Our Voices
Stories, insights, and learning pathways
Our Voices is ATN’s educational resource hub — personal stories that touch trauma at its heart, alongside pathways into the Trauma Insight Series, podcast episodes, and the broader Resource Center.
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Our Voices articles
First-person stories and reflections that put attachment trauma into lived context.
Just Say No to Teacher Burnout
In times of change, chaos, and crisis, prevent overwhelm and teacher burnout by being realistic about what you can and cannot do. Here's how.
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7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress
Humans are wired for connection and thrive in conditions of safety and security. When safety and security are compromised, we must do everything we can to restore a child’s felt sense of safety and security as fast as possible.
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5 Enlightened Ways to Think About Mental Health
Mental health problems should be thought of no differently than physical health problems. In fact, they are related: mental health problems affect physical health and physical health problems affect mental health.
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Who Do You Trust the Most?
During a session with your therapist, she hands you a paper with three concentric circles drawn on it. They represent relative levels of trust in relationships. The central circle is who you trust the most. She asks you who you would put in that spot. You don’t answer. She pushes. You remain silent. Finally, she suggests your parents. You nod. You know that she needs you to nod.
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Those Adoption Books
For years, I felt frustrated by parents and therapists suggesting I just read fill-in-the-blank adoption books by fill-in-the-blank authors. I’d already read all of those parenting books. I’d highlighted them and made notes in the margins. But the well-worn copies on my bookshelf didn’t seem to help. Sometimes the most worthy book suggestions even seemed to hurt our family.
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ATN: The Power of Community
[N]ext week, I will speak for the second time at the Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools Conference, where my topic will be “Behavior through the Lens of Attachment, Trauma, and Dissociation.”
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Parenting, Anxiety, and ACEs
Parenting with ACEs doesn’t always require intense therapy. Sometimes all we need is a friend, a conversation, someone to remind us that we will be okay, if not immediately, then eventually.
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Why Jeannie Can’t Tell Time
Staring at the analog clock in my therapist’s office, I wondered which hand was the big hand and struggled with my need not to go over my time. “I can’t read the clock,” I said. It was awkward because I was 62, but I really wasn’t.
Read story →The Search for a School That Fits
by: Melissa Sadin Teenager with problemsAs the parent of a child with moderate to severe attachment trauma, I have struggled for years to provide my son with an appropriate educational program. I have worked as a special education teacher and an administrator, so I know the lingo needed to get what I want at an IEP meeting. However, I was startled to discover recently that I wasn’t sure I knew what my son needed. My son always makes it very clear to all involved when something doesn’t work for him. The things that do work, however, are much more subtle and harder to see. My son has never said, “Oh, I like Mrs. Soandso. I feel safe in her class and am able to process language better there so I perform better academically.” The closest we get to that is, “She’s okay, I guess.”
Read story →Lessons Learned: Trauma Sensitive Teachers
By: Craig Peterson The right teacher can make all the difference – for every student and especially those children healing from past trauma. Boy with a Birthday CakeWhen my son Alex joined the family at the age of 10, he hadn’t been in a regular classroom since first grade. His behavior had been out of control, with anger filled rages getting the best of him. After grabbing a pair of scissors off a teacher’s desk and attempting to stab the principal in the neck, he spent a month in residential treatment. Upon his return to school, he was limited to two hours of instruction per day. A beefy ex-Marine stood guard.
Read story →Lessons Learned – Relationships over Things
By: Craig Peterson Craig Peterson's ChildrenI had the best of intentions. I never would have imagined my misstep – the precedent I was setting. After all, I was simply trying to be kind to my two newest sons. They came to me after a decade of extreme neglect and severe abuse at the hands of their birthmother’s boyfriend. Both endured more than 20 out-of-home placements after being stuck in the revolving door of family reunification.
Read story →Lessons Learned – Entitled and Detached
By: Craig Peterson Boys with GiftsSince my two sons hadn’t been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder when they were adopted at nine and ten, I didn't know to look for control. What I did see was their sense of entitlement.
