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10 Adlerian Parenting Tips for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma or Abuse

Adlerian parenting is based on the philosophy of Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychiatrist and founder of Adlerian psychology. Adler believed that human behavior is motivated by a desire for belonging, significance, and social connection. Adlerian parenting promotes a child’s competence and self-esteem while encouraging social responsibility and respect for others.


Adlerian parenting emphasizes creating a warm, nurturing, and cheerful home environment where children feel valued loved and supported. Adlerian parents strive to provide opportunities for their children to develop independence, social interest, and positive self-esteem while fostering a sense of community and social responsibility.


Adlerian parenting is based on encouragement, respect, and mutual trust between parents and children. Adlerian parents seek to understand their child’s perspective and feelings while setting clear boundaries and expectations for behavior. Adlerian parenting also emphasizes the importance of positive discipline strategies that focus on teaching appropriate behavior and promoting self-regulation rather than using punishment or harsh discipline.
Overall, the philosophy of Adlerian parenting is focused on promoting a child’s sense of belonging, significance, and social interest while encouraging positive behavior, social responsibility, and respect for others.

  1. Provide a safe and stable environment: Children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or toxic stress need a sense of safety and stability. Create routines, set boundaries, and provide a secure home environment.
  2. Encourage healing through positive reinforcement: Praise your child’s effort and progress towards healing rather than just their achievements. This fosters a sense of resilience and self-worth.
  3. Focus on building trust: Children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or toxic stress often struggle to trust others. Take the time to listen to your child and validate their feelings, which can help rebuild trust.
  4. Use positive discipline strategies: Instead of punishment or harsh discipline, use positive methods that teach appropriate behavior and promote self-regulation.
  5. Foster a sense of community: Encourage your child to be involved in positive community activities and develop positive relationships with peers. This helps them feel supported and less isolated.
  6. Provide opportunities for choice and control: Children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or toxic stress may feel powerless. Providing options and opportunities for power can help build their self-esteem and sense of agency.
  7. Use trauma-informed parenting techniques: Learn about techniques and strategies, such as sensory regulation, grounding exercises, and mindfulness, that can help children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or toxic stress.
  8. Model healthy coping strategies: Children learn by example, so model healthy coping strategies and positive self-care behaviors, such as deep breathing, mindfulness, and exercise.
  9. Provide opportunities for play and creative expression: Play and creative expression can help children process and heal from trauma, abuse, or toxic stress. Provide opportunities for imaginative play, art, and other forms of creative expression.
  10. Seek professional support: Children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or toxic stress may benefit from professional support. Consider seeking therapy, counseling, or other support services to help your child heal and thrive.

Contact Ron Huxley, LMFT, to schedule a session if you need support on parenting tips and tools.

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Emotional Regulation Tools for Stressed-Out People

Emotional regulation is the ability to manage and respond to our emotions in a healthy and productive way. It’s a crucial skill to have, especially for those who struggle with stress and anxiety. When we’re overwhelmed by negative emotions, it can be difficult to think clearly and make good decisions. However, with some practice and effort, we can learn to regulate our emotions and feel more in control of our lives.

Here are some strategies for improving emotional regulation in times of stress and anxiety:

1. Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention to the present moment, without judgment. It can help you become more aware of your thoughts and emotions, and allow you to respond to them in a more thoughtful way. Try setting aside a few minutes each day to sit quietly and focus on your breath, or try a guided mindfulness meditation.

2. Use deep breathing: Deep breathing is a simple but effective way to calm the body and mind. When we’re stressed or anxious, our breath tends to become shallow and rapid. By slowing down and deepening our breath, we can help activate the body’s natural relaxation response. Try taking a few slow, deep breaths whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed.

3. Engage in physical activity: Exercise can be a great way to reduce stress and improve emotional regulation. It releases endorphins, which are chemicals that improve mood and reduce feelings of stress. Plus, getting your body moving can be a great distraction from negative thoughts and emotions.

4. Practice gratitude: Focusing on the things we’re grateful for can help shift our perspective and improve our mood. Try keeping a gratitude journal where you write down three things you’re grateful for each day. Or, share your gratitude with a friend or family member.

5. Seek support: It’s important to remember that you don’t have to face stress and anxiety alone. Talk to a trusted friend or family member about how you’re feeling, or consider seeking support from a mental health professional.

