No Fear
blog felt safety no fear parenting adopted children parenting traumatized children Oct 01, 2019
Dear Parent,
My traumatized children never seemed to express fear in the early years after coming home with me. They took big physical and relational risks, broke all rules, and seemed to be unmoved by my ire. I came to know this as traumatic dissociation, because the longer I lived with them the more I saw that they were afraid of almost everything.
Eventually, the feelings of fear must be uncovered to engage life with appropriate amounts of risk taking and caution. My children have work to do in this arena. When my daughter calls in tears about how scared she is to be on her own, I soothe her. My son still glazes over to avoid his fears. There is more processing to be done for them to emerge feeling safe inside themselves and in the world.
The upshot is this: Felt safety needs to be our parenting goal for our children, so they can face forward without fear and with love in their own lives. No easy task. No fear.
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