Week One: Scared Children, Not Scary Children
In week one, you will learn how to view your child’s behaviors through the lens of trauma. The class illustrates how early experiences directly impact the developing brain and nervous system as well as thoughts and behaviors. You will learn what ingredients are necessary to help your child develop a healthier, more secure attachment with you as well as first steps to calming your child’s trauma-related reactivity.
Objectives:
By the end of week one, you will be able to:
- Identify the traumatic events in your child’s early life.
- Identify typical child behaviors related to subconscious fears and traumatic memories.
- Recognize the triggers to your child’s concerning behaviors.
- Identify the negative core beliefs driving your child’s challenging behaviors.
- Recognize when your child is outside of his “window” for tolerating emotions.
- Take first steps to addressing your child’s negative thoughts.
Week Two: Creating Connection
In week two, you will develop skills for mindful, self-awareness and self-regulation to assist you, a necessary component for helping your child heal and self-regulate. You will develop skills for attuning with your child to increase the sense of connection with you and skills for playfulness with any age child to facilitate healthy development and shared pleasure and connection.
Objectives:
By the end of week two, you will be able to:
- Overcome your emotion–driven responses through mindful awareness to calm and heal your child's brain.
- Increase your child’s experience of emotional and physical connection with you to begin the process of calming your child’s brain and nervous system.
- Engage playfully with your child to facilitate healthy development and shared pleasure and connection.
Week Three: Solutions to Challenging Behaviors
Week three will provide you with specific strategies for responding to child meltdowns as well as stealing, lying, and aggression and problems with food and bathroom behaviors. You will identify negative beliefs common to the specific behaviors and come to understand how your child’s thoughts, feelings, and actions can quickly escalate like a series of falling dominoes. With greater understanding, you will develop an attuned approach to intervening more effectively.
Objectives:
By the end of week three, you will be able to:
- Identify issues of grief that may impact your child’s concerning behaviors.
- Implement effective parenting responses to the three phases of the child meltdown.
- Identify the “dominoes” – vulnerability factors, thoughts, feelings, and actions - that lead to your child’s concerning behaviors.
- Implement attuned Integrative Parenting responses to decrease challenging behaviors such as lying, stealing, aggression, food, and bathroom problems.
Week Four: Becoming a Happier Parent
Week four will help you examine your own triggers and automatic negative thoughts as well as discover how your own past may be impacting you today. You will identify positive, logical thoughts and healthy self-care methods to free you from stuck patterns, reduce stress, and help you become the kind of parent you want to be.
Objectives:
By the end of week four, you will be able to:
- Find healthy ways to lower your stress by using self-care techniques.
Identify common parent struggles related to grief, extended family, and influences of the past.
- Recognize your triggers and rewire your responses.
- Remove your negative thoughts and replace them with new, more positive, ones.
- Identify the ineffective actions you wish to replace and identify Integrative Parenting habits you wish to adopt.
Week Five: Boundaries and Consequences With Love and Attunement
Week five will help you manage your traumatized child’s behaviors day-to-day. You will discover how daily discipline methods can be applied using Integrative Parenting approaches of teaching, preteaching, collaborative problem-solving, choices, and consequences with empathy to improve child behaviors while preserving the connection.
Objectives:
By the end of week five, you will be able to:
- Expand your child’s tolerance for distress using specific tools that help—but don’t hurt.
- Use consequences and rewards more effectively with traumatized children.
- Use “Integrative Parenting” – boundaries with attunement including pre-teaching, post teaching, and detective skills.
- Learn the “How Not-To’s” – the pitfalls of emotion-driven parenting, and then learn the “How To’s” – discipline while preserving the connection.