Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families

The adoptive father should handle limit-setting whenever possible.

A powerful biblical message speaks to those moments of utter confusion and despair: “I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised … I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out — plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for” (Jeremiah 29:11, msg). When all hope is gone, give God time. He can and does

It is estimated that adoption disruption rates are highest among children with special needs and older children, with rates ranging from 10 to 20 percent.

It is estimated that 50 percent of who we are is inherited. The other half is formed through experience.

For children who have experienced trauma to their primary attachment, the learning process depends on the perceived security of the relationship with the teacher.

Poorly prepared adoptive parents may assume that love and stability will erase the impact of the child’s complex trauma. If this does not happen, they assume their love or parenting skills must somehow be defective or inadequate.

A child experiences shame when he transgresses and the parent responds with limits. The painful shame leads to a temporary break in the attachment relationship as the child withdraws from the parent.17

Kids in search of a secure base may appear to push the teacher away through defiance or refusal to complete tasks. They may battle for control. They are, in fact, not pushing away, but pulling toward.

School is filled with all kinds of people with all kinds of feelings. Maltreated children may find it difficult to read others’ emotions. A traumatized child, like a combat veteran who returns from the horror of war with a hypersensitivity to anticipated dangers, might punch someone in the face over a misunderstood comment. These kinds of behaviors