Read story →Lessons Learned — Less Chores, More Backgammon
by: Craig Peterson My oldest son hated chores. Even the mention of the word set him off! IMG_1235[1]No wonder. Before being adopted, he was regularly told to not only watch his five younger siblings but also clean the family apartment. Although he tried – and he did try -- his step-father was never pleased with his effort and used the opportunity to beat him before taking his anger out on my son’s mother.
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Lessons Learned – Understand Attachment Even Before the Placement Begins
By: Craig Peterson Two Little BoysAlex and Travis are biological siblings. In 2001, they needed a home. One was nine and the other ten. I wanted to help. I felt called. Since I had done well with my first four children – all diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, I thought these two would be easier to parent. Both were high functioning and personable.
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A Bigger, Better & Bolder Blog
By: Gari Lister Welcome to ATN's new and expanded blog! We have been working the last several months to plan a more active - and hopefully interactive - blog that will become a real resource for all of us fighting in the trenches to help our children heal from trauma and attachment issues. As ATN's Blog Manager, I am proud to share in the exciting new initiatives of ATN.
Read story →Thanksgiving
By: Jane Samuel ‘Tis the season – for thanks giving that is. I see friends posting things they are thankful for each day on Facebook. There are probably similar lists on Twitter, Tumbler and Google+. I suspect my teens are being flooded with them on Instagram and my own email and snail mail is filling up with Thanksgiving letters from various non-profits, all worthy of a little monetary love AND thanks for their work making this a better world.
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“Loss” – The “L” Word
By: Jane Samuel Driving to school this morning my youngest (chronological age 11, emotional age – always open for debate) and I were discussing her father’s upcoming business trip to Asia. Pulling up to a stoplight, I glanced sideways and did a quick check of her demeanor. While she has gotten much better in the past few years about family members coming and going in her life, I still try to be on the lookout for signs that an upcoming loss - albeit a temporary one – might flip her internal emotional balance on its end. “Trigger her” as we say in the therapeutic parenting business.
Read story →Letting Go
by: Jane Samuel She calls me from the spa-sleep-over-birthday-party and I am not surprised. There is a catch in her voice and she is asking me to bring money. I don’t question. I just get in the car and drive to her.
Read story →Abandoned
By: Jane Samuel I knew the minute my husband pulled out of the lot and darted across the street to drop me at the pharmacy that it was a bad idea. Our youngest had run back into the retirement home where my father lived to retrieve a forgotten item and my husband thought it would be quicker to pull across, drop me, and run back and get her while I shopped. Problem is he didn’t tell her. He just figured he could get back before she noticed. Wrong.
Read story →Go Big: Self Care to the Tenth Degree
By: Gari Lister What is a good mom? Here’s how I would answer a questionnaire on how I was a good mom today: I drove my ten year old an hour and twenty minutes each way to skating camp; I tried really really hard to talk to my twelve year old about sensitive pre-teen things I cannot share here; I fed my kids mostly healthy gluten free meals; my house is reasonably clean; I taught my middle daughter how to complete a job successfully; I gave the girls all kinds of brain-strengthening vitamins; and I went to yoga. Ok, maybe I wouldn’t include the last item. But maybe I should.
Read story →This Ain’t My Mama’s Broken Heart
By: Gari Lister Four years ago today -- May 17, 2009 – my 17 year old daughter broke my heart and changed my life forever. She packed a bag, told her little sister not to tell us, and ran away from home with a boy she’d met a handful of times – a boy who murdered two people within a few months (literally). I didn’t realize what a pivotal moment it was right away; I thought it was just another episode in a series of Katya crises.
Read story →BMITW
By: Jane Samuel Last week I took our middle daughter out of town for four days to attend her close friend’s confirmation – in another country. Despite all her healing I still worried this trip would be too hard on our youngest – now ten-years-old and adopted at one. Luckily for her – and I – she was naïve as to how far away I would be (a long plane flight) and only knew I would be back in “four sleeps.”
