Category Archives: Parenting Adopted Children

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 5–Empathy and Blaming

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 5–Empathy. I have sent this out to YOU before, but do yourself a favor and take 2 minutes and 53 seconds to watch it again.

And now, the very thing that blocks Empathy–Blaming. Come on, just 3 minutes and 14 seconds more.

These are my two favorite things to watch. I do it over and over. They are short and on-point. I wonder what the world would be like if everyone ate-up these two videos every morning for breakfast.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

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 April 8th. Come join us. Online RSVP each month required. Child care provided.

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Empathy supports connection. Play more. Blame less.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep

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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep. Yesterday YOU looked at what is bugging you. Today, dive a little deeper. Sometimes things happen to make us feel really upset, super dooper worried, or scared out of our wits. These things strike us at the core and we go into survival mode. What puts you into survival mode?

Triggers send you straight to fight, flight, flee or freeze. Zero to 60 and you are gone baby. Write ’em down. This is your work. When you see a challenge up ahead, regulate before you get your survival on. That’s how you treat a trigger with lots of good fresh air–deep, deep breaths, space, and TLC for the tremor at the core of YOU.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Know thyself.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 2–Owning Your Own Sh#*t

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Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2 starts with “owning your own crap.” I have suddenly become very PC. What is bugging me is my problem.

My son enjoys talking to me a lot of the time. He is doing nothing wrong, but it bugs me; therefore, it is my crap, not his. When I get crazy irritated, it is my irritation. He isn’t making me feel anything. I am responsible for taking care of myself, and, as a mother, helping my son see how his desire to talk can be annoying to others who are not in the listening mood. His talking is not the problem, per se. My not taking care of myself is.

The solution might be managed entirely by me, entirely by him, or by collaboration. If I were to handle it in a vacuum, I could walk away every time I am not in a listening mood or I could announce that I am not in a listening mood the second I realize it. On my own, there is no way to make him stop talking or to have better social skills.

If he managed it entirely, he might stumble upon a social cue that could help him read the listener better, so he knows when enough is enough. He could decide he doesn’t like talking to me and never speak to me again. Then again, he could have some kind of sudden spring into maturity realizing that everyone is not interested in his every thought–we know that is not likely to happen.

If we collaborate, I could ask for what I need from him–some non-talk together time. I could suggest we divine a signal to help him see that I am not in a listening mood. I could help him see the social cue every time I am giving it. If he has trouble observing the cue, I can go back to resolving the problem on my own–leave the room.

Making talking the problem is the problem. Ownership is the answer.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

If I’m bugged, it’s my bug.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 1

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I am so excited. I must be, because it is 5am and I am up and ready to roll. The Attach Place is in “Love Matters” Bootcamp–Day 1–with a family of six from out-of-town. Bootcamp is an attachment-intensive therapeutic dose of family healing–no boots required.

Come along for part of the ride by trying on something new each day for two weeks that can help propel your relationship with your attachment challenged child forward. Since it is Spring Break for most kids, this might be a good time to pump up the volume on the heart of things.

Day 1–Try This:

Get out a nice fancy piece of paper, giant poster board, or even a recycled lined notebook sheet (if that’s what you have.) During snack time today, put a nice treat on the table and tell your child(ren) that YOU really want to acknowledge his/her “fabulousness.” Then, proceed to write down on that paper (big and celebratory or small and humble) your child’s strengths. YOU start with one strength and then ask your child for another. If you have more than one child, have everyone contribute a strength for that child. Repeat until your brainstorm naturally runs out.

If you have lots of children, this is a great opportunity to take turns around the table shining on everyone in round robin style. Make it quick and light, being sure to stop before the fun runs out. If your child(ren) gets into it, then make an art project out of it by having your child draw/color a picture of him or herself being all these wonderful qualities at once. Pin it up somewhere public.

If this activity goes sideways, it will likely be because of shame hiding in the background. No worries. Take over, list a few strengths YOU see, and quickly stick the paper on the frig with a magnet. Your child is watching, so don’t let shame reign. Be proud. Be delighted. Be done.

See YOU on Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Resist letting your child’s hardwired shame rule the day or draw yours out.

