Therapeutic Parenting
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
PACE means acknowledging and validating a child's internal experience without necessarily agreeing with their behaviour. It's about separating the child from their actions and communicating that they are fundamentally acceptable, even when their behaviour isn't.
It involves approaching children with the view that they are not their behaviour despite their wrong doings. Establishing supportive, consistent relationships with young people and children that echo psychological safety, containment, normalisation and a relationship that is based upon unconditional love and respect.
PACE
Playfulness in PACE isn't about being silly or dismissive of serious situations. Instead, it's about bringing lightness, warmth, and joy into interactions, especially during tense moments. For children who have lived with chronic stress or fear, being around an adult who can remain light-hearted helps them feel safe and regulated.
Many foster carers, residential staff and adoptive parents find that implementing Hughes and Baylin's philosophies feels deeply intuitive but emotionally exhausting, as one practitioner reflected on Dan Hughes' advice:
“We must hear the song in our children's hearts and sing it back to them when they've forgotten it...This is what being a therapeutic parent feels like: sometimes singing until you are hoarse, until there is no music left inside you."
Helping parents, especially carer's to understand the deeply challenging task of working with a child who may constantly reject you is one of our specialisms. Having a comprehensive understanding of dyadic developmental psychotherapy is one aspect. Especially the concept of PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, empathy) an attitude as Dan describes it to build trust and emotional safety. Which when you think about it, if a child doesn't completely feel safe or trust the adults around them they will continue to push them away.
However, being able to work with parents or carers, even staff and especially those who struggle to grasp the ideas of PACE can be not just exhausting for the parent or carer but also for the practitioner training them. This is why we just don't work alongside the you. We provide a space for group and one to one as part of the package to support the that parent or carer to work through the emotional impact that social rejection/resistance can bring. The most common is "burn-out" as a result of becoming stressed with constantly hitting that emotional brick wall. Blocked trust is something that can be excessively draining and when you are pouring all your energy into a child where the young person has blocked trust, it can leave you feeling completely hollowed out. In dyadic developmental psychology, particularly when looking at developmental trauma, blocked trust and blocked care are two sides of the same coin. When a person (often a child who has experienced early trauma or neglect) has blocked trust, their brain is wired for survival, fight flight freeze and fawn. They view closeness as dangerous and push parents/carers away to protect themselves. However, there are many preventative measures that can be implemented to support parents and carers alike to get a better handle on children who suffer with developmental trauma. If we can support the child to feel safe we can work towards switching off those survival instincts that were switched on because of the abusive environment they were raised in. In doing so we can reduce the potential for blocked trust and blocked care and create an environment more conducive to establishing better and more fruitful relationships.
Why do we need PACE?
Using connection with the aim of understanding the child's experience before implementing behaviour support will likely help to build trust between you the parent/carer and child and also allow you to find the most appropriate consequences. Avoid discipline and consequences until you have understood or have an explanation or established some form understanding of the reasoning for the behaviour. This can often sound odd. Always try to see through the lens of child as they are not adults and do not view situations like adults do. Discipline and consequences will likely be more successful if the child feels understood and connected first.
“Often we use reasoning to influence the child instead of the
natural way we influence babies - we lose curiosity and make judgements about the behaviour taking it for granted that we know their heart and mind as a result of their
behaviour. The attitude of PACE helps us to hold onto the developmental age of the child as trauma sets it back.”
Dan Hughes
