Category Archives: Attachment Hope

I Am Stunned

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Wow, I am having a jaw-dropping experience at my house and it is a long story.  Sorry.
 
For 16 years (and counting), I have had to wake up my child from the death-grip of sleep; then wait 10 minutes and do it again;  then wait 10 more minutes and do it again; and so on.  To correct this frustrating habit, I have done any number of desperate things: rubbed his back, waved food under his nose, reminded him of rewards, talked ad nauseam about it in therapy, made agreements, bargained, physically roused him, threatened him, yelled at him, poured water on him (not proud), dragged him, pled with him, threw my hands up and simply shut the door–done, you win.
Some of these approaches worked for a morning or two, but never longer than three days in a row.  And, honestly, some of these things bordered on child abuse, damaged our relationship, and made our mornings together seriously unpleasant for 5,840 days (sans weekends and school breaks) of our lives.
Two weeks ago, I had a very calm, very serious moment with him. I reminded him that he would be 18 in two weeks, at which time I would be done having bad mornings.  While I was at it, I let him know that I was also done with breaking rules, lying, general opposition, and passive aggressive disrespect. I was on a roll. Yep, I did what I always tell YOU not to do.
To my surprise, my son started to cry.  Really cry.  It was heart breaking.  I was sure I had scared him to death and that his tears were about thinking he was about to be homeless (which I would never do to him.)  I told him I wasn’t going to say more and asked him if he needed anything. Again, to my surprise, this 5’10” tear-faced boy with a beard asked, “Can I have a hug?”
When I opened my arms, he threw his whole body into me, weeping for 10 minutes more.  Finally, he sat back with a big grin saying, “That was the first time I have really hugged you.”
I know. It felt really good (and it really did.)
 
After that he tells me he feels ashamed of himself because he can’t stop thinking about killing me in my sleep and other things he couldn’t bring himself to speak.  He was genuinely scared of his own mind and he told me he has been having these thoughts for years.
 
Years? Yikes!
I tell him I understand, thanked him for trusting me with them, and empathized with how hard it must have been for him to hold in these thoughts like poison secrets inside his mind.  I tell him I love him with all my heart. He tells me how he has hated me and my husband for what he calls “nothing really.” He tells me about grudges he has been holding from years ago.  He tells me he never does what I want because he is angry (duh) and these scary thoughts make him closed off and shut down.
Good talk.
For two weeks he is a changed person.  Gets himself up early. Does his chores, mostly well.  Zips his pants, brushes his teeth, puts on deodorant without reminders.  Asks permission.  Has broken no house rules. Is pleasant. Smiles. Gives hugs. He says the gruesome thoughts are completely gone and he can’t believe it.  He thinks all of his shenanigans were related to them.
Too good to be true, right?  I am waiting for the next shoe to drop. Until then, I am one amazed and happy mamma.
 
Note to self: get a lock for my bedroom door.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

He was brave to tell me and I am brave not to flip out.
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.

Empathy, Really?

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Are you freaking kidding me?  This kid has kicked me, scratched me, bit me, broken my favorite things, run off, told lies about me and to me, stolen things from everyone I know and YOU want me to show him empathy?  I know he went through a lot in his first few years. I know! But this is five years later and he acts like I did it to him.  He doesn’t care about anything, let alone me.  He has to be punished for his behavior or he will never learn.

First, I empathize with YOU. What you are going through every day with your very challenging child is painful and tiring and I know you are on the edge of hopelessness. Me, too. I have felt all of these things, too. I can see you are brokenhearted and desperate to have peace in your family.

YOU can do this, but it will be hard and take all the strength and determination you have.  Yes, empathy in the face of trouble is the first step toward turning this all around.  It will not be fast and it will not be easy.  It will be a daily practice of mindfulness, self-care, and love to be the “adult in the room.” It has taken me years to become that adult. Years. That was my personal journey.  Who knew that I had so many childhood wounds that would be healed along the way to learning how to love my attachment challenged children?

Ready or not, this is your journey.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Every journey begins with one step.  Why not empathy?
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.

