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Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

Calming Tips

2 replies

selly24 · 04/05/2016 21:38

Came across this article online. Strikes me as having some quite useful strategies. Can RL adopters share they ones the use/work?
www.positive-parents.org/2016/05/49-phrases-to-calm-and-anxious-child.html?m=1

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NeatandTidyTidyandNeat · 05/05/2016 10:34

Those are lovely - however, I often find that LO regresses to a MUCH younger emotional age when anxious, and many of those would be far too complex for them to handle, regardless of their actual age. We do better with the ones that are about acknowledging "This feels really hard" and "It's OK to feel abc, let me sit with you and help make the feeling smaller". Also, lots of wondering "I am wondering whether you might be feeling scared because of xyz..." We do use some of the sensory ones in the link, like scents.

I suspect the link is working with situations where they expect the child to have the inner resources to self-soothe to some degree, and with a child who has experienced early neglect/trauma, that may well not be the case. So our best strategy for gradually managing anxiety has been to go back to the very beginning, and comfort comfort comfort, as you would an anxious baby. Lots of rocking, stroking, gentle humming etc. As LO got bigger, we were able to replace some of this with ways they could control themselves - jumping, using a rocking chair etc. TBH, it doesn't really matter what I say or which words I choose - it's the calm quiet tone, the physical contact, and the taking lots of time that work for us.

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