It takes reducing the stress created from the issues affecting the adoptive family, related to both the trauma history of the child and the effect of that on the parents. It takes the willingness to be honest with oneself in order to face the pain, frustration, and feelings of helplessness to then create experiences with the child that are characterized by sensitivity, understanding, patience, and attunement. Parenting a child with special needs requires living at a higher level of consciousness in order to stay attuned to one's own emotional state. Attachment, bonding, and healing cannot occur when the parent is stressed and disconnected at the emotional level. It takes the intensity of positive emotional experiences to heal a child whose early messages, whether direct or indirect, were "You're not wanted" or "You're not lovable."

Such interventions extend beyond that of behavioral management or cognitive thought. It takes addressing and releasing the core fear, which has become the child's reality, through changing the environment and either reducing or eliminating the stressors for the adoptive parent. Children inherently want to please their parents. It simply takes identifying the stressors and being willing to address the fear in order to allow the emotional space for this intrinsic drive and for the biological need for the relationship to be activated. Thus, the child labeled earlier as a "special needs" child is in reality a misnomer. Instead, a child with a trauma history and a history of an attachment break should simply be seen as a "Child with A Special Need." And that special need is a well attuned, loving, and emotionally safe parent. It is in this dyadic relationship that the child (and his parents) finds his way back to love and healing.

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