PACE | For Foster & Adoptive Parents

Parenting with PACE to provide ‘Connection with Correction’ | For Foster Carers and Adoptive Parents

Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP) informed parenting helps parents to emotionally connect with their children in ways which increases feelings of safety and security. This recognises that some of the children we care for often fear such connection and supports parents to help their children overcome these fears. 

Using two hands for parenting, emotional connection and nurture combines with boundaries and discipline to provide a ‘connection alongside correction’ approach to parenting children. It draws on the parents’ capacity to be mind-minded so that they can adopt the attitude of PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy) as described by Dan Hughes.

This course is aimed at practitioners and parents who want to increase their understanding of parenting a child who is insecure because of the experience of developmental trauma.

Aims and objectives

This course is aimed at parents who are parenting a child who is insecure. This includes foster carers, adoptive parents, residential carers and kinship carers.

Aims:

To understand why parenting traumatized children is challenging and to relate this to the children’s early experience.

To understand the behaviour displayed by the children and to link this to their internal experience.

To understand why traditional behaviour management strategies may not help the children to feel secure without adaptation and attention given to helping the child build security with the parents.

To understand how to manage behaviour whilst also building trust and security for the child.

Objectives:

You will:

· Reflect on how you currently manage behaviour.

· Understand the parenting task when parenting an insecure child relating this to an understanding of the development of trust or mistrust, early intersubjective experience, the development of shame and attachment styles.

· Consider the connections between experience, feelings and behaviour and relate this to the concept of therapeutic parenting.

· Explore PACE and other parenting skills to manage behaviour whilst building security.

· Understand a range of parenting principles for parenting insecure children

Exploring Challenges of Parenting:

· Challenge one:  Loss of Trust in Infancy

· Challenge two:  Fear of Intersubjective Relationships

· Development of the nervous system

· Challenge three: Living with Shame

· Challenge four:  Miscuing through Hidden Needs

Exploring Therapeutic Parenting:

What parenting skills do you need?

— Mind-minded parenting

— PACE

— Connection and Correction: supporting behaviour whilst building security

— Parenting in the moment & Self Care