lessons Learned: Trauma Sensitive Teachers

By: Craig Peterson

The right teacher can make all the difference – for every student and especially those children healing from past trauma.

Boy with a Birthday CakeWhen my son Alex joined the family at the age of 10, he hadn’t been in a regular classroom since first grade. His behavior had been out of control, with anger filled rages getting the best of him. After grabbing a pair of scissors off a teacher’s desk and attempting to stab the principal in the neck, he spent a month in residential treatment. Upon his return to school, he was limited to two hours of instruction per day. A beefy ex-Marine stood guard.

Lessons Learned – Relationships over Things

By: Craig Peterson

Craig Peterson’s ChildrenI had the best of intentions. I never would have imagined my misstep – the precedent I was setting. After all, I was simply trying to be kind to my two newest sons.

They came to me after a decade of extreme neglect and severe abuse at the hands of their birthmother’s boyfriend. Both endured more than 20 out-of-home placements after being stuck in the revolving door of family reunification.

A Meaning Behind the Suffering

November 13, 2014 By:  Marc Deprey It is always hard to find meaning when under a stream of unrelenting suffering. The tragedy of early trauma, the resulting pain, and the stress, the strong feeling that some great potential is being lost—all this characterizes the experience of a parent of children of trauma. I certainly feel […]

Toolbox Tuesday: Bath Time Can be a Great Way to Build Attachment

by: Linda Forsythe

Mother and DaughterWhen my daughter came to live with me as an eight year old, she was not a happy camper. She wanted to stay with her foster mother, the fifth foster parent of five years in foster care. She was not impressed with another move, nor with the idea of adoption by me. We didn’t have much of a honeymoon before the troubles began. It was rocky! After about nine months of daily battles about almost everything, we were close to terminating the plan to adopt her and her biological brother.

Lessons Learned – Entitled and Detached

By: Craig Peterson

Boys with GiftsSince my two sons hadn’t been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder when they were adopted at nine and ten, I didn’t know to look for control.

What I did see was their sense of entitlement.

That Mom Could Be Me

November 6, 2014 by: Gari Lister Tuesday morning I checked Facebook and saw a post that made me start to cry before I even finished reading it.  A “critical” missing person in my neighborhood — a teenage girl.  The police notice originally mentioned a history of childhood abuse, and noted that a suicide note had […]

Wearing a Mask

Kelly Killian

October 30, 2014 by:  Kelly Killian As Halloween approaches and children begin to pick out costumes, they pick out a new “personality” to try on for a day. It makes me think of our kids.  So often what you see is a mask that they are wearing for the occasion.  It is not the true […]

Dr. Susan Craig: Integrating Trauma Sensitive Best Practices in Your Classroom

October 14, 2014 by:  Gari Lister Through Wednesday, ATN is keeping open several of the most-requested interviews presented as part of its Educating Traumatized Children Summit, and we in the Blog want to help keep readers talking, so for the next several days we will highlight several other interviews.  This one is a must-know for […]

Bob Burroughs: School in an Attachment-Focused Residential Program

October 9, 2014 by:  Lorraine Schneider This interview was part of ATNs Educating Traumatized Children Summit (Day 10). Bob Burroughs, PhD:  School in an Attachment-Focused Residential Program First, do no harm. That’s what Bob Burroughs, head of the school at CALO says. We would all agree with him. Right? No one wants to harm our […]