Coercive Therapy

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I read an article this morning about a psychologist in Oregon who primarily treated Reactive Attachment Disorder diagnosed children who lost her license and is being held accountable for wrongful doing after an 11-year-old child committed suicide. I don’t know the intimate details of the case, so I am not writing this to you to say shame on anyone, her or the system. I am writing this to you to say that treatment of children with attachment challenges is tricky and needs to be very thoroughly thought through.

Be careful what advice you take. There are coercive therapies still being readily practiced that have been deemed harmful to children. In the early years of having my own children I sought advice from many experts and the prevailing treatment for RAD was coercive. I subjected my own children to recommended interventions, such as strong sitting for too long, forced calisthenics for punishment, therapies that demanded my children scream that they hated me, and lots of pointless hard labor. I did this for about two years before my heart just couldn’t keep going.

I made my children afraid of me through this coercive treatment. I honestly had no idea what else to do and I followed the prevailing wisdom of the therapist I was seeing. Actually, I sought many therapists who did this form of therapy and I did some myself. There is one popular book I still see parents come to me with that I have to dissuade them from using. Every time I ask them not to use the interventions, they say…”But they work.” Coercion works in the short run, but it causes long term-negative effects. Trust me on this.

Over the years, I learned other ways of intervening with love and structure, empathy and understanding. It is both harder and easier in the long run. I had to repair much of the damage my early interventions caused, like fear and hatred in my children toward me. I did that to them, and I will be forever remorseful about it. YOU can know I have made my amends, but it doesn’t undo the damage to our relationships.

Sometimes good therapies are used punitively. Beware of your own desire to punish with perfectly fine interventions. For example, it is okay to ask your children to sit by you until they calm. It is okay to keep them safe by holding them until they can regulate. What isn’t okay is using these things when you are angry and when you want to scare and control your children just because they are naughty and willful. This is the tricky part. It is not healthy for children to be able to hold all the power in a family, so a fine line is necessary.

Here is a link to what is called The White Paper on Coercion in Treatment that sets forth the standards for treatment of attachment challenged children. It is long, about 12 pages, but an essential read in order to protect your children from misguided harm by therapists and by yourself.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

The truth is hard to bear sometimes.

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

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Today was a sick day for me–migraine from jackhammer.com. I don’t know about you, but my sick days have silver linings. Both of my children are angelic when I am sick. They are helpful, loving, concerned, and attentive. It is down right weird. Makes me think I don’t ask for help often enough. Apparently, I am too capable. Only under the anvil of a migraine (and cancer treatment) do I become a bed-bound-blob. I think it scares the heck out of my kids, but it shapes them up in a heartbeat and they were trained by the best on how to care for people–me.

I think I did a pretty good job of modeling caregiving, because they are good at it. Makes me think about staying in bed all day just for fun once in a while–not really. It sure is nice to see their soft eyes looking in on me, their sweet tones of voice asking me if I need anything, and their persistent checking back. I love that. I love that they both have this wired into them.

Modeling love (even when you don’t feel terribly inspired in the moment) matters–we reap what we sow.

I read that somewhere. wink

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Look for the silver linings.

Annoying For Attention

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I have a number of children I work with who annoy for attention. Attention is attention to them regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Some attachment challenged children have difficulty being vulnerable enough to seek attention in a pro-social way. To do that would be to admit that s/he has emotional needs in the first place.

My son has mastered the art of the ridiculous question to get my attention. Last night he came into the room where I was writing with, “Mom, I’m wondering why it is that I really like to go to those swim parks. Why do you think I like them so much?”

Out of the blue from another child, “One time when I was visiting my grandmother’s farm the dog farted so loud the cats ran into the barn.”

“Can you see air?”

“I noticed cats have big eyes.”

“Can we talk? I have a mod and the thingys are cute. Can I show them to you?”

“Mom, I didn’t know you were home. Are you home now?”

“Why do I like cauliflower that way and not the other way?”

“The worst thing to call a teacher is Mrs. P.”

Really?

Our children need attention and they need corrective parenting. They need help seeking attention in a positive way. Give solid eye contact saying, I would love to talk with you about something more interesting or in a voice that I can better listen to or about something more meaningful to you. Here I am. Try again, Sweetie Pie.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Genuine connection is a skill and a gift.