The Opposite Of Traditional Parenting

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Parents of attached children from relatively smooth beginnings parent with the end in mind.  From the moment of birth parents are teaching their child how to grow up to become competent, confident and responsible adults. Of course there is some playing around in between, but most of the parental engagement is designed to make the children (age appropriately) more and more responsible for their own lives.
 
Our children from difficult beginnings are often traumatized and forced by biology into thinking, believing, and acting as though they are on their own to survive. When all of a child’s efforts are focused on survival, s/he misses out on very basic parts of being a happy human being–things like play, pleasure, joy, delight, and carefree doddling.  (Yes, they all definitely know how to doddle, but it isn’t carefree.)
 
Parenting for these kinds of children is all about helping them be “children.” This doesn’t mean they don’t have to learn to be responsible adults.  It means they have to learn to be children first. 
 
I know you are scared that encouraging your child to be a child will perpetually stunt an already delayed developmental process. After all, aren’t our children the most disorganized, unconcerned, selfish, irresponsible, illogical, childish people you have ever met? (I can’t tell you how many adoptive parents introduce their child to me as “28 going on 2-years old.”) So, yes and no.  Our children are equally filled with huge levels of fear, anxiety, hypervigilance, control, panic, and dysregulation?
 
Attachment challenged children need the opposite of traditional parenting first. Teach them to play by playing with them–a lot. Withhold the constant nagging, teaching, training, and consequencing for their lack of follow through, lack of organization, lack of concern, lack of responsibility taking.  Let your child off the adult hook until play comes easily, pleasure abounds, and joy is abundant.  Once this occurs, it will be much easier to help them become happy, responsible adults.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.

Play today or pay tomorrow.

 

Teach Respect

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I have always liked that bumper sticker that says Teach Peace. Look!!! Here it is.

teach peace 2

Whenever I see it on a car, I feel a kinship with the driver.  The fact that the sticker might be left over from three owners before and this driver is actually not particularly Man of the Year doesn’t keep me from feeling a little extra love juice in that direction.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  Both of us can probably use it.

Teach Respect is better as a mantra than a bumper sticker.  If our kids have knowledge gaps, then we have to teach them things we think they should already know–like respect.

I am forever shocked at how little our tiny attachment challenged professors actually know about the subtleties of life.  They have to be taught.  Respect is no different.

Believe it or not, parents have often been the teachers of disrespect to their children in two ways:

  1. We respond to disrespect with disrespect. Because we are the adults, we don’t always go back, apologize, and redo our disrespectful words with the one’s we wish we had used.  We just feel justified and move on.
  2. We respond with compliance. When Sam says, “I don’t want this for dinner. I hate f…ing pork chops,” many of us will tell him to “Shut your f….ing pie hole and sit the f… down!” Certainly none of my readers. Others of us will simply get him something else to eat to spare the family the shenanigans.
Neither of these methods teach respect.  Actually, they teach the opposite.  Try these on for size:
 
1. Be respectful, even when your child isn’t. Save all your angry, disrespectful words for your mental bubbles or therapist (who will definitely understand.)
2. Gently require respect before your child gets the thing s/he wants.  For example:  Whoa Sam, not sure you realize that saying that the way you did about the pork chops is a sure fire way of making me deaf. That hurts my sensitive ears. Go ahead and try again.  If Sam gives you more disrespect, tell him you love him and go back to dealing with dinner–mental bubble: pork chops it is .  If he gives you respect, you can decide to stick with pork chops because that is all there is and let him choose dinner for another day or maybe give him the choice of something leftover.  It’s never a good idea to allow him something special while everyone else gets what is on the menu.
 
Of course, there are a zillion ways to respond.  Those are just a few.  I have heard plenty of people react to my suggestions with, You have got to be kidding; my kid would explode all over the place if I tried to correct him.  If you don’t correct him now and withstand the tantrums for a good 21 days, YOU will live with this tyrant for an entire childhood.
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Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Pay now or pay later.

