Faith & Boundaries with Karen Robinson

James Moffitt (00:01.432)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt. I will be your host. Today we have Karen Robinson with us on our podcast episode. How are you doing, Karen?

Karen Robinson (00:13.727)
I'm doing awesome. How are you today?

James Moffitt (00:16.47)
I'm, I'm, I'm happy that eight to five is over with at work.

Hey, do me a favor and introduce yourself to the, listening audience and kind of tell them who you are and what you're doing and what, what, what we're going to be talking about.

Karen Robinson (00:33.623)
Sure. So I am Karen Robinson from Alexandria, Virginia. The most important role I have is that of mom. I have three children and I'm happily married after kissing many frogs. And I am a trauma recovery expert. I'm sorry for the child in the background.

James Moffitt (00:54.114)
That's okay.

Karen Robinson (00:55.863)
It's a low-key affair, right? Hello, child.

James Moffitt (01:01.386)
she's fine. Just tell her to wave. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

Karen Robinson (01:03.863)
She's home from college, you know, so she's not used to the routine around here. Okay, anyway. So I am a trauma recovery expert, which means I specialize in trauma recovery, and more specifically, those with complex trauma. So I work a lot with veterans in our active duty. I also work with, you know, women that have been in domestic violence situations or any sexual assault.

And I also have teenagers and a few families on my caseload as well.

James Moffitt (01:37.814)
very good. Yeah. I think this is a first that I haven't, I haven't seen this. I haven't seen children in the background. I had some.

Karen Robinson (01:46.42)
It's not unusual for me, but again, she's from college and I did say I was going to be on a podcast. I told the family, but you know, college students.

James Moffitt (01:54.584)
That's fine. I had, I had one lady had a barking dog in her lap. That was funny.

Karen Robinson (02:00.887)
James Moffitt (02:03.309)
So anyway, I'm going to read this little blurb from your bio. says, Karen Robinson brings expertise in trauma recovery and empowerment, offering insights valuable for parents navigating adult children's complex challenges. The episode could explore the intersection of trauma recovery and effective parenting strategies, focusing on fostering growth and adaptability within family dynamics. So that's a mouthful.

Karen Robinson (02:34.187)
Yeah, what's really cool about us talking today is I just finished a three day training about family interventions after trauma. So this is looking at our military families and what's going on when mom or dad come back from combat and just how that can impact the family dynamic. So we focused on skills, we focused on...

how to validate each other, how to enhance communication, how to play together. And it was a three day training and I really enjoyed it.

James Moffitt (03:11.063)
That's awesome. So how did you, how did you get into this?

Karen Robinson (03:12.215)
Yeah.

Karen Robinson (03:16.567)
Oh, well, I guess the easiest way to say that is I am a complex trauma survivor. I grew up in a dysfunctional family where my parents were uneducated. Most of my family, like my grandparents, didn't have much education. My parents didn't have much. My dad eventually got his GED, I think. Mom was a high school graduate. But none of them had higher education and they had their own traumas.

were not effective parents. And so I knew as a very young age, I wanted something different. I just felt this desire, not only to be like a social worker to help others, but also teaching families how to better care for their children. I work with couples and I love working with teenagers too, cause I feel like I remember really well what it felt like to.

just want to be out of a dysfunctional family or just wishing my parents had more tools than what they have.

James Moffitt (04:18.337)
Right. Yeah. I, I always say that, I like to my parents as much credit as possible. And I was, I want to say that they did the best they could with what they had, you know, and, and when you, when you have children, I was, I was raised in the seventies and eighties. And, you know, when you, when you have children, you don't get a manual and you have to kind of fly by the seat of your pants.

Karen Robinson (04:32.789)
Yeah, with what they know, right? Yeah.

