Why cards for parenting conversations?
When I became a parent 24 years ago I found it overwhelming, amazing, overwhelming, emotional, overwhelming, magical.....well you get the picture! I was amazed at just how important it was for me to do my child 'no harm' emotionally as well as physically, so much so that it led me into working with children and families for the rest of my days. Since then I have had the very great privilege to work with birth and adoptive parents, and foster and kinship carers. Even when I have been in 'rescuing' or 'fix it' mode, I have learned a great deal from them which has shaped the work I do now.
I have taken, and continue to take, all I hear, see and feel in my direct work and combine it with my ongoing self-education on how the effects of developmental trauma and complex attachment shape a child's developing body and brain.
Why look at the 'Why'?
Because being curious and open to being taught, with a good does of humility, has given me the greatest insight into what both children and adults have to bring to a complex child-parent relationship which, for good or ill, will be the most important relationship they will ever have. I have discovered on this 24 year journey that to work with the adult who is struggling with their child's behaviour and their sense of 'getting it all wrong', I need to understand more than 'what's not working' and then give them strategies to 'dog train' their child into compliance. It is vital to have information about what they both bring to their relationship and certain key questions can shed light on this, much like a torch in a deep, dark, scary well at midnight on a Winter's night!
Why pry?
Understanding what lies behind the distance, disconnection and even sometimes, seeming dislike within a child-parent relationship is so important. For those working in this sphere it's essential to know something about the adults' earliest years and the care they experienced as it is riven with clues and insight into the current disconnect with their child.
Why THESE cards?
Work with parents and carers is always complex as you have the child's behaviour to consider, the disrupted relationship, the adults template for raising children, their childhood experiences and how their brain and body have been shaped by these, along with the experiences that have shaped their child's developing survival and social systems. Creating my Parenting Impacted by Trauma Fink Cards has given me the opportunity to provide a tool for practitioners to use for this complex direct the work. The Fink Cards are a way to introduce, what I have found to be pivotal conversations with parents and carers, using a 3rd party tool which feels less direct and can reduce anxieties. These questions and vital conversations are so often the 'missing torch' to gradually light the way out for both parent and child from that in a deep, dark, scary well at midnight on a Winter's night!
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