I fixed the link to the parent training if you have been trying to sign-up and couldn’t get through.  Sorry about that; my techno wizardry only goes so far–about a foot.
NOTE:  Space is limited this time around. The nextREVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Registerhere.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

 

Knowledge Gaps

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When a child is hypervigilant, s/he pays so much attention to survival that nuances of how to do things, how to interpret social cues, and how to engage smoothly with others go unnoticed and unlearned.  These are the knowledge gaps that are so mind boggling to parents.

If she can do it here, why can’t she do it there?
If he knows this, why doesn’t he know that?


I call our complex developmentally traumatized children “spiky.”  Sometimes they get things and sometimes they don’t.  The one thing I know for sure:  they are not spiky intentionally in order to make YOU crazy.

Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Sometimes in survival mode and sometimes not.
Oh, if we could only discern the difference.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

Attachment Challenged Dog

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Twelve years ago my husband brought home (surprise) a shelter puppy with very big paws.  Just the way that puppy ran told me he was from difficult beginnings.  My previously perfect and pristine home became mud-tracked, hair-blanketed, and basically gritty everywhere, including the bed.  Fall, Winter and Spring became my nightmare seasons.  Well, I will always have Summer (not really.)

 
This dog is untrainable, sort of.  He is willful, fearful, smart, and kind of dull all at the same time.  However dull his abilities for following commands, Frank (his name is Frank) brought a liveliness to our house, the likes of which had previously been unknown.
 
This is just how lively: There is the bolting for the front door whenever anyone goes in or out. There are the constant appointments with trainers and vets of every ilk. There are anti-anxiety meds and natural, homemade, nutrient rich diets, sure to regulate him.  None of that works of course.  He once nearly ate our babysitter and has nipped more people than I care to count.  We have been urged by many to let him go (that really ticks me off because he is my baby.)   Frank scares me to death when people come over (growling, snarling, barking, jumping and acting like a SWAT K-9) and, finally, very few people ever come over to visit now because of his shenanigans.
 
Frank leads (not follows) me all around the house–both insecure and head-strong.  Did I mention he weighs 100lbs?  Without warning, he often stops mid-gait and I full on fall over him to the floor. Sometimes I think I catch him smiling, as I hit the ground. If I use a meanly spiked, pincher collar on him, all the passersby admire how well-behaved, charming and handsome he is.  If I put him on one of those retractable leashes with a little wiggle room, he will run a mile and drag me (literally) along behind.  Other dog owners do not think he is so cute then.
 
When Frank wants something, he comes climbing up into my lap, like a tiny Chihuahua.  And when I want something, he is completely deaf, refusing my call.  Frank never resists stealing bones from the other dogs–oh yeah, we have adopted a couple more since Frank–even when he has two of his own already. He is scared of his own footsteps on hardwood, barking fiercely and equally at leaves and squirrels and the local RT bus that stops at intervals outside our dining room window. Frank is grossly, hopelessly hypervigilant. He never misses tantruming madly at the faint shuffle of passersby, though thunder and lightning send him shivering straight into the shower.
 
Frankly, by all accounts, Frank is a naughty dog.  Occasionally, I can be heard whispering, I can’t wait until he is out of the house (by this I mean, you know, in heaven, because all dogs go there after our house.)  Those thoughts make me feel like a horrible dog mother and, generally, an all around despicable human steward.  
 
Once in a while I am known to yearn for a full-breed of any kind that has had an easy beginning with a good-enough doggie mother that I can bring inside from our own little litter in the backyard. That’s never going to happen because our family is dedicated to saving the lives of dogs others were too careless to plan for.  We are called to this life–reluctant, broken-winged.
 
Sometimes I wish I had hung up on that damned call, but I didn’t and I wouldn’t.  The caller knew I had plenty of piss and vinegar, love, and acceptance to give.  There are times when I am challenged to bring it.  But mostly I can rise to the occasion.

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Truth be told:  I love Frank with all my heart and he loves me the best way he knows how–it’s an imprint. I’m going to love him forever and never give up on him, just like he was born in the backyard. It is his birthright to be loved this way; and I am just the dog lover to do it.  

Let sleeping dogs sit up. Happy Chanukah to Frank and YOU.
Frank Sleeps Upright
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

A life worth living is the only life worth living.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

A Little Bit Emo

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A little bit Emo is not to be confused with a little bit Elmo.  My son told me that he and his girlfriend are “a little bit Emo.”  I thought I knew what he was saying, but it is always a good idea for me to check my reality against his.  
 