6. Use positive self-talk: Our thoughts have a powerful impact on our emotions. When we’re struggling with stress and anxiety, it’s common to have negative thoughts about ourselves or the situation. By practicing positive self-talk, we can reframe these negative thoughts and improve our emotional well-being. For example, instead of telling yourself “I can’t handle this,” try saying “I’m doing the best I can and I will get through this.”

7. Take breaks: It’s important to give yourself time to relax and recharge. Make sure to schedule breaks into your day and take time to do things you enjoy. This could be something as simple as going for a walk or reading a book.

8. Use relaxation techniques: There are a variety of relaxation techniques that can be helpful for managing stress and anxiety. These might include progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, or guided imagery. Experiment with different techniques to see what works best for you.

9. Set boundaries: It’s important to set boundaries and make sure you’re not taking on more than you can handle. Learn to say no to things that don’t align with your values or that are overwhelming for you.

10. Seek professional help: If you’re struggling to manage your stress and anxiety on your own, it may be helpful to seek the support of a mental health professional. They can provide you with tools and strategies to help you cope with difficult emotions and improve your overall well-being.

Emotional regulation is a skill that can be developed with practice. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth the effort. By using the strategies outlined above, you can learn to manage your emotions in a healthy and productive way, even in times of stress and anxiety.

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Oppositional Defiance in Teens

How do you deal with defiance in teenagers? All teens can be defiant some of the time. It can be a sign of healthy development as teens work to assert their own identity, but what happens when it is the daily pattern?

For oppositional behavior to be a true mental health diagnosis, a child must show a pattern of symptoms of angry/irritable, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness for at least six months. Children and adolescents with ODD may have trouble controlling their temper and are disobedient and defy authority figures. Teenagers who present with these symptoms often have a history of depression or anxiety that coincides with this disorder. Treatment and medication that addresses these issues can reduce disruptive behavior as well.

As you can imagine, individuals with oppositional defiance also have problems making or keeping friends, performing in school, and can’t hold on to a job. Big problems with their own emotional regulation create chaos in relationships inside and outside the home.

Oppositional Defiance Disorder

Parents can learn new skills to manage their child’s disruptive moods and behaviors. Modeling how to collaboratively solve problems and using natural consequences decreases arguments and fights.

Using harsh discipline or aggressive behavior toward teenagers causes the situation to be worse. Authoritarian styles of parenting make get some control of teen behavior in the short term but create more problems over the long term and may ruin relationships with teens as they grow into adulthood. It may push teens into social conduct problems that result in them having trouble with law enforcement and being removed by social services.

Professionals use a “Child Behavior Checklist” to screen for criteria that meet the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders definition of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Other comorbid disorders may include ADHD, Conduct Disorder, Depressive or Bipolar Disorder, Intellectual Disability, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Language and Expressive Disorders, Social Phobia, and Anxiety.

Individual and group therapy for teenagers can be helpful. Parents can also learn new skills for managing oppositional behaviors. Learning about attachment styles and generational patterns of trauma can also be beneficial. Reading books on normal teen development is also recommended.

If you need more help with your teen or want to learn how to better parent, contact Ron Huxley today and schedule a session.

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Connecting your Head to your Heart 🧠 + âť¤ď¸Ź

A common struggle for modern people is a disconnection between the head and heart. We know one thing to be true, in our head, but we don’t feel or experience that truth, in our hearts or lives. We might have “Know-ledge” that someone love us (a partner, family, friend) but we don’t feel or experience the “know-ing.”

The result of this disconnection is a wide rage of negative emotions and physiological reactions. This lack, of knowing in our hearts, is rapidly creating anxiety in the world. The manifestation is broken relationships, depression and suicidal ideations, and addiction to handle pain. A simple remedy is to reconnect the head and heart.

Connecting the head to the heart allows us to live more positively!

Neuroscience provides the key to reconnecting head and heart through the new science of neuroplasticity. This refers to the brains ability to reorganize into new networks and mental patterns. It used to be believed that the brain and nervous system only grew during childhood and then stopped. All our learned patterns were fixed once we were adults or at least drastically slowed down. We know know that this is not true.

Learning can occur across the lifespan and the brain can reroute circuits, repattern networks, and even create new brain matter in response to new social emotional inputs, environmental influences, repeated practices, and even small amounts of psychological stress (yes, stress). The brain can also relearn skills, like speaking and motor movement, following brain damage.