James Moffitt (04:48.871)
And, I knew that I needed to do better. knew that looking back at my, you know, I mean, how do we parent, you know, we're hardwired psychologically to, to parent our children the way we were parented, right? That's our, that's our go-to. That's we default to if we're not careful. And so I knew that, you know, that my wife and I needed to do a better job and I needed to not be as heavy handed and not be, you know, as,

not be a raging alcoholic or, you know, deal with anger better and all of the above. And some days I did really well. Some days I defaulted back to what was ingrained in my mind, you know? And so anyway, and so we worked at it and we tried to do better. so we have, our parents are parents,

We say it's the parents of adult children, but it could be anywhere from 12 to 40, right? And we have a private Facebook group that we started out in 2015 and we had 10 members back then. And we started it because we had two teenagers still living at home and they were giving me a run for my money. And I was desperate.

Karen Robinson (06:08.308)
I bet they were. My 15 year old gave me all this gray hair.

James Moffitt (06:14.091)
I was, was desperately trying to stay out of prison. so, so I told my wife, said, let's start a Facebook support group and see if there's anybody else having these problems. And today we have like 1.3 thousand members. So, it's, it's obvious that there's a lot of parents out there that are, dealing with a lot of issues. And we have like, we have 30 or so, recurring topics. Trauma is one of them failure to launch.

boundaries, self-care, a whole bunch of them. can't, I don't remember them all off the top of my head, but it seemed like in every episode we wind up hitting three or four of them a lot, you know? So, so we're talking to, to parents of adult children, teenagers, you know, from, like I said, 12 to 40. So we're, you know, you're probably talking 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, you know, and we know that, that teenagers don't.

Their frontal lobe doesn't really fully develop until they're like 26, right? And the, the girls seem to mature a little bit faster than the boys, or young women versus the men. And, so, that seems kind of unfair now anyway.

Karen Robinson (07:29.911)
Well, it's a science, you know, the boys do cow trap. It's a temporary thing.

James Moffitt (07:33.217)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (07:36.705)
Well, I was a dumpster fire when I was younger and I always say that.

James Moffitt (07:43.03)
It's a miracle of God that I'm even sitting here talking. I could have very easily wound up dead or in prison or worse. I don't, I don't think either one of those there's worse, anything worse than that. But anyhow, when you say the, when you say the help me define complex trauma, what does that mean?

Karen Robinson (07:46.412)
Yeah.

Karen Robinson (08:01.815)
Oh, that's actually a really great question. Oh, and before that, the age range you said that your work is focused on is that age is between 12 and older adult children. My children fit exactly in there. I have a 12-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 21-year-old. So yes, their personalities are wildly different too.

James Moffitt (08:29.707)
and you still have hair.

Karen Robinson (08:32.053)
I don't have a lot and it's very, very great.

James Moffitt (08:33.761)
No, she still have some.

Karen Robinson (08:38.999)
It's a miracle. But complex trauma, other than saying it's complex, right? It's basically when your trauma starts in childhood, which is called developmental trauma. So this is anything from being in a home where there is an alcoholic parent, where maybe there was some neglect. It could be physical, emotional, sexual abuse. It could be like a medical trauma happened.

James Moffitt (08:40.151)
Yes.

Karen Robinson (09:07.285)
or a major accident or a fire in your neighborhood. So it's something, some sort of trauma that starts in your childhood. And then usually with complex trauma, then you grow up and then there's other trauma. Like if you've served in the armed forces or if like you, like I mentioned earlier, if you lived in a home where there's domestic violence or you're assaulted or mugged or have a major, major.

a medical issue that went wrong, you know, where you, I have a client that I have, well actually several clients that have chronic pain because of medical procedures not going as planned. And it was very traumatizing for them. So yeah, it's usually more than one trauma across the lifespan is how I would say it.

James Moffitt (09:55.64)
So, honestly speaking, I would imagine that there's very few people listening to this podcast that have not experienced some kind of trauma in their past, right? Either as a child, an adolescent, teenager, young adult, whatever. Life is hard, right? It's tough. And there's a lot of ups and downs and there's a lot of trials and tribulations and struggles and transitioning from being a teenager into

an adult is a trauma unto itself. You know, it's very, there's a, there's a lot of hard transition, not only going on for the teenager that wants to become an adult and have their own identity and their own autonomy, but it's a, it's a transition for the parents too, right? Parents have to, they're transitioning from being a parent-child relationship or having a parent-child relationship to having, to being a, a support person, a mentor perhaps.

so, so I think that.