Yep, I got it.  He was telling me that they consider themselves to be on the emotional side of things. That means they blowout, melt down, cry, and over-react.  Sounds like a great life together–not.
 
Today was an Emo day for my son.  He came home full of stories about emotional encounters that didn’t seem to have a point.  I wondered why he was telling me, sort of.  Finally, I felt I needed to ask:
 
Why are you telling me these things? 
 
“Aren’t you interested in Emo things?”
 
Uh, not sure, maybe.
 
“I thought that’s what therapists’ liked–Emo stuff. So, I’m telling you about all the Emo stuff that happened today.”  
 
Oh, thanks for thinking of me.  I have to go to work now and talk to people about Emo stuff.
 
Love ya. 
Love ya.
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Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

I miss Elmo stuff.

NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

Practice Regulation

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Attachment breach and abuse in the first two years of life almost always instills an inability to self-regulate emotions in a child. Providing emotion regulation is one of the fundamental functions of a mother or caregiver for a newborn baby.  That looks like consistent caregiving in the form of meeting a baby’s survival needs to be soothed, dry, full, and safe.  Separation from a birth mother or abuse by a mother or other person in this formative time prevents the child’s emotion regulatory system from developing properly, which can cause regulation problems for a lifetime.
 
As adoptive parents or parents of children from difficult beginnings, our job is to understand, teach and practice emotion regulation with our children.  When we do this, we help develop parts of the brain that are underdeveloped.  We can literally create new neuro-pathways in the brains of our children.  Cool, right?
 
So, resist the urge (and the headache) to keep your child calm “all the time.”  Instead, at regular intervals (practice every day), purposely get your child excited with sensory stimulation, then help your child calm down. That is what is needed. Being calm all the time will not teach your child to self-soothe.  In a playful manner, amping up and calming down, over and over, is the way.
 
Ready, set, go play.  Fall down, calm down, and start again.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Practice makes perfect neuro-pathways.

NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

Milestones

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If your child is healing from Complex Developmental Trauma, ticking off milestones is a little bit foreign.  We know what two steps forward, three steps back feels like.  We know what stuck at about 2 years old feels like.  The excitement of seeing our children grow emotionally in accordance with their chronological age is rare indeed.

 
Let me share my delight last night at sending my 17-year-old son off to his very first rock concert.  I will be forever grateful to his friend’s father who said he would be the chaperone if I would foot the bill. I would have bought the tickets, stretch Hummer limo, and a Morton’s steak to get him to do it.  When my son came home this afternoon, he was all smiles and full of stories for me.  He is finally enjoying teenage things–milestone.  Delicious milestone.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 Hang in there.  Milestones do show up.

NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

When YOU Get Tired

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When YOU get tired, take a Mommy or Daddy time out to refuel, readjust, reenergize, and reconnect with yourself.  Without YOU, then what?

I know this can go against the grain of what having children is all about.  Aren’t we supposed to put our children’s needs above our own?  Yes, sure.  And most of the time YOU do.  But sacrifice to the point of martyrdom will not a healthy family make.

After you have taken a breather, put your head back on with a new set of lens for your eyes.  The second best way to take care of yourself is to re-adjust your attitude about your traumatized children.  Their pain, wounding, outbursts, hatefulness, rejection, meanness, and fear has nearly nothing to do with YOU, and nearly everything to do with how they experience themselves and others in a dangerous world.  YOU scare them to the core.

If you were made of cardboard, YOU would still be the object of reactivity and likely be covered in spit and kick marks.  So, refocus your thinking.  Don’t over personalize your child’s reactivity toward YOU.  It is not about YOU.

Here is a suggestion: Love from a higher place.  Some of YOU have the love of God in your hearts.  Others the love of passion.  And still, there are folks who are rising to a call.  Some are engaging the challenge.  How ever you keep your heart alive and giving, do it.  Do it every day like your life depends on it–because it does.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 Love is not just a feeling.  It is a commitment.

NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.  If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.