How Trauma Works

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The brain records trauma in such a way that it keeps getting triggered over and over again, even after the abuser has long left the picture. Your child repeatedly relives the past in the present. That is the definition of posttraumatic stress, and Complex Developmental Trauma is attachment challenge plus posttraumatic stress. This makes your child tread as though the abuse is about to recur at the next turn.

My son recoils from me whenever I make a sudden move near him. I have never beaten him, but he is afraid I will because he has that memory encoded in his implicit (unconscious) brain from before he was two years old. My daughter, on the other hand, is drawn to recreating the traumatic experiences of childhood neglect in her adult life, over and over. She relives the past every day and struggles to survive as if she has to do it that way.

I try to support both of my children to rise up from the imprints they received during those traumatic times, but it has been difficult. Our work, as healing parents, is to help our children understand and perceive themselves as something other than victim, and to not be controlled by the ever-reactive trauma brain.

Building a new sense of self is monumental. Think how you would feel if YOU were tasked to rewire yourself from the ground floor up, childhood to now. Just changing one little bad habit feels impossible to me sometimes–Step away from the chocolate.

Your kids need YOU to keep your perception of them pure and precious, so they can begin to see themselves through truly loving eyes. That is a child’s birthright after all.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Taylor Swift and I Shake It Off every day.

Trauma Messed With Your Child

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If your child had trauma in the early years, then your child is still impacted by that trauma. Trauma is hardwired into the brain. Three specific things are altered by trauma: your child’s perception of self, your child’s perception of others, and your child’s perception of the world. That means that every experience, thought, and feeling your child has is filtered through the lens of traumatized perceptions. EVERY experience, thought and feeling!

Swearing boy

Go put your shoes on, Honey.

NO!

Here is your favorite snack.

I don’t want that!

I love you.

I hate you! And I will never love you! Why did you even adopt me!?!

I know YOU are tired and you find yourself quietly (or even loudly on stressful days) wanting your child to simply act normal, have normal responses to everyday life events, respond normally to interactions, and feel basically normal inside.

Guess what: your child probably can’t. It isn’t on purpose. It’s not because of stubbornness. Opposition is not the root. And defiance is not that fun. Trauma messed with your child’s brain.

Being angry and grief-stricken is natural given the daily frustrations of parenting an attachment and abuse-traumatized child. However, behaving with frustration and anger toward your child for a “brain thing” is harmful and negatively reinforcing to their already distorted perceptions.

self care

What can YOU do?

Don your Big Lady panties (unless you prefer boxers.)

Get support.

Take care of yourself.

Respite is necessary.

Seek

counseling.

Hobbies work. Weekly date night–a must. Tea breaks with friends save sanity. Parent helpers are angels on Earth. Housekeepers and landscapers are peacekeepers. Lightening-up helps. Ask for what you need. Take naps. Take walks. Take breaths. Take heart.

YOU are not alone.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Forgive yourself your shortcomings and wipe the slate clean every day.

Positive Experience Changes Brains

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Keep hope alive folks, because there definitely is plenty of reason to do so. The brain is capable of repair beyond our current scientific understanding. Play, laugh, talk together about real life things, so your child can learn about life the best way–from YOU.

Our traumatized children have a hard time feeling safe with parents, so they often cannot learn from us. Playing, laughing, rolling around, and acting silly together creates safety–felt safety. Felt safety is what allows a fragile brain to grow new neuropathways, new insights, new access to the part of the brain that governs memory and executive functions such as logical sequencing, cause and effect thinking, connections, organization, theory of mind, empathy, and moral reasoning.

Your child may not fully heal while living at home, but positive experiences change brains and move children further down the road to a fulfilling life. That’s really all we are hoping for, right?

Play more. Bark less.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop is planned for May 16th and May 23th, 10am to 3pm each day. Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign up online at www.attachplace.com.

Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.

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.

Practicing what YOU know is hard work.

Get support from others who are “in the know.” YOU will be glad you did.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Category Archives: Parenting Adopted Children

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 5–Empathy and Blaming

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 2–Owning Your Own Sh#*t

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 1

Coercive Therapy

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

Annoying For Attention

How Trauma Works

Trauma Messed With Your Child

Positive Experience Changes Brains

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