Category Archives: brain-based parenting

This Really Is My Life

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Dear Parents,

I took my 20-year-old daughter for a psychiatric evaluation today.  I have somehow escaped this for the last two years, since she became an adult.  I offered to pay for an eval outside the Medi-Cal system in order to get a legitimate diagnosis and medication that is not dependent on the amount of money one can pay.  So, today was the day.

In a very short period of time, the psychiatrist leveled one of the diagnoses I knew would be given–Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In that moment my heart cracked open and my mother blood leaked out onto the floor.  If you are not a therapist, this diagnosis may mean nothing to you. However, the diagnosis is often considered the bane of a therapist’s existence when a person labeled with it walks across the threshold.

I am breaking the therapist code of silence right now, because, as a therapist, I am not supposed to say any of this out loud.  As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I will be stoned for daring to speak this. Most therapists (though not all) only take one or two people labeled “Borderline” into their practice at a time.  Why is that, you might wonder?  It is because they are so difficult to treat.  BPD person’s are predominantly female and well known for love you/hate you outbursts.  They often burst out of therapy the way attachment challenged children outburst over parenting.

My daughter had love you/hate you outbursts from the day I brought her home at three-years-old.  And, she still does.  Reactive Attachment Disorder grown-up without successful intervention is often called Borderline Personality Disorder in women and Narcissistic Personality Disorder in men.

I want you to know that early, effective intervention is possible.  Healing is possible. You can change the trajectory of your sweet, attachment challenge child.  How?  With consistent, trust-based, brain-based, therapeutic parenting.  That is how.

When my children were young, I wish I knew then what I know now.  I desperately wish this.  Right now, I am pleased my daughter lives with me and I have a chance to help her heal from the horrible wounds of attachment trauma in early childhood.  It is never too late.  Never.  I know this in my bones.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love matters,

Ce

To sign-up for daily Wisdom for Adoptive Parents, click here.

The next 8-hr. Trust-based Parent Training is scheduled for April 23rd and 30th from 12 noon to 4 pm.  $200 per two person couple.  Childcare available for $30 each day, second child $10 additional. To sign up, email Jen@attachplace.com and she will register you.

TIME CHANGE: Monthly Adoptive Parent Support Group is every second Wednesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm.  Group and childcare are free.
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Drowning with My Hair on Fire: Insanity Relief For Adoptive Parents

To buy your very own copy of Drowning With My Hair On Fire: Insanity Relief For Adoptive Parents by Ce Eshelman, LMFT, go to Amazon.com or www.attachplace.com/drowing-hair-fire.  Please be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon.  Thank you.

Change Makers

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Dear Parents,

Our children do not change easily, but we can.  I know it seems like it is hard to change.  As a matter of fact, I think people go to therapy to change and stay too long “trying.”  Trying to change is the problem.  One must simply do it.  Do the mindful trick of changing your mind.

I read a study once that said the degree of one’s denial is the best predictor of a long, happy marriage.  Basically, those who are happy for the longest time in attachment relationships are those who ignore the stuff they don’t like about their partners and who focus on what they love instead.  Really, this is actual research.

By experience, I find that research to be true.  For example, I can focus on my husband’s repetitious restacking of the dishwasher and find it irritating, annoying or even personalize it as a comment he is making on my competence to stack the dishwasher correctly.  On the other foot, I could notice my husband’s repetitious restacking of the dishwasher and find it meaningless, his deal, or even a cute little behavior of his.  Which version will be the most attachment promoting way of seeing my husband?  I personally find it cute; also, I never have to put dishes in the dishwasher. Works for us both and I can feel perfectly in love with him while we clean up the kitchen after dinner.

Look around at your life.  What triggered feelings are you focusing on, memorizing today that you will play tomorrow when you encounter that trigger again?  Right now the garbage is overflowing in my kitchen.  I can allow my thought, Someone who was supposed to take it out has disrespected me, to make me annoyed or angry; or I can take a moment, wonder why it didn’t get done, take it out myself, or put it on the chore list for tomorrow. Which version will be the most attachment promoting way of seeing my children?

Much to the chagrin of many friends and family members, I have a tendency to take my children’s repetitious behavior in stride.  It is the way they are.  I don’t love it, and it isn’t about me.  That is what I know.  If I were to think their behavior is about me, then I would be angry and our attachment relationship would be compromised.  I want to be happy, so I choose a form of denial about my children. They do their best.  It isn’t always that good.  And, that is not about me. That thought keeps me happy.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love matters,

Ce

The next 8 hr. Trust Based Parent Training is scheduled for April 23rd and 30th from 12noon to 4pm.  $200 per couple.  Childcare available for $30 each day, second child $10 additional. To sign up email Jen@attachplace.com and she will register you.

TIME CHANGE: Monthly Adoptive Parent Support Group is every second Wednesday of the month from 6pm to 8pm.  Group and childcare are free.
To buy your very own copy of Drowning With My Hair On Fire: Insanity Relief For Adoptive Parents by Ce Eshelman, LMFT, go to Amazon or www.attachplace.com/drowing-hair-fire. Please be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon.  Thank you.

Back to Bed He Goes

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Dear Parents,

As you know, I am now in recovery from electronics enabling my son.  I found his last hold out cell phone (generous gift from an equally addicted friend) this morning and put it where all things electronic go–between the mattresses in my bedroom (shhhhh, that’s my secret hiding place).