You for people that are listening to this podcast episode, I don't think that, when you think of trauma, I don't, I don't, unless there's a, you know, like sexual abuse or, physical abuse or things like that, you know, I think that maybe some trauma is a little bit subtle in nature and it happens over time. Right. In other words, if you correct me if I'm wrong, but.

Let's say, I think there's, I'm thinking that there's a couple of different types of trauma. You're saying complex trauma. And I get that, but I'm thinking that there's, there's, there's because of the, maybe, what I'm thinking is, that, is that because of family dynamics and less and less the parents.

Karen Robinson (11:45.215)
little teas and pink teas.

James Moffitt (11:58.326)
Or God forbid the child is in tune with, this is, this is trauma or this is traumatic. Right? In other words, the, they, they don't really, the teenager or the young adult may not actually identify what, you know, they may come face to face with it when they're like 20 or 18 or whatever and go, well, you know, now I'm dealing with something that I didn't realize was even wrong. Does that make sense? Now if there's a.

Karen Robinson (12:26.227)
happens no time.

James Moffitt (12:27.809)
Yeah. So if there's a death in the family or there's a major car accident, somebody gets diagnosed with cancer, there are, there are, it's like, it's kind of like talking about depression. There's, clinical depression, right? And then there's, there's, depression that happens because of events in your life, situational depression, right? And that's kind of where I'm trying to go with this. so, so there's situational trauma. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this.

There's there's situational trauma that, that, happens because of bad behavior on the parents part or because of alcoholism, drug addiction or something like that. Right. And then there's, you can cut out at any point.

Karen Robinson (13:16.063)
Yeah, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying first.

James Moffitt (13:19.509)
Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just, I'm just sitting here thinking that, that, maybe that, that some trauma, unless you're, unless you're a trauma counselor or, or a, you know, a therapist or whatever, you know, medical, a trained medical professional, it's, it's not going to necessarily be that easy for somebody to put their finger on it. Right.

Karen Robinson (13:45.387)
Yeah, yeah, have clients. Well, I'll give an example. I had a client that was a complex trauma survivor and I worked with her for a few years and then I went to a new train and I'm like, I want to try this thing I learned in training. So I had her list out all her traumas on a timeline and I'm thinking at this point, I know most of them because we've been working together and I'm not going to disclose what it is because it's a it was a

First time I've ever seen this type of trauma that happened, but it was significant. Like this considerable harm was, physical harm was done to her where she had, you know, wounds from it. And when she wrote it on her timeline, she didn't think anything of it. And I said to her, this is pretty significant. Like you didn't tell me about this. Do you know why you didn't share it with me? She's like, I don't know. I guess I didn't think much of it.

you know, all this other stuff was happening, you know, and then somebody else that has a, you know, a different background that that would have been like crazy. Just this one thing that happened to her, like absolutely crazy. Yeah. So there, you know, the thing about trauma is like because we all have different characters, character traits and different personality, and we also have different supports and that all matters when it comes to our coping.

James Moffitt (14:46.155)
Right.

James Moffitt (14:56.994)
Right.

Karen Robinson (15:13.515)
So there can be somebody that's had very little trauma, but they don't have the skills to cope with it. And so they can be really flooded with emotion and hard to function. And then there's other people that have had a ton of stuff happen and they're able to function better because they have like support systems, they've learned some coping skills. So sometimes it is really hard to tell, especially if I look at someone like how much trauma they've had, because our coping is all different.

James Moffitt (15:43.8)
Well, and probably, depending on how long you've been dealing with a situation, sometimes I would imagine it becomes a norm becomes normal to them. And, and until they start to identify that as a problem and, and, you know, that trauma has happened. I mean, we're all broken people, right? We're all, we're all broken in some way. We've all had some kind of trauma happen to us in our past, our childhood.

either intentionally or unintentionally, right? so, so maybe that, that is, that awakening for that person is like, why am I, why am I reacting to the situation in this way? And then all of sudden you're like, you know, as you start to unpack it and somebody like yourself, he's trained in this, you can say, you know, maybe this is what happened in the past. And maybe that's why you're reacting that way today, you know,

so...

