Fostering the Family Magazine: Raising a Child with Developmental Trauma
The Chronicle of Social Change: Our Failed Mental Health Solutions for Seriously Ill Youth
Sun Sentinel: I’ve tried the system. It doesn’t work. (My response to the Parkland Shooting)
NPR: When Teens Abuse Parents, Shame and Secrecy Make It Hard to Seek Help
Scary Mommy: Developmental Trauma Destroyed My Family
Narrative.ly: The Boy Who Cried Abuse
Charlotte Observer: Don’t blame workers for psych center woes
Adoptive Families: Opening my foster care adoption (Not a subscriber, read the reprint here..)
BuzzFeed: What Happens When The Adopted Kids Of Anti-Gay Parents Come Out?
Charlotte Observer: My black son is treated differently
While the topic of developmental trauma is growing in popularity, few people truly understand the daily struggles of those impacted by it. Even fewer know how to articulate those obstacles. Keri Williams, an advocate for children with developmental trauma and their adoptive families, does so extraordinarily well. As Keri adopted a son with developmental trauma herself, she gets to the heart of the matter in an honest and impactful way. She has drawn and retained the attention of thousands. Through her tenacity and talent for the written word, Keri is a revered leader in the nationwide community of adoptive parents.
Forrest R. Lien, LCSW, ACSW
Keri blogs at www.RaisingDevon.com
Checkout the blog or some of the posts below.
- Kids with RAD have an indefatigable need to control the people and situations around them because they only feel safe when they prove to themselves they are in control. To understand this, we must go back to the underlying causes of the disorder.
- Parents of kids diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) are all too familiar with the symptoms. Anecdotally we often list food hoarding, violent outbursts, crazy lying, to name a few. However, there is little research on just how common each of these symptoms are…
- Adoptive and foster parents usually reach a crisis point before we get help. No doubt, our children need us to be that calm and steady, therapeutic parent, but at that point, we simply don't have the capacity to do it.
- “It’s like living in a prison. We can’t go anywhere. All doors are locked. Alarms everywhere. We can’t have friends…
- To better serve children with developmental trauma, Kolk has proposed adding a new diagnosis to the DSM called Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD). The new diagnostic criteria requires exposure to chronic trauma before the age of 5. This diagnosis would fully encompass the symptoms of developmental trauma bringing them under one umbrella.
- Let’s strip away the platitudes and talk about surviving. Here’s my unfiltered, pragmatic RAD-parent-to-RAD-parent advice.
- It’s the million-dollar question. How do we manage the behavior of children with RAD? Therapeutic approaches can seem scarily permissive.…
- Child-on-parent violence is at epidemic levels in some families. However, it's a taboo topic in our society and there's little help available for parents or children.
- Originally published by Scary Mommy as Developmental Trauma Absolutely Destroyed My Family My husband and I jumped in heart first…
- Due to trauma during her early development, the lens Kayla viewed the world through was warped. It made even loving caregivers seem unsafe. Situations and people all appeared unpredictable. Kayla likely had no conscious awareness of this and she certainly could not verbalize it.
Keri Williams
I live in Charlotte, NC with my family and am an adoption and mental health advocate.