Pat Hays has written a devotional book that gives wonderful insight into the joys and struggles that parenting a child with emotional special needs presents. Her book, My Tears in His Bottle: prayers from the heart of a special needs’ mom , contains excerpts from her personal prayer journal as she worked through the last fifteen years of balancing her calling to be an adoptive parent with the roadblocks she encountered in her neighborhood, friendships, school district, marriage, and church...

Chris: Thank you for sharing this. The title immediately got my attention. As an parent with high ACEs, I have been constantly raised up by adoptive parents who have learned and shared what they have learned about love, attachment, trauma and parenting. It has not only benefited my parenting but my own healing. Because, unlike many of us with high ACEs in childhood, who have a whole family and maybe generations and generations with high ACEs, that's not always the case with adoptive families...

Hello, I am a survivor-THRIVER, married for 27 years, Christian mom of both bio and foster/adopted children as well as author/advocate for prevention of child sexual abuse. My husband and I were trained as facilitators for Darkness to Light's Stewards of Children Training as well as foster parent and trauma trainings. I understand the high risk and vulnerability especially of children with high ACE scores. My activity book, Raising PEARLS:Prepared, Empowered, Armored, Restored,...

I forgot to add that Raising PEARLS activities, affirmations and conversation prompts are for parents to do with their children as young as age 2 up through elementary age.