Category Archives: Parenting Adopted Children

First Line of Correction

Leave a reply
The first line of correction is playful engagement, not emotional reprimand.  
 
Example:
Situation: When messing around, your child spills milk. 
Correction: Oh oh…it’s a messy day.  Let’s clean it up.
Situation: When continuing to mess around, your child spills milk a second time.
Correction:  Oh my goodness, I need to buy a cow to keep us in milk. Let’s push the milk back a little so your flying hands don’t knock it over.  Run get a cloth to wipe this up.
This can be taken care of without an ounce of anger, frustration, negativity or shame.  It’s just spilled milk.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

What behavior is worth flipping your lid over?

Evolution of a Disorder

Leave a reply
Don’t forget to let your children emotionally evolve.  I wish there were a shorthand way of saying my formerly diagnosed reactive attachment disordered child (FDRAD has so many possibilities), so I can pay homage to the history without sticking my children firmly in the past.  
 
The history is important because there are residual effects of RAD long into adulthood.  Still, RAD is not the primary issue into adulthood.  The FDRAD issues usually revolve around attention, dysregulation, poor decision-making, lack of motivation, and delayed maturity.  While these are significant issues, they are not attachment issues, per se; they are executive function issues.   
 
Poor executive function is the result of regulation difficulties in early childhood due to attachment challenges and trauma on the brain. So, regulation is the ultimate goal of all treatment.  Be sure regulation is being addressed in your therapeutic model at every age.  
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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 a look at The Zone’s of Regulation curriculum if your therapist hasn’t already implemented it.  Turns out it is effective for teaching regulation to any age child or adult (including yourself.)

Reach Back

Leave a reply
All of us make bids for love and attention.  I think about my own ways of getting my husband’s attention and it makes me chuckle.  I put on my best 5-year-old pout face, exaggerate the frown, and say something in a whiny, yet demanding voice like, “Heyyyyyy, you didn’t kiss me this morning.”  To which my husband smiles, opens up his arms, and comes in for a hug and kiss.  He knows I am kidding, and he knows I am not really kidding, too. I need my attention and kiss; then I am shored up for the day, and he is free to be on his way.  
 
I’m 57, and I make childish bids for love and attention that way. I promise I make them as an adult, too, in case you are worried about me.  Imagine how I would feel, though, if my husband didn’t reach back for me when I made my childish bid?  What if he walked away, told me to stop being ridiculous, or to grow up? 
 
When your five foot tall child runs up to you with arms up-raised like you could actually lift her into your arms (like when she was much younger), smile and open your arms for a hug and kiss.  No questions, no hesitation, no rejection.
 
Be easy with your affection, attention, smiling eyes, and love. We humans have these gifts in abundance, and we are free to give them away.  That’s a good thing because our children need so much love to feel good enough to take it in and give it back
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm. Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

Even when the bid for love seems ridiculous, 
find a way to respond with abandon.  Love matters.

Blind to the Forest

Leave a reply
Some days it is hard to see the forest for the dirty bowls. A few days ago all of my cereal bowls went missing.  I thought someone put the dishes away in a new interesting way where the bowls could not be found.  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I thought someone accidentally broke all the bowls.  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I thought a bowl burglar broke in and, well, took all the bowls.  Nope, that probably wasn’t it.  
 
I asked my husband, the kids, and even had a serious talk with the dogs about the bowl mystery, but no one knew.  My son said, “I even noticed this morning that the bowls are missing, but I can’t think of what happened to them.”  He opened a bunch of cabinets to see if maybe they were in one. Nope, not in any of them.
 
When I came home from work yesterday, miraculously all the bowls had found their way into the top shelf of the dishwasher. I was suddenly crestfallen, realizing my son had gone to great lengths to escape my learning the actual whereabouts of the bowls–the ones dirty and hidden under his covers. All of the darned bowls were hidden under his bed covers!  Did I mention, all the bowls in the entire house?  Okay, I did mention that.
 
Thought we had nipped this eating in the room, hiding the dirty dishes habit.  Really thought we had made it over that hurdle. Nope, back to the drawing board.  It may take me two or three days before I can regulate, because right now my dysregulation is over the moon.
Breathing. I’m breathing.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm.Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

Two steps forward, three back.  We always recover.  We always recover.  We always recover.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  Waiting for it. Waiting…

Impressed and Proud

Leave a reply
I had a quick dinner yesterday with my daughter, her boyfriend, and their baby–my granddaughter, with severe Cerebral Palsy, who is almost two-years-old now. They are all living three hours away with her biological father. With my help, she found him once she turned 18 .  I am so glad, because he has whole-heartedly welcomed her into her biological family.  Turns out, they speak the same emotional language.  I guess that makes sense.
 
Because of severe attachment challenge, my daughter is unable to do most of what I suggest, though she always asks for my advice. She wants my best thinking, and she needs to do life her own way to feel safe.  At twenty she has lived through more difficult situations than I have in my entire adult life.  Often she laments the black cloud over her head, and I am hard put to refute that. Bad things regularly do happen in her life.
 
My therapist self knows that the bad things are of her own doing. She impulsively and emotionally makes life decisions, and she hasn’t taken me up on living like me since she was 10-years-old. Talk about the hard road: that girl takes some serious hits and still pulls herself up off the mat to make a life for herself and her family. Her survival skills amaze me.  A fighter and a survivor, she makes something out of nothing every day. She also destroys a fair amount along the way. That is the double-edged sword of being a young adult with untreated Complex Developmental Trauma.
 
