From Blow-Up to Bonding: Finding the Balance of Attachment-Focused Discipline in Adoption

Private training for Aspiranet.

Description: How can you turn moments of struggle into moments of connection? Discover how brain development, implicit memories, and the “6 F’s” (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Friend, Fidget, Flop) can influence your adoptive or foster child’s reactions to traditional methods of discipline, and develop compassionate, creative, and effective strategies for limit-setting and consequences that simultaneously enhance healthy attachment patterns in the child-caregiver relationship. Tools to cope with common struggles will be addressed, including separation anxiety, transitions, homework, aggression, lying, stealing, hoarding, argumentativeness, and sleep anxiety.

Presenter Bio: Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker is a licensed psychologist, international/transracial adoptee of color, and an adoptive parent. She specializes in providing mental health support focused on adoption, trauma, and racial identity work through her private practice based in Denver, Colorado. She is a frequent speaker and trainer at adoption agencies, camps, and conferences throughout the U.S., and the creator of the National Adoptee-Therapist Directory. She is also the author of “The Adoptee Self-Reflection Journal,” “The Adoptive Parent Self-Reflection Journal,” and the “Adoptees Like Me” illustrated series for elementary readers.