James Moffitt (16:48.865)
That's good.

Karen Robinson (16:53.815)
Yeah, I think the most important thing in my opinion with trauma and the recovery and the healing is that I think it's really important to have hope. You know, that you can feel better, you can get better. There are lots of tools and resources out there now. You just gotta ask for the help.

James Moffitt (17:15.051)
Right. So, I guess let me ask you a couple of these questions. How can unresolved trauma in parents affect adult children's lives?

Karen Robinson (17:29.495)
Well, I find it packs in two different ways. Some of us, we simply just do the opposite of what our parents did, just intuitively knowing there's a better chance at going better, you know, if we felt really hurt and wounded by our parenting. Or the other side of that, of course, is we repeat the same mistakes, and then that's what we call transgenerational trauma, when the trauma, you know, keeps going.

And so I think at some point, no matter how old you are, or if you're a parent or a grandparent, at some point, just stopping and recognizing what doesn't feel good about how you communicate or how you behave with others. Like, are you pushing people away? know, people that are trauma survivors can have lots of ruptured relationships. So at some point, just simply asking, like, do I want this to be better?

And if you can't go to therapy, like if that's an available resource for you, what self-help book could you get? Ask the Go On Therapist websites to see what their recommended reading material is, or take a small course in a parenting strategy. Just trying different things to see what's helpful for you.

James Moffitt (18:53.741)
So it's hard to be an effective parent if you have unresolved trauma, right?

Karen Robinson (19:01.217)
I think so, yes.

James Moffitt (19:02.753)
Yeah. So if you're, if we're broken in some way, that brokenness, in that trauma is going to affect your ability to be, you know, a, a, you know, we talk a lot about, emotional, what is it? Emotional maturity, emotional. Yes. That emotional intelligence, you know, in emotional intelligence is, I think is key in recognizing.

Karen Robinson (19:21.877)
National Intelligence.

James Moffitt (19:32.288)
Unresolved trauma, being, being in touch with your, who you are and what's gone on in the past and, being willing to, instead of, depressing it or, or shoving it deep down inside and just trying to ignore it, allowing it to, allowing yourself to take some baby steps to, to get it resolved, right? Whether, whether it's

whatever the resources are available to you or that you can afford. What communication strategies help build healthier post-trauma relationships?

Karen Robinson (20:15.073)
Yeah, I think that's a really excellent question that we may not ask enough. I think speaking with I statements is a easy way to start. And what I mean by that, it's like a sentence you can use and you just practice it. And you wanna practice when you're not upset with somebody. You wanna practice when you're not hungry, you're not tired and you feel good, right? Like that's the best time to practice, not when things are really heated.

And so it's just simply saying, you I feel upset when you blare the music because I can't study. I can't focus. You know, getting used to taking responsibility for what you're feeling and what's bothering you, but what the other person is doing. Because otherwise what happens is people get really defensive and they only hear the you, you, you, do this, you do that. And then they,

kind of shut down. So the more of that we can use that I, like I'm feeling this way, know, can you help me out with this is a way. I think a really beautiful strategy I learned over the weekend is learning more about validating people, validating what they're saying, thinking and feeling. You don't have to agree. You know, so if my child feels like I'm being too strict to validate

how they're feeling. I don't have to agree with their viewpoint. I don't have to change my parenting. All they have to do is take the time to make sure they feel heard. And that makes a big difference for relationships. People really wanna feel heard. And what happens in communication, we get so caught up in what's the next thing that we're gonna say? To defend ourselves or make our point, we're not really listening carefully what to the other person's saying.

So if we just take that time to like really deeply listen and also feed it back to them, okay, this is what I think you said, and this is why I think that you're feeling, I getting this right? That validation really goes a long way with building relationships or healing relationships.

James Moffitt (22:35.181)
So there's a difference between passive listening and active listening, right? Active listening means that you're really listening to what the person's saying and trying to focus on what they're saying versus trying to think of your response.

Karen Robinson (22:38.955)
Yes.

