By: Julie Beem
Tireless. That’s the word that comes to mind when describing Craig Peterson. Those on Facebook know him as Donald Craig Peterson. Craig is an author, an activist, an advocate, an advisor…but most importantly he’s a dad. Parenting six he adopted as a single parent has been far from easy. His children have varying degrees of impact due to their early childhood trauma, exposure to fetal alcohol and attachment challenges.
If you’re a member of any Facebook support group dealing with attachment challenges, trauma or fetal alcohol, you have probably met Craig – and been the recipient of his vast wisdom and ever-present encouragement.
It’s no accident that we’re profiling Craig on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Day (9/9) – because he’s a very vocal advocate for Stopping FASD! One of the incredibly valuable things about Craig is how clearly he sees the connection between early childhood trauma and FASD. Since he’s parented children with all of these challenges, he is able to articulate that they’re all clearly intertwined and that good strong therapeutic parenting that helps build connection and self-regulation benefits all children whether their diagnosis is RAD, complex trauma, bipolar disorder, or FASD (or all of these). Craig has also shared his insight with many through ATN – he has written many wonderful pieces for this blog, and served on the ATN Board.
Craig is working on his book, Adopting Faith: A Father’s Unconditional Love https://www.facebook.com/Adopting-Faith-A-Fathers-Unconditional-Love-297933993580946/ and is very active in his children’s lives – they are all now young adults. He has worked hard to give them all a voice by supporting them through therapies, musical endeavors, public speaking, and activities like Special Olympics.
Craig has been an Angel to many parents of children with both trauma and FASD and a source of wisdom and inspiration to all of us at ATN!