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April 29, 2013 — Fourteen Years
By: Kathleen Benckendorf ATN is delighted to welcome Kathleen Benckendorf as a guest voice on Touching Trauma at its Heart. Kathleen, a parent member of ATN's Board of Directors, is a relentless researcher and seeker of answers. An engineer by education and experience, Kathleen has also trained as a bodyworker and in as many other therapeutic approaches and interventions as she has been able to convince the providers to let her attend. Her website, www.attachmentandintegrationmethods.com , describes these approaches and others.
Read story →My Life May Not Be Perfect, But I’m Not Going to Complain About it Any More
By Gari Lister Too many mornings this spring I have found myself waking up and saying, “My back hurts, I have a headache, I’m tired.” And I can’t even count how often I have picked up the phone and vented about something big . . . or something small. My kids refuse to eat their supplements, my youngest throws a fit (she’s 10), my husband eats the last strawberries . . . you name it, I vent, I complain, I whine. Or let me correct that: I vented, I complained, I whined.
Read story →Shake Off the Bad Mood
By Gari Lister This morning I started off my day with a cascade of nastiness from my usually reasonably-fun-to-be-around fifth grader. “I’m not going to eat those pills. Are you serious? Is that what we’re having for breakfast? Well, of course, we’re going to be late because of her [the sweeter younger sister].” First, I spent a moment thanking my yoga teacher for helping me to understand equanimity.
Read story →The Third World of Mental Health Care
By: Marc Deprey This Sunday, my daughter was given a new regime of meds to address her increased oppositional and violent behavior. Unfortunately, the wrong drug was written on her prescription and between that drug and all the other changes made she went into a severe manic episode. Over two days she just got worse and worse. By Monday night she was seeing things that weren’t there, trying to jump out of her window, screaming, and trashing her room.
Read story →Rules . . .
By: Gari Lister Experts advise that kids with developmental trauma need calm, stability and predictable limits. And in fact I know my youngest does better when she knows her schedule, and exactly what is expected of her. The problem is that peace, stability and a well-ordered life are not always easy to come by in a household filled with a bunch of poorly behaved dogs and cats, not to mention the children or broken appliances. For that reason, I’m always a little defensive about our organizational dynamics.
Read story →How Many Kids Do I Have? . . . Month Two as a Throw-Away Mom
By: Gari Lister Our oldest daughter, Katya, has been gone nearly two months. She packed the car with everything she could find, changed her phone number, blocked us on facebook, and disappeared into the urban Dallas wilds. In many ways, our life is back to normal, and I have adjusted to my new status. Only a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stop myself from pulling away from the little girls in subtle ways. I finally realized I was petrified they too would throw me away, walking away without a backward glance. I’m mostly now able to accept the risk.
Read story →Why Trauma Wouldn’t Let Me Attend the Trauma Conference
By: Marc Deprey Last Sunday, my son went into a rage so severe that he assaulted me and destroyed my car’s windows and body with head-sized boulders. He was arrested and taken to Juvenile Hall. It’s the first time I’ve ever been assaulted—by anyone, let alone my own child—and this is his first arrest. My daughter, who is also afflicted with developmental trauma, has been especially reactive this week beyond her usual explosiveness and destructiveness. So the trauma I have been experiencing this week has been so severe that I got sick (my immune system is probably in full retreat) on top of it all. Yesterday, I just gave into reality and cancelled my trip to the Trauma conference.
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How Possible is the Impossible?
By: Nancy Spoolstra Last weekend I saw the movie The Impossible with my husband and very pregnant daughter. The movie is about a family of 5 that miraculously survives the Indian Ocean tsunami intact … no family member perished. Most families were not nearly so fortunate. The movie is all about relationships. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house … at least among the movie-goers who were healthy enough to be in relationship with one or more other people. I left that theater wanting to hug each and every member of my family who is near and dear to me. And it forced me once again to examine the dichotomy of my family dynamics.