James Moffitt (22:55.641)
and I think you're right. People do want to be heard, you know, and they want to be seen. They want to be recognized for, you know, a person of value.

James Moffitt (23:10.295)
How does community support influence recovery for parents and children?

Karen Robinson (23:17.697)
Well, I think things like community events, know, festivals and just different events where you're out with your community. like, love, you know, back in the old days, how they had like the three legged race. Like we don't see that much anymore. Like those old country fair things, but doing things to play and community. Like one of my children.

James Moffitt (23:34.583)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (23:38.646)
Right.

Karen Robinson (23:44.723)
is adopted and every year in November, there's this big conference for adopted kids and their families and the kids all get together and play and the parents will learn. And then at the end, there's like a carnival where everybody's playing together, trying different things. And it's a lot of fun and it builds that community. So to me, I think like learning together, offering each other support and then really playing together.

James Moffitt (24:02.081)
Right.

James Moffitt (24:15.489)
Right. That's good.

Can you share effective boundary setting methods post-traumatic recovery?

Karen Robinson (24:26.613)
Yeah, so boundaries can be set in many different areas of our lives. It can be our physical boundaries, like how much space that we need after trauma, and also can be emotionally, right? And so it's really important to take that time to get to know yourself and what you need. I've done these experiments, not experiments, but activities is a better word, where I'll take masking tape to the floor in group room.

and make different shapes and different sizes of the shapes. And then the people, the group participants will walk in and pick where to stand. And then you can see like who needs a lot of space, who needs very little space, who needs to have their back against the wall, who's in the center of the room doesn't mind being, you know, having that attention on them or needs that attention on them.

You know, so that's physical space. You know, just being really aware of like, how close can someone get to you before it's like, ah, you know, and being able to communicate that to them. And it's just easy to say in a way that it doesn't have to be offensive. So it's something like, excuse me, you're a little too close. I just simply need a little more physical space. It's me, it's not you. This is my need.

Okay, and it might be, because they may not have that boundary, you know, or don't need a lot of space. Like we're all kind of different with that. And then emotionally setting boundaries is, you know, learning that word no. When people ask you for things or your time or your money, you know, and if it's hard for you to say no, like getting in front of that mirror and practicing, because you're not, you're not doing yourself a favor if you always say yes to people.

because when an opportunity comes around that you really wanna say yes to, you're all booked up. Or if someone says, hey, do you wanna go on this trip with me? Well, no, because they gave all my money away, because I didn't have that boundary, right? So there's lots of different ways to set boundaries and there's really great books about the subject now. So if that's something that's hard for you to do, like saying no, if you're a people pleaser and...

Karen Robinson (26:53.097)
always saying yes or going along with the flow. It's really important to learn how to advocate for yourself.

James Moffitt (27:00.737)
Right. That's good. Boundaries are important for sure, for parents and for children.

James Moffitt (27:10.413)
How do trauma recovery techniques adapt in parenting challenging dynamics like addiction or legal issues?

Karen Robinson (27:19.701)
Yeah, you know, being a parent is no joke, right? Like some of the boundaries that get recommended are so challenging, you know, like not enabling their drug use by, you know, setting limits on what's going to be acceptable for living at home or not giving money when you know that they're struggling. It's tough. So I would recommend.

with any kind of addiction, making sure that you have support going to AA, NA, even if the issue is not alcohol or drugs, those type of programs help with any kind of unhealthy addiction. So could be gambling, excessive spending, shopping addictions. Those type of programs, they teach you how to...

set appropriate limits with your child. They teach you how to ask for support and get support. They teach you that sometimes whatever we choose will feel wrong. So you gotta look at it, okay, what can I do in this moment that I won't regret? And then it's up to the adult child. So if I say to my child in my home,

You cannot have drugs and you must be in at this time because we turn on the alarm for safety. And those are the rules for the house. If you can't do that, then you can't live here. And then that choice is theirs, right? Because if they don't follow that, they're making the choice, not you, right? And we just have to remember that. Now sometimes,

that tough love piece is it feels terrible to put your child out. And I have not been in that situation. So I can't relate to it at that point, but I've worked with parents I've had to do that. And you just don't know, like, are they gonna overdose and die? Or are they gonna get it together and clean up? And the truth is when your child becomes an adult with adult decision-making, whether it's good decisions or bad decisions,

Karen Robinson (29:41.217)
There's really not a whole lot that we can do is just love them, unconditional love. And that easy song.

