Walking a few steps ahead...
Research Foundation
The Wagon Method is not a new theory. It is a practical way of holding, side by side, the research and the practitioner wisdom that already exists.
Stretch 2 · Settling InNothing in this method was made up in a vacuum. The wheels, the hubs, the spokes, the stages of the trail: all of them lean on work that came long before us.
The last several decades have given us a clearer picture than ever of how children grow, how early hardship shapes a developing body, and what kinds of adult presence help a child find their footing again. That picture is spread across thousands of research papers, dozens of books, and the quiet daily practice of people who have been pulling hurting children's wagons for a long time.
What The Wagon Method tries to do is gather the most grounded pieces of that picture into one shared map. We translate the academic language into plain words. We pair the big ideas with small, concrete practices. We stay close to the research while writing in a voice that a tired caregiver can actually read at the end of a long day.
We cite our sources. We point outward to the books and studies that go deeper. And we try to be honest about the places where the research is still figuring itself out, or where different thinkers disagree, because pretending otherwise would be a disservice to the people relying on us to be careful.
Who we lean on
This is not a full bibliography. It is a grounding list. Every page on the site that draws on a specific idea links outward to the primary source.
The work of John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and the generations of researchers who have built on their early observations. The idea that a child needs a felt sense of a trusted adult before the rest of the wheels can turn is woven through every page of the method.
The research gathered under names like complex trauma, developmental trauma, and adverse childhood experiences. This work gives us the language for what repeated early hardship does to a growing brain and body, and the reasons a child's behavior rarely tells the whole story.
Dr. Perry's work on the bottom up nature of regulation, and the idea that you cannot reason a child into calm before their body is ready, shows up in the way we sequence our spokes and stages.
Dr. Siegel's writing on the brain as an integrative organ, and on the relational nature of regulation, shapes how we talk about connection, co-regulation, and the long slow work of growing a resilient nervous system.
The reminder that the body carries what the mind cannot yet name runs through every wheel. We write about felt safety, body cues, and the wisdom of rest because of work like his.
The practical work of Karyn Purvis and David Cross gives us a model for what connection before correction can look like in an ordinary afternoon, and for the patient rebuilding of trust after hard beginnings.
Social workers, foster parents, therapists, teachers, and kinship caregivers who have spent years pulling children's wagons on this trail. Their steady observations, written up in case notes, memoirs, trainings, and late night conversations, shape the method as much as any textbook.
An important note
Everything on this site is designed to help a caring adult think more clearly about the child in front of them. It is not a substitute for a child's care team, a diagnosis, or therapy. Every strategy we share is a starting point, not a prescription. If a child is in crisis, please use the crisis resources we list and reach out to a trained professional in your area.