Read story →A Swing and A Miss
By: Marc Deprey In my last entry, I listed a number of potential subjects to talk about on this blog and of course, I’ve decided not to talk about any of them today. I just want to talk about the heartbreak of never really being close to your kid.
Read story →Why I hung up on my son
By: Nancy Spoolstra It has been nearly five years since I regularly blogged at adoptionblogs.com, and I have been excited to resume blogging, although on a less rigorous schedule. So it was surprising to me that I was struggling to get this first blog written. I think I wasn’t quite sure how or where to start. As many of you understand, five years can be a long time and a big change in our families ... or, it might be five years later and the same old, same old. In my case, I am five more years down the path of redefining my life without the daily reality of breathing the same air as one or more children with severe attachment issues.
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It Doesn’t Hurt to Laugh
By: Anna Paravano-Frise Ok, let’s face it: “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” (Hershey’s) Kind of like that nutty guy on the ceiling in the movie “Mary Poppins” who sang, “I love to laugh!” I really do love to laugh! I love anything and anyone that makes me laugh. BC (Before Child), I really bought into the notion that “laughter is the best medicine.” Life can be such a serious business so I made it a point to watch comedies and comedians as a way to release stress, fight depression, or simply have fun. Yes, I loved a good drama but when times got tough, I used laughter as one of my coping mechanisms.
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I’m Perfect…I’m a Failure
By: Julie Beem LuLu and I build gingerbread houses. We build them for the annual competition at her virtual school. She’s a serious competitor. Prior to the houses we built for the last competitions, I had absolutely no gingerbread house experience. It has been a trial by fire – and a lot of work! But the interesting thing is that it’s been a fruitful adventure and one that showcases some of her talents.
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Attachment — Barbie Style
By: Gari Lister Our attachment therapist a long time ago suggested that if my girls had a difficult time with my massaging and touching them, I could have them rub lotion on me. Well, I started out with lotion, but I have three girls so . . . the lotion turned into nail polish, and the nail polish turned into hair styling, and the hair styling turned into makeup. Every so often, one of my little girls runs into the bathroom and runs out with a lotion or a blush or a handful of hair accessories and gives me a hopeful look.
Read story →Where to begin?
By: Marc Deprey Father and SonWell, here it is, the moment I’ve been thinking about. How to start my contribution to ATN’s new blog? I could write about the experience of parenting two kids, eleven months apart with Developmental Trauma Disorder and the whole whack-a-mole nature of that day-to-day experience. I could write about the fact that I can only take time to write this when my kids are asleep and I’m exhausted, or the idea that being around them wears me down to the core (and that I can’t imagine I’ll have any core left sometime soon).
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No, My Kids are Not Like Everyone Else’s
By: Gari Lister Mom and daughterUntil today, my first blog was going to be uplifting. I have three girls affected to varying degrees by their early trauma in orphanages in Russia and Ukraine, and things seemed to be going really well. We just finished a wonderful vacation with the two younger girls, and the third had returned home in October after years of living “on-her-own-traumatized-child-style,” which means she dropped out of high school and generally could not handle being part of a family. Unfortunately, though, we made the mistake that all of us moms and dads of traumatized children sometimes do. We forgot. We forgot she wasn’t like other teenagers, or us, or even the 11 year old (she’s 21). We forgot how messed up her brain is when she makes decisions – or doesn’t make decisions. We believed that she could handle what seemed so simple – feeding our cats and cleaning up after them. She doesn’t have a job (long story), and we agreed to pay her to feed them so she would have a little spending money. We asked neighbors to keep an eye out on things, and put our dogs in boarding.
Read story →Trauma Insight Series
Short video and PDF insights for trauma-informed practice — a companion to the stories above.
Dysregulation in the Classroom
Short practical reflection for trauma-sensitive practice.
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Introducing the Window of Tolerance
Short practical reflection for trauma-sensitive practice.
Open resource →The Difference Between Discipline and Punishment
Short practical reflection for trauma-sensitive practice.
Open resource →Regulated & Relational Podcast
Conversations on attachment, regulation, and healing relationships.
