Empowered to Connect

Home
United States
Memphis, TN
Empowered to Connect

Empowered to Connect (ETC) is an attachment rich community focused program that exists to support, resource, and educate caregivers.

08/21/2026

Practicing the Pause takes practice!!

So here’s a little encouragement for whoever needs it today: Parenting thoughtfully doesn't mean parenting perfectly. Some days the pause comes easily. Other days we catch ourselves halfway through a reaction and have to reset mid-sentence. Both of those are still progress.

Our kids don't need us to have it all figured out. They need us willing to keep practicing, right alongside them, one moment at a time.

Click here to sign up and gain access: https://mailchi.mp/bec955675403/j4lds41rrh

08/20/2026

"Use your brain, not the bird. Use your heart, not your hurt." That's how Jesse boiled it down in our latest newsletter on responding thoughtfully.

It started with her teenager getting flipped off at a red light and asking if she could respond in kind. It turned into a bigger conversation about how often we, as parents, meet our kid's dysregulated moment with one of our own.

Responding thoughtfully isn't about getting it perfect. It's about practicing the pause, again and again, until it starts to feel a little more natural.

Click here to sign up and access our newest issue: https://mailchi.mp/bec955675403/j4lds41rrh

08/19/2026

Did you know your kids can usually tell when you’re responding thoughtfully (and when you’re not)?

Reactive responses and thoughtful responses sound different, and your willingness to be the bigger, stronger, kinder adult leading the moment is something that your kids will learn from.

To learn more, click here for the link to access today’s issue on Responding Thoughtfully: https://mailchi.mp/bec955675403/j4lds41rrh

08/18/2026

Punishment tells our kid what not to do. Redirection shows them what to do instead. That difference is at the heart of this week’s newsletter on responding thoughtfully.

Redirection might mean co-regulating first if our kid is flooded with big feelings. It might mean meeting a need (hunger, thirst, being heard/understood, overstimulation) before we move forward at all. Either way, it starts with us staying steady enough to guide our kids forward instead of just halting them in their tracks.

None of us get this right every time. We're all practicing alongside our kids.

Click here to sign up: https://mailchi.mp/bec955675403/j4lds41rrh

08/17/2026

We’ve been there. The toddler thwacks you in the face on accident (or on purpose). The preschooler yells “NO!” and starts crying when you say “Not today” in Target. The grade schooler said they cleaned their room but lo and behold, they shoved everything under the bed. The teen lobs a flippant disrespectful retort at your request to take out the trash. As much as we’d like to throw our own tantrum or yell ugly things, we are the grown up in these scenarios 😅, and how we act (or react) matters!

🤔 So how do you choose your response wisely? This week’s newsletter will bring tips & resources to your inbox on Wednesday 8/19. Click here to sign up: https://mailchi.mp/bec955675403/j4lds41rrh

08/13/2026

Nicole Barlow, foster and adoptive mom and Cultivate Connection Facilitator, said this near the end of our newest episode, and we have not stopped thinking about it. So many of us are white-knuckling a version of success we were never meant to hold alone. Our kids' healing, their choices, their future. We can show up, we can offer connection, we can keep doing the next right thing. But we were never meant to carry the outcome by ourselves.

If you needed this today, you are not alone. Take a breath. Put it down. Go listen to the full episode for more on what it means to redefine success as a parent.

Here's the link to listen: https://empowered-to-connect-podcast.castos.com/

08/12/2026

We have been taught to read behavior as a discipline problem. Talk back, that is disrespect. Shut down, that is stubbornness. Melt down, that is a kid who needs a consequence.

Nicole Barlow, foster and adoptive mom and one of our Cultivate Connection facilitators, offers us a different lens in our newest podcast episode. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are not choices our kids are making against us. They are automatic responses built to keep a nervous system safe, especially for kids who have lived through hard things.

That quiet, compliant kid who never causes trouble? Sometimes that is not calm. That could be fawning. And the kid who yells or shuts the door? Sometimes that is a nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do.

When we support the regulation underneath instead of only correcting what we see on the surface, we are not letting anything slide. We are getting to the root of it.

You can listen to the episode here: https://empowered-to-connect-podcast.castos.com/

08/11/2026

🎙️ New episode alert! This one might just change the way you grade yourself as a parent.

Nicole Barlow, longtime foster and adoptive mom and one of our Cultivate Connection facilitators, sits down with us to talk about the parent report card so many of us are quietly filling out every day. The one where compliance equals success and a hard day means we failed.

Nicole shares her own journey from feeling like a confident, seasoned foster parent to realizing she was in way over her head, and how she slowly let go of an old definition of success built on how her kids looked to everyone else. We talk about dysregulation, repair, faith, comparison, and what it actually means to raise kids who know they can call us, no matter what.

If you have ever felt like you are failing a test nobody handed you, this conversation is for you.

Click here to listen: https://empowered-to-connect-podcast.castos.com/

08/10/2026

Five minutes into this episode and we were already grabbing our pens.

Nicole Barlow, foster and adoptive mom and Cultivate Connection facilitator, said something that has been sitting with us all week. Dysregulation is not disobedience. Neither is a meltdown, a slammed door, or a kid who goes quiet instead of compliant.

This clips is a small taste of a much bigger conversation about redefining what a good parenting day actually looks like. Less about whether our kids behaved perfectly. More about whether we showed up, saw them clearly, and repaired when we got it wrong.

Give it a listen and let us know which line hit closest to home for us.

Comment PODCAST and we’ll DM the link to listen!

Address

Memphis, TN

Website

http://www.empoweredtoconnect.org/, https://bit.ly/partnershippressrelease

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Empowered to Connect posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Memphis?