James Moffitt (29:48.366)
You're no, no parent wants to see their children suffer. You know, we, don't want to, one of the things that, my parents taught me when I was younger, me and my sister was, said, think about, think, think before you act, you know, think before you act and think about, think about the consequences of what, what your actions are going to create. Right. Cause some of those, some of those consequences can last a lifetime, you know,

Karen Robinson (29:51.863)
For sure.

James Moffitt (30:18.215)
And, and so that was probably the, that was probably the, one of the things they taught us that, that I carried forward into adulthood and, and I can, I learned the wisdom of that, you know, and, and I think that's, I think that's an important thing that for all of us to teach our, our young adults and our teenagers, you know, you can't just go off half cocked and you can't make decisions while you're angry.

or sad or depressed or, you know, don't make major life decisions until you're in the right head space, you know, and able to do that. And, as parents, we want to be, especially with adult children, we, we hope to have a good enough relationship with them that they'll come back to us, that they'll come to us and share what's going on in their lives. And I'll allow us just to, we, we can't, we, can't necessarily fix the situation and we shouldn't, but.

But we can listen, let them, you know, bounce things off of us. And then at that point we can say, then you can be transparent and say, you know, when I was, when I was your age, I was a dumpster fire. And the reason I was a dumpster fire is because I was making stupid mistakes. You know, I was, I was, you know, doing silly stuff that I shouldn't have done. And these are the consequences that I had to live through. Right. Like you got to learn how to, you got to learn how to budget your money. You know, you got to, you got to, we got to teach our kids.

How to, to tell the difference between wants and needs, right? You, you, you need to pay the light bill. the electricity will stay on. need to pay your car payment so you can continue to drive it. You need to pay your rent so you don't get kicked out on the curb. You know, just the basics, just the basics of life, you know? And, anyway, that's good stuff. So,

Now want to give you, I want to give you five minutes for an elevator speech. What would you, what would you, what would you tell the, the listening parents that have adult children and that, that

James Moffitt (32:30.271)
Either the children or themselves or both are, are working through or need to work through, you know, unresolved trauma.

Karen Robinson (32:40.503)
Okay, well, I think one of the things I always find helpful to hear as a survivor myself is that trauma can impact every single area of your life. So if you feel messy in some way, like sometimes it might feel like you can't get yourself together or something feels really hard. It's hard to focus at times. Your sleep could be off, your appetite, your decision making can be off at times.

And just learning how to have more grace for yourself, some more self-compassion is really important. And know that even though trauma can impact all those areas of your life, healing is possible and happens every day. There's lots of different healing modalities. So if one thing doesn't work for you, you can try another. I think it's really important to find a therapist that isn't just trauma-informed.

but actually trauma competent if you yourself have gone through a lot of trauma or your child has. Finding a trauma competent therapist or a coach that has that therapeutic background can really kind of guide you. They can say, for this wound in your life, there's this option or this option or there's this option. So if you don't like the first thing that we try, there are other options. You're not stuck.

not gonna force this down your throat, you cause not every modality is a good fit for people. I also think it's important that as you're working on healing a trauma that you're also working on elevating your self care, your deeper self care habits, you know, which is really learning things that are very soothing and nurturing for your soul. You know, things like meditation, things like developing some sort of prayer life or spiritual walk.

you know, doing like small, slow, gentle walks to get that rhythm and learning how to have better nutrition in your life. And these deeper healing practices, the other big one is like the journal writing, you know, anything that you've kept hidden inside, know, getting that darkness into the light, you know, getting it on paper and just know you're not responsible for what's happened to you, but you are responsible for healing.

Karen Robinson (35:05.887)
especially if that trauma you've experienced is impacting all those around you, you are responsible for your healing, because nobody else can heal for you. I don't know how long that was, but that's, I think my main message.

James Moffitt (35:15.65)
Right.