Because the brain can be redesigned it is called “plastic” or moldable. Children are an example of neuroplasticity. Developmentally, they are “experience-dependent” coming into the world with neuro-hardware possessing basic operating instructions but needing software or experiences from loving caregivers to program the brain and its resulting behaviors or actions.

The infant brain is primed for social contact and seeks healthy attachments. If those attachments are missed or the attachment bond is frightening, as in case of abused and neglected children, the result is a child with severe emotional and behavioral disturbances.

Fortunatley, if a chlid did not “inherit” a healthy attachment, an adult, through deep inner work and repairing with healthy adult partners, can “earn” their lost security.

NOTE: You can learn more about attachment in our free online course at Traumatoolbox.com

Here is a simple two-step practice that has been proven to change the brain in a positive way and connect the head to the heart:

1. Activate your head. What is you WANT to believe but don’t currently feel is true? Write this statement out on a piece of paper and say it outloud. Of course, it will not FEEL true because it is your head that is saying it, not your heart.

2. Activate your heart. Picture this statement “as if” it were true. Hold that image in your heart while you take slow, deep breaths. The breathing will keep the body from overriding the statements as not true. It just wants to protect you from hurt or disappoinment. Ignore it, or better yet, thank it for trying to protect you and continue to picture it.

This is not “whoo-whoo” philosphy. This is science. Research has proven that daily expressions of gratitude create literal changes in brain structure and mental functions. This is measureable change! The brain looks for reasons to validate what it believes. If you believe that you people are rude to you, your reticular activating system (a group of neural connectsion in your brain stem that play a crucial role in maintaining behavioral arousl, direct focus, and conciousness) will filter sensor input to be congruent with the thoughts you think about yourself and your world. The brain validates what you believe! If you think people are rude, you will see rude people everwhere. They are not hard to find…

If you think that people are kind and generous toward you, the reticular activating system will filter out the rude people and notice only kind and generous people. In turn, this will reinforce your knowledge of kind and generous people, and increase your knowing additional kind and generous people, developing new neural pathways in the physical brain so you have new mental capacity and memories, and new moods and behaviors will develop.

If this doesn’t convince you, listen to this interesting fact:

The heart is a more power, electrical object than your brain! The heart is about 100,000 times stronger electrically and up to 5000 ties stronger magnetically than the brain. Although imperceptible to us, the heart give off an electromagnetic (EEG) field that can be measured up to three feet away from our bodies. It you are depressed, angry, bitter…can others experience it whether they mentally understand it or not? Of course, they can. Ask any highly sensitive person and they will tell you how challenging it is to be in a room with another sad or angry person. The emotional field will shift their emotional state as well unless they mentally (head and hearts connection again) rehearse this this feeling is not their but belongs to others.

Here’s another fact:

The heart is not just a blood-pumping organ, it is a sensory organ. It acts as a “sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember, and make independent functional decisions.”

An emotion is e-motion or energy in motion. It is not just thoughts, in our head, that direct our lives. Our heart is an important area of personal and spiritual growth as well. We need it to have healthy relationships, make successful business decisions, and overcome traumatic events. This latter area is called “neuroresilience” as is a term coined by Ron Huxley in his online course: TraumaToolbox.com

It is really time to stop using our heads without connecting our hearts. Use the two-step practice, allow the principle of neuroplasticity to affect new change, and find more freedom in thoughts and emotions.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_formation

https://www.thehealedtribe.com/heart-coherence-and-resilience

https://americanheartsaver.com/heart-intelligence-the-heart-is-more-powerful-than-the-brain/

Use all the courses available for the head and the heart at http://familyhealer.tv

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Children who are responsible and fun to be around!

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Cleaning Up Your Mess*

by Ron Huxley, LMFT

Every parent wants a child that is “responsible and fun to be around”. Children will enjoy being this way too. Unfortunately, traumatized children forget who they are and believe a lie instead. Trauma introduces the belief that “the world is a scary place, caregivers can’t be trusted and I am broken and damaged goods”. In addition, they believe that “no one could love me…People will get rid of me just like everyone else…I am stupid…I can only trust myself…Life is not safe”, and on it goes.

A big lie is that it is not ok to make a mistake. This is because a life of shame makes mistakes feel like a reminder that “I am a mistake too”. Fortunately, if we have believed a lie, we can also choose to believe the truth. This doesn’t always come easily. Attachment research calls this cycle “rupture and repair”. Every family has a rupture in a relationship. The healing for traumatized children comes in the repair. In that respect, a rupture is desirable. It allows the attachment relationship to be rebuilt. New Positive experiences can replace negative experiences from their past. A simple strategy is for parents to ask children: “How are you going to clean up this mess?”

