Blocked Care
Dr Dan Hughes will address how to support parents and carers who are experiencing blocked care. Sometimes a child or young person will be so unresponsive to, rejecting and/or attacking of their parent’s caregiving, that the parent no longer enjoys being with their child. As a result, their paternal or maternal brain systems shut down. They do not get those lovely rushes of opioids and oxytocin that other parents get, and they no longer seek out connection with their child. Blocked trust can also happen when a parent is triggered by their child and relives some traumatic power-based interaction from their past. Parents who experience blocked care are then much more likely to see their child’s behaviours as ‘bad’ or ‘selfish’ as well as seeing themselves as an awful parent. As a result, their parenting can become defensive and behaviour-focused as opposed to relationship-focused.
About this webinar
Dr Hughes will discuss how to help parents to be able to both think and feel about events leading up to their blocked care. He will explore the vital healing process by demonstrating using PACE (play, acceptance, curiosity and empathy) with the parent and then helping them to relate through PACE with their child.
What you'll learn from this webinar?
- Learn how to recognise when a child or teenager has adopted an extreme defence or destructive way of being in relationships and in the world as a way of coping with a deeply painful past
- Understand why children decide that it hurts too much to feel and why then contempt, control and violence are so appealing
- Learn how to emotionally regulate yourself in order to emotionally regulate the child in the face of the most provocative and hurtful interactions
- Learn how to forge transforming connections with children and teenagers who push you away, make you very angry with them, frightened of them or feel like giving up on them
- Learn how to use PACE with children and teenagers who are experiencing blocked trust, and with parents who are experiencing blocked care
