Parenting After Trauma (PAT)

Parenting is hard for everyone. But for veterans and first responder families living with the impacts of trauma, it can feel impossible. Not because we don’t love our children. But because the hypervigilance and reactivity that is often present after trauma can make the everyday chaos of family life difficult to navigate.

While many good parenting programs exist, they haven't been designed to support the specific challenges of parenting while dealing with the impacts of PTSD. Parenting After Trauma has been designed to address that gap.

PTSD-impacted parents need targeted support

When I became a parent, I already had decades of therapy behind me dealing with the impacts of a traumatic childhood and the challenges of complex PTSD. But none of the hard work I put in fully prepared me for what happened when my kids pushed my buttons. The speed of the reaction. The intensity of it. The shame afterwards.

I went looking for a program that understood the specific challenge of trying to parent well while fighting the adrenaline and cortisol-charged emotional reactivity that is part of PTSD. I couldn’t find one. So I built it.

A program for PTSD-impacted parents built by a PTSD-impacted parent

I’m Ruth Clare, author, educator and daughter of a Vietnam veteran. My dad's untreated PTSD often turned violent and I grew up walking on eggshells. Eventually, I too developed complex-PTSD.

I have spent decades living through, studying and recovering from trauma. Despite knowing first-hand the impact PTSD reactivity can have on a child's wellbeing, and desperately wanting to ensure my kids never felt the way I did, I still struggled to keep my emotions in check when I became a parent. I built the PAT program for parents like me.

The Parenting After Trauma Program

8 weekly sessions

2 hours per session

6–8 participants

In-person

Parenting After Trauma is an 8-week peer-led group program for parents and caregivers in veteran and first responder families who are parenting while managing the impacts of PTSD.

While informed by lived experience, and taught by someone with lived experience, all the strategies used in PAT are supported by a strong evidence base across trauma neuroscience, attachment theory and developmental psychology research.

PAT uses psychoeducation alongside simple and practical self-regulation tools to build parent capacity while helping to prevent the inadvertent generational transfer of trauma. PAT's goal is to dial down the intensity in the house, helping parenting become easier and more enjoyable, while setting up a home envioronment that helps kids thrive.

PAT helps parents

avoid common traps of PTSD parenting
recognise danger signs and regulate the visceral overwhelm of PTSD early
manage reactive responses before they affect their kids
communicate more effectively during heated exchanges
disrupt unproductive argument or avoidance cycles
repair and re-connect when things go wrong
adopt parenting approaches shown to improve child behaviour and outcomes
use trauma-informed resources to safely talk to their children about your PTSD
protect children from blaming themselves for parent's behaviour
be kinder to yourself as a parent
build a more positive and connected relationship with your kids

Register your interest

For Organisations

If you work with veteran or first responder families and are interested in partnering with Ruth to deliver PAT to your participants, get in touch.

Contact Ruth

For Families and Parents

If you are interested in being a PAT participant, join the mailing list and we will let you know when a group is running near you

Ruth Clare is an author, TEDx speaker, and intergenerational trauma educator whose work breaks silences and drives system change, especially for military families.

Developer of the Parenting After Trauma (PAT) program, Ruth's award-winning memoir, Enemy, was published by Penguin in 2016. Her TEDx talk, The Pain of Hiding Your True Self, has been viewed more than 600,000 times.