Memory Keeping has changed my family and I hope it changes yours.

Hi, my name is Kelly; and I am the mother of four kids. My husband and I didn’t think we’d be those people with four kids, but here we are. Our kids have come to our family in many different ways: natural child birth, C-section, foster care and international adoption. We love our children and are so thankful for the way God created our family, but after a couple of years as a family of six, we realized that we needed some help to bring peace and healing into our family. My husband and I became parent trainers through Empowered to Connect (TBRI) and learned a lot about connected parenting. I assure you our household is not perfect, but it is full of six people that truly know how to do messy and how to repair their mistakes.

I have a side passion of photography and art and started scrapbooking for our family. After our boys joined our family, I made sure to record their every day and put together books from their earliest experiences and all of our special adventures. I was amazed by how often they read these books, or look through the pages on the computer. My oldest son, when feeling like he needs a pick me up, will put Pandora on and look through a slide show of all of his scrapbook pages. Check out this page to find all of the research that talks about the importance of memory keeping for kids, especially kids from hard places.

TBRI is a type of connected parenting. We’ve read, watched, and listened to lots of experts on it and on other types of connected parenting. I always came back to the part of TBRI where they stated making memory books as a great way to connect with your child, I saw it so clearly in the lives of our boys. They yearned to see themselves doing things, being different ages, being cared for and loved at all times. Sometimes my son has trouble remembering the good in things, and looking through his scrapbooks helps him remember how special he is, how capable he is, and how much he is loved.