Just as soon as I confiscated it, my sweet electronics addicted child went back to bed.  If you are a religious blog reader, you know I have been around this corner many times before.  He will stay in bed for 3 or 4 days, wasting away (except when I leave the house and he forages the kitchen), and angry as a hornet.  He thinks he is punishing me by not going to school and hiding out in his room.  You may recall that I enjoy the quiet when he is punishing me this way.

I am sad that my son cannot function if he has even one device, but that is the state of his brain.  I have determined through my persistent, tenacious enabling that he will not reach his full human capacity if he has so much as a rather benign iPod.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships

Biting the bullet is hard on the teeth.

Love matters,

Ce

The next 8 hr. Trust Based Parent Training is scheduled for April 23rd and 30th from 12noon to 4pm.  $200 per couple.  Childcare available for $30 each day, second child $10 additional. To sign up email Jen@attachplace.com and she will register you.

 
Monthly Adoptive Parent Support Group is every second Wednesday of the month from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.  Group and childcare are free.
Look for Ce’s Upcoming Book
 

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Drowning With My Hair On Fire

Insanity Relief For Adoptive Parents
 
Drowning with My Hair On Fire is a compilation of over 175 daily support letters to parents of adoptive children and other children from difficult beginnings.  With a forward by Dave Ziegler, Ph.D. and a brief personal memoir, this publication is a response to blog-reader requests for a book of letters that can be easily returned to day after day, when inspiration is hard to find.
Praise for Drowning with My Hair On Fire…
This woman saved our family. This book will save your sanity! After years (and many therapists) of getting it wrong, Ce Eshelman got our traumatized family on the right path to attachment, sanity, and big biglove. Ce’s unique therapy is grounded in the latest brain research, her own struggles raising traumatized children, and work with hundreds of families like ours. Her stories, contained in this book, are our stories: full of pain, confusion, hope, faith, love and practical magic that really works.
Elaine Smith, Adoptive Mother
Ce’s daily blog has been a lifesaver, particularly when days are most dreary and hopeless.  Not only have her words of empathy proven to be priceless to our family, but I have often forwarded them on to others.  Such a comfort to feel understood, with no judgment.
Patty O’Hair, Adoptive Mother
In a real sense “Drowning with My Hair on Fire: Insanity Relief for Adoptive Parents” is a daily mediation of struggle, success, failure and getting up and trying again.  If that sounds like too much to subject yourself to then don’t adopt a challenging child.  And one more thing, shouldn’t we require prospective adoptive parents to read “Drowning with My Hair on Fire: Insanity Relief for Adoptive Parents” rather than another ‘All they need is love’ manual?
Dave Ziegler, Ph.D., founder of Jasper Mountain Center and author of many books on raising children from difficult beginnings.

Brain-based Parenting, What?

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Brain-based parenting is one of the true keys to helping our complex, attachment challenged children become family kids.

Children with complex trauma and attachment breaches usually have reactive, stressed out brains.  They have very little access to their pre-frontal cortex, even when perfectly calm. That part of the brain is responsible for good judgment, organization, rational thought, language skills, cause and effect thinking, moral reasoning, and information recall.

Now toss some stress into the mix.  You know, surprise her with a sudden change of plans.  Tell him to quickly get ready for school.  Tell her do her homework with you or by herself without you.  Gently explain that his friend doesn’t want to play with him anymore because he doesn’t like being spat upon.  Challenge her to start that big project right now.  Shout, “Take the trash out!”  Give him an angry face.  Throw away a piece of trash/treasure from under the bed.  Confront her with a chore done poorly.  Hug him without his permission.  Tell her to change her too short skirt.  Hint about a surprise.  Remind him that Christmas is coming.  Nicely tell her to turn the TV off two minutes before the end of the show, and on and on.

If you were a brain-based parent, you would start all conversations with a request for a few deep breaths and a gentle reminder that nothing is wrong, that you are going to tell him something and he is not in trouble.  After that, you would say, “Ready?”  Wait for the all ready sign then slowly explain what comes next. “We are going over to Grandma’s house instead of to Uncle Tom’s house.”

I can hear your exasperation from here. Really? Are you kidding me? Do you realize that I have things to do, places to go, and no time for dilly-dallying?  I know. I know.

If you think slowing down to talk your child through the changes of every day life is like watching ice melt on a busy day, then consider the alternative. How much time does it take to get any kind of positive movement from your child once the stress hormone (cortisol) has kicked in, the pre-frontal cortex has gone off-line, and you have to resort to chasing him around the house, tackling him and making him put hisdarned shoes on now!  Fearful, raging, tantrums ensue.  Tick tock.  The clock did not stop and now you are an hour late (at least).

Two-minutes of proactive, brain-based parenting, can prevent hours of reactive, brain-based fall-out.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

The Attach Place provides a monthly, no fee Trust-based Adoptive Parent Support Group in Sacramento, every 2nd Wednesday of each month.  Next group is November 11that a NEW time–5:30 pm. Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care. 

The Attach Place offers an 8-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates areDecember 5th and 12th, 2015. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.com.

The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans.  Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment and 20 session course of treatment.

Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to receive Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

Take time for explaining, training, and listening to complaining.