A mess is a metaphor for a problem that children create in their relationships and daily living. For example, Hitting their sibling over taking a toy is a mess. Not following through on doing chores and forcing mom to repeat herself several times is a mess. Throwing a tantrum and refusing to brush their teeth is a mess. Forgetting their homework and getting a failing grade is a mess. You get the idea…

Our job as parents is to teach children how to clean up their messes and be more responsible and fun to be around. Instead of nagging, complaining or lecturing, trying asking how the child plans on cleaning up the mess they have made? This is also a way to increase leverage. At some point a child will want something from the parent. When they do you can simple refer the child back to the need to clean up their mess before you give them what they are wanting. This reinforces the concept of working together. You help me and I help you. This is how we do things in this family…

A typical response to the question is “I don’t know” to avoid taking responsibility. Don’t engage in a fight. That is how the child distracts you from the problem in front of them. In reply a parents offer some of their ideas on how the child can clean up their mess. The best idea from mom and dad are the tough, most undesirable ones. Children don’t want to do the tough ones. They want to do the easy ones. Offering the tough idea will force a child to engage in the discussion and present a better idea. This will get their thinking brains online so that they start to consider better ways to treat others and make family life more fun.

MESSES are Mom’s LEVERAGE:

Sometimes (OK, often) children will not follow through on their plan to clean up their messes. That’s fine. Parents now have another opportunity for “rupture and repair” by waiting until the child wants something from them…and you know they will.

Son: “Hey mom, can I go to Johnny’s house to play.”
Mom: “Oh wow, Johnny has that new video game you have been talking about, right?”
Son: “Yeah, it is so cool. Can I go?”
Mom: “It really would be cool but it is soooo sad!”
Son: “Sad?”
Mom: “Yes, there is still this mess you made with that tantrum yesterday and all those toys are still all over the living room. Remember how you made that plan to say you were sorry and clean them up?”
Son: “Kind of…”
Mom: “So take all the time you need to clean up that mess and then you can go to Johnny’s.”

You can only imagine the type of negotiation that the son might try at this point, right? He might even choose to get angry and throw another tantrum. More opportunities for rupture and repair. This is where mom MUST stand her ground and stay as cool and empathic as possible. Empathy has a way of keeping everyones brains level and focused on the problem on not in a heated game of “whose to blame”. With practice on how to clean up their messes, a child will learn to be more “responsible and fun to be around”.

  • Original concept for this tool is from the book “Love and Logic”

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Need MORE control of your children? — If yelling, bribery, and giving in no longer works in your home then it’s time to do something different!

The parenting toolbox has a dozen behavior charts that you can use today to regain control of your children and your life.

As a member of this list you have complete access to all these tools for free!!!

We’ve been adding new tools weekly. Perhaps you’ve already gotten them? If not, go now and use them and get MORE control.

>>The charts can be found here when you join our “MORE” parenting list<<

If you need even more than these charts can give you or you need some help or you need to know how to use them for your children then Ron Huxley is available for consultation via Skype or phone. Get more parenting coaching from the parenting expert:

Http://Ronhuxley.com/coaching

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Whose the Black Sheep of the Family?

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Some people call them the “black sheep” of the family and are content to let them stay that way. Others try to change them and take them to psychologists and doctors. A few give up on them all together. This child is the “identified problem child” and many homes spend a lot of time and energy dealing with the member of the family. This rebellious, acting out child is most often seen in dysfunctional homes, where substance or physical abuse is taking place. The identified problem child serves a very important role in this type of family by balancing out the imbalance and protecting the abusive parent from outside interventions. In a lesser degree, even nonabusive families have children who cause more stress and trouble than other children in the home. This child resists parent’s efforts at discipline, is constantly mischievous, and appears to enjoy the attention that getting into trouble provides.

Family therapists have determined that the symptoms of the “identified problem” child are often a reaction to the family’s state of imbalance.  This imbalance can be anything from severe abuse to a mild family stressor, such as the illness of a parent or the loss of fathers job. The negative behavior of the “identified problem-child” may be an effort, albeit unconsciously, to alleviate the families pain.  The child becomes a stabilizing force to reduce stress and thereby return the family to its previous state of balance, even if it is an imbalanced one. A teenagers acting out, a school-age child’s poor grades, a young child’s temper tantrums — all may be efforts to stabilize an unstable system.

