Trauma Based Parenting

Free trauma training begins next week. Training is completely virtual: each day you will get an email with a short video to watch on your own time.

During this training, we will dive into:

✨ our own values and how they impact our parenting
✨ fight/ flight response
✨ our kids triggers
✨ is it trauma or normal child behaviour
✨ strategies for deescalating crisis in the home

Register for free here: https://bit.ly/marchtt

Attention Foster + Adoptive Parents.
The wait is over! Trauma Based Parenting is available now.

If you're struggling with your child's behaviours, if you're wondering why your parenting strategies aren't working, if you've ever felt alone and overwhelmed on your journey | this book is for you!

Mixed in with some stories of our years of fostering and adopting, you'll learn all about the body's reaction to fight/flight and how to approach your child through the lens of trauma.

You can purchase the book from Amazon here:
Amazon US Paperback https://bit.ly/49TWEpM
Amazon CA Paperback https://bit.ly/3wuKCEH
Kindle Version click here https://bit.ly/49vESJw

One of my goals for 2024 is to stop living in fear and freaking publish my book!

It's a guide for foster and adoptive parents. You can follow along my journey here Trauma Based Parenting or check out

Trauma Based Parenting Helping Foster & Adoptive Parents Understand Early Trauma & Attachment Learn More Hi, I’m Erin.Erin Bouchard is a passionate foster and adoptive parent dedicated to supporting families facing the complexities of early trauma and attachment struggles. Drawing from her personal experience, Erin is o...

This thought has been running through my mind today.

What if we were really, truly for reunification?

Like, not in the sense that reunification happened to us as foster parents. But in the sense that we embodied that reunification is the goal of foster parenting?

How would we parent differently?
How would we shift our thinking?

Would the way we train foster parents be different?

For reunification.
For family healing.

Break my heart for what breaks yours. It must absolutely break Gods heart to see families falling apart. To see hurting kids. And broken parents.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours.

This year vs last year. Love my three 🎃

And just like that Ethan is off to high school and Evy starts JK.

Have a great day you two. And happy birthday to Miss Evelyn.

When the system to protect children is run like a business there will always be children coming into care.

Just look at the statistics during COVID - number of calls coming in drops drastically but the number of kids coming into care stays the same.

In order to fix the system, I believe the entire system has to be dismantled and started again.

It needs a better foundation. One that truly focuses on families and prevention rather than incentivizing removal.

Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

The period of waiting.

I find myself once again in the hardest season of all as a foster parent.

The season of wait.
The season of unknown.
The season of trying to distract yourself from dwelling on things that don’t have answers to them.

Have you been in that season before?

Because I’m there right now. And I have to say it’s not my favourite season to be in.

I want to know.
I want to plan.
I want to have the answers.

Instead I must trust the One who does.
Instead I must not worry about the unknown.
Instead I must keep taking steps forward despite the uncertainty.

If you’re in a season of wait, I see you.

I know the struggle.
I know the anguish.

You can do hard things.
Like wait, and wait, and wait.

June is National Reunification Month ✨

Reunification and family preservation is something that I am super passionate about & want to share with other foster and adoptive parents.

This month is super busy, so I have created a list of posts for every other day.

I hope you will follow along, be opening to learning & post on every even day using the hashtag . Be sure to tag me in the post too so I can share.

I have tagged some accounts you should be following & some accounts I hope will also participate.

Healing can only come after a validation of the hurt.

Removal is trauma.
Separation of biological families causes pain.
Adoption isn’t just beautiful.

I believe that one of our primary roles as foster and adoptive parents is to help our children heal. And give them the skills they need to navigate hurt.

But, that can only come when we acknowledge the trauma. When we sit in that hurt with them. When we validate their experiences and pain without putting a pretty little bow on their life experiences.

Our children are capable of healing.
Their brains can grow new pathways.

But not if we continue to argue that we’re the better home for them.
Not if we continue to deny the pain, the trauma that coming into care caused.

The System

Everyone says that the system is broken, and I don’t disagree. This past year has really shown me just how broken it truly is.

But, I often wonder, how long can we acknowledge that the system is broken without actively working to change it?

While there are many, many ways the system needs to change, here are some things that I think could be changed right away.

* mandatory call between foster parents, child and first families within 24 hours of placement
* standardized training for all foster and adoptive parents that covers biological family relationships, trauma and attachment and is the same from state to state, province to province
* social workers that respond to a crisis that don’t work for CAS or DCFS. An intermediary organization whose only job is to support and care for families in crisis
* better communication between workers and foster families. Creating a partnership rather than us vs them.
*
The system needs to change and I think it’s time for foster parents to speak up. I think it’s time for someone to change it.

Will you be part of the change? What ways do you think the system could change right now?