James Moffitt (35:20.607)
I think that was awesome. I did that to somebody the other day and they, they'd spent 90 seconds and I was like, Whoa, you summarize that pretty good.

Karen Robinson (35:22.689)
Thank you.

Karen Robinson (35:31.383)
Yeah, my subject is a little more complex.

James Moffitt (35:34.475)
Yeah. Yeah. So, so you, I want to kind of backtrack a little bit. said something about the different type of therapist or the different, different type of trauma therapies. Can you, can you eliminate on that a little bit?

Karen Robinson (35:52.661)
Yeah, and so a lot of times you'll see people say that they're trauma-informed, and that just means maybe they had a class or two, or they went to a workshop. And so it's okay if your dentist says they're trauma-informed. All that means is, is they're not gonna be a jerk to you. They're gonna offer you some glasses to cover your eyes, maybe a blanket to soothe you. They're gonna check on you to see if you're okay.

James Moffitt (35:59.533)
Right?

James Moffitt (36:02.976)
Okay.

Karen Robinson (36:20.617)
and just more gentle and kind that just trauma informed. That's knowing that you might get easily anxious, right? A trauma competent, so your dentist doesn't need to be trauma competent, but your therapist, if you have a lot of trauma, you really should be. And what that means is having those more advanced certifications. And so all the evidence-based trauma recoveries, I have all those certifications.

James Moffitt (36:23.19)
Okay.

James Moffitt (36:42.294)
Okay.

Karen Robinson (36:48.971)
You know, so I'm a true expert in the field. And so if someone with trauma comes to me, I feel confident that I'm going to be able to give them appropriate treatment. You even if we have to try a couple of things, I feel like that's normal because we're not cookies, right? So if you do a cookie cutter approach on everybody, it's just not going to work. And some therapists unfortunately do that.

James Moffitt (37:06.775)
Sure.

James Moffitt (37:13.045)
I got you. that doesn't, trauma competent doesn't necessarily mean that, that, that you're drawing from personal experience, even though that can aid, right? That can, it can, that can provide you with a foundation of empathy, right? Like, like, right, right, right, right, right. Right. You you don't want to, you don't want a therapist that's

Karen Robinson (37:34.273)
Yeah, just as long as that therapist has done their work, done their own therapy and stuff.

James Moffitt (37:43.563)
has unresolved trauma themselves and try to fix the other person when they don't know what they're talking about.

Karen Robinson (37:51.787)
Yeah, the competent means you've done your work. You could still be healing because it can be a long journey, but you want to be further along in the journey enough to be an excellent resource for your client.

James Moffitt (38:06.433)
Gotcha. I got you very good stuff. Well, Karen Robinson, thank you for being on our podcast episode today. I really enjoyed talking with you and, I'm hoping that the listening audience will get something out of this and, to the listening audience, thank you for the privilege of your time. You can listen to this podcast on Amazon music. I heard I heart radio, Apple podcast and public radio. I also, that's, that's all audio only.

And then I upload the video podcast to rumble, just like it sounds rumble R U B L E. It's a, it's actually a, alternative. It's a conservative alternative to YouTube. So, you can go to our website, parenting, adult, children.org. That's parenting adult, children.org. And there you can see my contact information. You leave me an email. You can leave me a voicemail.

Uh, there's, uh, the upcoming show schedule is on there. If you look in the blog posts, you'll see I'll, I'll like, I just put up the, uh, March and April episodes that are coming up. And there's also a place for you to leave a review. Uh, if you're on the Apple podcast, listening to these episodes, just leave a review there. can leave one on Apple podcast, or you can come to my website and leave one as well. Cause, uh,

I like for people to leave reviews because it'll entice other people to listen as well. I release a new episode every Friday morning at 8 a.m. So be sure to stay tuned. And I'll just say, I'm glad you're here. I want my desire or my vision or my hope is that parents of adult children can find hope and restoration and that families can

be healthy families and that they can move forward and work through some of these traumas and find some success with that. So thank you for listening and we'll talk to y'all later. Bye bye.

Karen Robinson (40:17.676)
Bye.