When a child is struggling emotionally or behaviorally, parents may feel like they have tried everything and still find themselves having the same difficult interactions again. Sometimes, helping a child feel better requires more than giving them an individual space to talk. It means strengthening the relationship with their parent, who provides safety, connection, and support every day.
Therapy with children can be most effective with intentional parent involvement, as parents play one of the most influential roles in a child’s emotional well-being and day-to-day functioning. Integrative Attachment Family Therapy (IAFT), a therapeutic modality designed by Dafna Lender, centers treatment around this powerful relationship. IAFT focuses on enhancing attunement, co-regulation, and intersubjectivity through interactions that foster joy, connection, and a greater sense of safety.
Phase 1 of IAFT focuses on the parent, beginning with five parent-only sessions. Caregivers develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their child’s developmental and emotional needs, helping them communicate in ways that allow their child to feel heard and understood. They also reflect on their attachment history and how those experiences may influence their parenting, emotional responses, and relationship with their child. Understanding these patterns can help parents respond with greater intention, curiosity, and attunement.
Caregivers also learn about Polyvagal Theory and how their own nervous system can influence interactions with their child. They reflect on bodily sensations, thoughts, and behaviors during parenting moments when they feel activated, shut down, or safe and connected. By exploring what led their nervous system into that state and how it influenced their response, parents learn strategies to remain present during challenging moments.
“When parents can recognize and regulate their own state, they are better able to support their child through big emotions and help them return to safety and connection.”
This creates the foundation for co-regulation.
Caregivers are also introduced to attachment-based communication strategies designed to create emotional safety and help their child feel heard and understood. This includes learning how their social engagement system influences an interaction, including
By becoming more intentional about these nonverbal cues, parents can communicate safety, curiosity, and connection, particularly during emotionally charged moments.
Integrative Attachment Family Therapy teaches parents the PACE model to support safe, connected dialogue.
Caregivers receive practical examples of PACE and practice these skills during dyadic sessions.
After approximately five parent-only sessions, treatment shifts into Phase 2, when the child joins their parent for dyadic sessions. A typical session follows this rhythm.
These activities are playful, interactive, relationship-focused, and modeled after natural patterns of healthy parent-child interactions. Caregivers remain actively involved and put what they learned during Phase 1 into practice, becoming more sensitively attuned and emotionally available to their child. These experiences aim to strengthen the child’s sense of safety, comfort with closeness, and connection.
Caregiver support continues throughout Phase 2, with every fourth session being parent-only. These sessions allow the parent and therapist to reflect on moments of connection or disconnection and consider opportunities for more intentional or corrective engagement. This ongoing reflection helps parents strengthen their ability to respond with attunement and emotional availability.
IAFT also includes an optional third phase that returns to parent-only work to reflect on progress, reinforce skills, and identify ways to continue supporting connection outside of therapy.
IAFT offers families something different from traditional individual therapy because parents become an active part of the healing process. For families caught in cycles of disconnection, big emotions, misunderstandings, or difficulty reaching one another, IAFT provides opportunities to slow those patterns down and build new experiences together.
“Rather than focusing only on changing a child’s behavior, IAFT strengthens the relationship underneath it.”
This approach helps children experience their parent as a source of safety, understanding, and connection.
If your family feels stuck in the same painful patterns, you don’t have to find your way through it alone. At Creating Space Therapy, Paula Rainey, LSW, Certified Trauma Professional, and our IAFT-trained therapist walks alongside parents and children to rebuild safety, closeness, and understanding at home. Paula offers Integrative Attachment Family Therapy at our Geneva office and through online telehealth across Illinois, so support can meet your family where you are. Reach out today to schedule a consultation with Paula and learn how IAFT can help your child experience you as their safe place to land.
Paula Rainey is a Licensed Social Worker and Certified Trauma Professional at Creating Space Therapy in Geneva, IL, with online telehealth available across Illinois. She works with adults, specializing in trauma therapy, grief counseling using cognitive therapies, and polyvagal-informed somatic approaches to help her clients feel safe, regulated, and connected again. To connect with Paula, schedule a free 15-minute consultation call or learn more about us at creatingspacetherapy.com.
Creating Space Therapy is a niche psychotherapy practice offering specialized grief and trauma therapy for children, teens, and families in Geneva and online telehealth available to Illinois residents statewide. Recognized as the Best Mental Health Practice in Batavia in 2025, we have spent five years becoming a trusted name for families in the Fox Valley area who need more than general counseling. Our Child and Teen Grief and Trauma Therapy Program developed the SAFE (Somatic, Attachment, Family, Experiential) framework to help young people ages 5 to 17 feel safe, regulated, and connected again after loss or trauma. We treat parents as partners throughout the process, offering guidance that helps families understand what’s happening beneath the behaviors and respond with steadiness and care. Your child’s struggles don’t have to define your family. Healing is possible, and we’re here when you’re ready. Schedule a free 15-minute consultation call or learn more about us at creatingspacetherapy.com.
