Children who have been adopted often come into their families with difficulties forming trusting relationships due to early traumatic experiences. The Connected Child by Karyn B. Purvis, David R. Cross, and Wendy Lyons Sunshine seeks to teach parents of adopted children how to help their children heal. This book offers a sensitive, nurturing approach that takes adopted children's pasts into account in helping them move toward future successes.

The book gives an excellent picture of why attachment matters for children and how to build attachment. I appreciate the science-based descriptions of what happens in the brain of a child who has experienced adoption-related trauma. This explanation can help to increase empathy and understanding toward children who may be struggling with highly challenging behaviors. The Connected Child also offers practical strategies regarding discipline. These revolve around increasing children's ability to connect with and trust the parents, overcoming strong fear responses, and practicing new positive behaviors. In addition to emotional factors, the book also discusses other areas that are of importance to many adopted children, such as sensory processing issues, subtle cognitive challenges, and physical factors such as nutrition and exercise. For these reasons, the framework and tools that this book offers are applicable to not only children who were adopted, but those who are struggling to cope with difficult feelings due to other causes as well.

While The Connected Child has many strong points, it is worth noting that its methods seem focused on children who are preschool or elementary school aged. While the general principles of attachment and the neurobiology of adoption apply to all ages, parents of older children and adolescents may not gain as much from the practical aspects of this book as parents of younger children. In addition, to me, some of the examples seemed a bit unrealistic of how children with significant trauma might respond to this approach, although the book did offer some guidance on how to handle these occurrences. Overall, the book does well in offering a clear path forward to help young children heal from early trauma.

The Connected Child is an excellent choice for parents who are unsure of how to help their children with adoption-related challenges to learn to connect with others appropriately. It starts by sharing about how attachment and brain chemistry are impacted by early trauma, then continues by providing hope that children can gain the experiences that they missed and become happier, healthier individuals. It provides a variety of tools to assist parents in helping their children feel safe, learn, and connect. For these reasons, I recommend The Connected Child and believe it can help families to work toward increased closeness and happiness.

- Deanna Robbins