Thomas was an “A” student up until his parents announcement of their divorce. Suddenly, he began getting failing grades on his school report card. Fortunately, his parents recognized this behavior as a reaction to their devastating news and brought him in for therapy. After some time, Thomas’ bad grades were more than his depression over mom and dad’s split. They were also a way for him to save his parent’s marriage by forcing them to focus on him and away from the pain of the divorce.  He overheard his parents saying that they would have to come to the school together to talk to his teacher. This was a glimmer of hope, however feeble and small, that he could influence his parent’s decision.

Many parents react to the behavior and not to the underlying family system issues that might be taking place.  This is because, for many parents, it is easier to use the child as a scapegoat then focus on their own issues and problems.

Susan was an overly aggressive child.  She was kicked out of several preschools and was finally referred to a therapist when she viciously bit another child, drawing blood. The doctor recommended medication, but at 4 years of age, the parents felt something else might work.  Over time, it was found that Susan hurt other children to express her own feelings of being hurt.  Due to her poor communication skills, she demonstrates her own internal state by aggressively acting out the role of “I hurt, therefore I will hurt others.”  Her biological father had abandoned Susan when she was just a baby and her mother had recently married another man that Susan didn’t like. Her mother never saw the rejection as a reason for her behavior because she was so young when the biological father left.

When children are misbehaving they are said to be “acting out.”  What is the child acting out, exactly?  According to family systems theory, they are acting out the family’s pain.  Stated another way, when the family experiences sudden change, for better or worse, and members undergo stress, the “problem child” pops up ready to stabilize the family system.  Parents who are able to read their child’s behavior in this way will be able to help them express it in a more positive manner and cope with their “big” feelings or anger, frustration, and loss.

In some cases the best way to deal with the “child’s problem” is to include the whole family. Obviously, the child is not the real problem anyway and the whole family is affected by, and affecting, the child’s behavior. The first task of the family is to unmask the real problem and relabel it as a family issue versus a child centered one. This can be difficult, as other members of the family may have to share some of the blame and resist stepping down from the ideal child or parent pedestal. The next task is to find family focused solutions to the problem. This might involve improving family communication, adjusting family boundaries and rules, and renegotiating family activities.

In the case of Thomas, the parents did not get back together but they did increase their involvement with him and reassure them of their love for him, regardless of the divorce. It took a while for his grades to improve but with patience and cooperation they were able to get them back to normal. With Susan, the family started more family oriented activities and had the new father pick her up from preschool a couple of times a week to spend some one on one time together. This helped her feel connected to the new dad, lessening the hurt she felt from her biological father. With time, she started calling this new person “dad” and her aggressiveness completely stopped.

Not all children act out because of internal struggles but it does occur frequently enough that parents need to look for this as a possible explanation for their child’s behavior. They will have to set aside their own issues and struggles to accomplish this and that could be a difficult thing for many. Family members may need to redraw family roles and responsibilities, and change, even in the best of circumstances, is a difficult experience. The intervention for identified problem children is to look at the entire family system. Sometimes, the problem is bigger than we think!

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Sustain Your Families Successes

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Parents want to know how to sustain the successes they have in the home. They want the temperature in the mood and attitudes in their children to stay constant. It is frustrating to have a good day and then have it follow with a week of anger and defiance. In order to sustain the good times, it is important that parents consistently put in what they want to get out of the family. For example, if you want kind children, keep putting in kindness to the children in your word and deeds. If you want joy, put in joy and fun activities. If you want respect, don’t just demand it, give it! This is why research demonstrates the power of modeling in social relationships. 

What do you want “out” of your family members? How can you put more of that “into” your home? 

Take back control of your home: 101 Parenting Tools: Building the Family of Your Dreams

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Using Your Families Momentum
By Ron Huxley, LMFT

There will come a day when you and your family are not in crisis or feeling stuck. Perhaps it is already here. Whenever it comes how will use the momentum you have gained? Most families want to rest and do nothing. They have been in so much turmoil that all they can think about is taking a break. This might not be the time to pause for long.

When you are stuck all you think about is how to get unstuck. You are in survival mode. Now that you are unstuck it is time to take new ground, focus on left behind dreams, build new family skills. Take your well deserved break and then huddle together and move forward. Use that momentum strategically and with excitement.