Deepening the Connection with your Adopted Child Conference Coming!

Deepening the Connection with

your Adopted Child

Friday, July 8

Saturday, July 9

• 6:30 - 9 p.m. • 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Lunch & evening snacks included

The Gladney Center

6300 John Ryan Drive, Fort Worth, Texas

To register, go to http://my-treehouse.org/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=83&Itemid=

Deepening the Connection with your Adopted Child

July 8-9, 2011

Workshop for Parents 

Part I Friday night 6:30 - 9:00p.m. and Saturday 9:00am-2:00pm

Using a powerful and distinctive tool for understanding personality, Suzanne Stabile teaches this foundational workshop for parents of adoptive children. Attendees will gain insight into how the parent’s personality impacts their approach to communication and parenting techniques. An adoptee herself, Suzanne is uniquely qualified to apply the lessons of this session for adoptive parents. Attendees will more fully understand the distinctions between different personality types, and how those types are expressed in both adults and children. 

Part II Saturday afternoon 2-5pm Dr. Barbara Rila will expand on the lessons of personality offered in our first session, detailing how personality types impact the "goodness of fit" between parents and children. "Goodness of Fit" refers to the level of compatibility between a parent and child, and is a critical component in the development of healthy emotional connections within the family unit.   

Workshop attendees will learn how goodness of fit impacts relational empathy, personal compatibility, and conflict resolution. Attendees will also learn how unavoidable stress points in personality fit can impede relational connection, and possibly even attachment. By gaining an understanding of different personalities, parents learn how to address their own stress points. The workshop includes a parent self-appraisal process. A parallel appraisal process appropriate for use with children will also be made available. Finally, parents will be given a map of fits and misses, to guide their parenting growth plan. 

Workshop for Children - Ages 8-15 years old* 

Saturday all day 9-5pm Dr. Barbara Rila, Dr. Jason Mishalanie, Jim Harlow, Joey Schewee, and Patti Pickering will facilitate the Children’s Workshop. Children will learn about different personality types and discover their own in a fun atmosphere. This session is designed to build self-esteem and respect for the gifts and ability of others. Children will learn more about the positive and challenging aspects of their personality. Finally, children will be given a self-appraisal that will be provided to parents for use in the "Goodness of Fit" discussion in the parent workshop.

Featured Speakers 


Dr. Barbara Rila 
Dr. Rila is a nationally recognized psychologist who has served as a therapist to foster and adoptive families for 25 years. She also provides nationwide training in adoption, attachment, and abuse issues. Dr. Rila has served on numerous boards including the Dallas Psychological Association, Texas Association of Infant Mental Health, and was the first president and founding member of the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children. 

Suzanne Stabile

An adoptee herself, Suzanne holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science from Southern Methodist University, and 

has completed additional graduate studies in both Theology and Sociology. Suzanne is a recognized and sought after instructor in the Enneagram, a centuries-old method of identifying personality types that is widely respected as a valuable tool in understanding individual behaviour and motivations. 

Jim Harlow 

Jim is an adoptive parent of five children from backgrounds of abuse and neglect and with special needs. After being self employed for over 30 years and raising his family, Jim went back to school to earn his M.A. in Counseling at Dallas Baptist University. He is also completing the required supervised counseling hours for his Licensed Professional Counselor Internship in private practice. Aside from his personal experience in his own family, Jim and his wife have spent years working with other adoptive families in parent support groups. 

For more information contact: 

ppickering@my-treehouse.org

Understanding Your Child's Enneagram Personality Type - The Rabbit, AKA Enneagram Number 6

The Rabbit, like its namesake is easily frightened and just wants to be safe. Some Rabbits act scared, some act tough to cover their fears. All Rabbits need love and safety from their parents. When a Rabbit has been placed for adoption, their safety needs are violated, massive fears are aroused, and over-attachment can present in adoption. Rabbits may cling harder and longer than other children to the adoptive parents, suffering separation anxiety much longer and with greater pain. This is known as an Insecure Attachment and befuddles parents who are dependable and steadfast in their commitment to the child they adopted.

Anxiety may permeate all the Rabbit’s relationships in the form of insecurity, diminished self esteem, or controlling and bossy behaviors. The relationships which are hoped to provide safety can instead bring about conflict, hurt, and rejection. Bullies may sense the insecurity of the Rabbit and have great fun tormenting them. This will simply confirm, again, that the world is not a safe place.

Many of the Rabbit’s fears are disproportionately large and enthusiastically portrayed. The parent who engages at that level of excitement will inadvertently confirm the child’s fears with their enthusiasm. Better would be a modulated response which first hears the child’s concerns, acknowledges the worry, problem solves with the child about how to manage, and verbalizes confidence in the child’s courage, strength, or perseverance.

Bedtime is problematic for Rabbits. Separation from the parent, being alone with their worries, and perhaps having fears at night all culminate in this process becoming labor intensive for parents. Establishing a bedtime ritual is important to the Rabbit. Prayers are recommended, or another reflective activity befitting the family’s spiritual traditions. A parent could grant leniency on such things as keeping a light on or music playing. Winding down the day could include warm water for bathing, milk products, lovies, and tuck ins. Parents often lie down with the Rabbit until they fall asleep. As last resort, Rabbits can sleep with parents, or in a nest on their bedroom floor, until the high anxiety abates.

In general, a Rabbit’s fears can be assuaged by structure, predictability, keeping a familiar routine, and preparing the child for any anticipated changes. This is a child who takes literally, and as a promise, everything a parent says is going to happen. The surest way to make the Rabbit feel unsafe with a parent is to casually dismiss these ‘promises’ later. Repeated disappointments of this sort erode the parent-child relationship.

A Rabbit can get hopping mad. When they do, it looks like and sounds like a toddler’s tantrum. That is how the parent should treat it, wait for the storm to pass and when they can talk in a civil voice, address the problem succinctly.

Barbara Rila, Ph.D., P.C.