That said, I am incredibly impressed and proud of her.  I am also sad that she loves me so much, but cannot benefit from the easy life she could have had if our attachment challenged relationship had been healed in early childhood.  Even though I loved her so much, too, I didn’t know how to be a healing force in her life back then.  
 
I am writing this blog for YOU, so you can get a helping hand in healing the wounded child in your life.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care. 
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

Do everything you can when your children are young to 
strengthen your relationships.  

The Mad Bad Persona

Leave a reply
If your child has gotten into her fair share of trouble, in or around your home, you can bet The Mad Bad persona is hiding inside. 
 
That is not to say YOU don’t get to see The Mad Bad because YOU definitely do, right?  What you may not see is the psychological mechanism hidden beneath The Mad Bad.  
 
Children who come from difficult beginnings, often come to us scared, confused, and stuck on survival.  Survival brain makes a child focused on getting what he needs and wants at all cost.  That means sneaking, stealing, lying, and denying most of what they do. It may even seem like they don’t care when they are in trouble. That feigned lack of regard is part of the survival brain.  One cannot stop and worry about being in trouble when a tiger is in the rearview mirror (so to speak.)
 
Prolonged survival (in trouble) mode causes a child, who already thinks he was rejected, discarded, abandoned, and tortured by bio family for being bad, to start to experience himself as bad at the core–I am bad.  Once this happens the life course goes on autopilot being sad, feeling mad, and acting bad.
 
If YOU think your child feels she is bad inside, then your job as a parent is to crank up the positive feedback and reduce all the negative to zero.  Giving negative feedback (e.g. parental lecturing, expressed hopelessness, exasperation, despair, shaming, anger, punishment, rejection, isolation, scorn, disappointment, and disparaging comments) to The Mad Bad persona feeds the beast. The more YOU feed it, the bigger it grows.
 
Feed theThe Wounded Heart of your child.  Let The Mad Bad persona starve to death.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm.Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

Beware: The Mad Bad beast lives here.

Impressionable Minds

Leave a reply
Most children are impressionable.  Many remain that way into their teen years.  Our attachment challenged, trauma imprinted children, long after the wounds of attachment seem healed, continue to be gullible, swayable and highly prone to following another’s lead. Some of our children can manage to follow another while looking like they are leading.
The problem with being a follower is that children with compromised regulatory systems do not have well-developed executive function parts of the brain, so they go along with things they really wouldn’t if they had half a chance to think it through.
We need to supervise most of our children long into adulthood. That is a fact. On their own they make decisions with little thought, though they think they have given these ideas lots of thought. It is hard to provide supervision without humiliating or undermining the confidence of the budding adult poking up from the soil of their difficult childhoods. 
 
Recently one of my adult children decided that having a sex change was a real option. I can thank Caitlyn Jenner for taking the public lead on this.  While I have no problem whatsoever with transgender people or with Caitlyn Jenner, the pronouncement was a surprise, you might say.
 
Child:  Mom, I have made a decision. I have been thinking about this a lot and I’m nervous about telling you.  Umm, you know what I am going to say, right?
 
Me:  Not really, no.  Give me a hint.
 
Child:  You know how I act?  Umm, uh, umm, so I want to have a sex change so I fit more how I am.
 
Me:  Mastering the fine art of nonchalance, Okay.  Well have you researched it?
 
Child:  Yes, and I really have thought about this for a long time.  I even talked about it with my friend’s moms already. 
 
Me:  Still so very calm in close to the tone of saying I am making you a bologna sandwich, Oh you did? Okay. I am glad you are telling me, too.  It is okay with me, but I want you to do one thing first, which will be required before a sex change anyway.  Go online and look up transgender groups at the GLBTQ office.  There is one for people just like you who are researching gender reassignment–that’s what it’s called, I think–that meets right down the street. That is the first step.
 
Child:  While jumping up and shouting back, Okay, I’ll do that.
 
Two days later.
 
Child:  I’ve made a decision Mom.
 
Me:  About what?  
 
Child:  You know.
 
Me:  Hint?  Oops, bad Mommy, I should have remembered.
 
Child:  I am not going to get a gender change.
 
Me:  While continuing to brown the meatballs, Oh? You are not going to go to the group first before deciding?
 
Child:  No, I looked it up and saw how painful the whole thing is, so I made a different decision.
 
Me:  Okay, thanks for letting me know.
 
Child:  Yeah, I also looked up Kendo classes and I found one I want to take.  Do you have a minute to look at it?
 
Me:  Secret wry smile, Sure.
Transgender group. Kendo group. Either one works.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm. Join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

It’s a good thing to have a sense of humor 
or your life might seem down right scary.

High Road Parenting

Leave a reply
High road parenting requires skills.  What are those?

  1. Ability to acknowledge your own feelings.
  2. Keeping the big picture in the foreground at all times–your child is developmentally delayed due to trauma.
  3. Facility with regulation techniques for yourself and your child.
  4. Patience to wait until your child is regulated before speaking.
  5. Patience to wait until you are regulated before speaking.
  6. Knowledge of therapeutic parenting practices.
  7. Consciously accessing respite, rest and relaxation on a regular basis.
  8. Willingness to forgive yourself when you drive off the high road into a ditch.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 Octorber 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm.Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. 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.

When you fall off the high road into a ditch, take your foot off of the gas.

See the Light

Leave a reply
Got phished and spent every free moment Thursday and Friday restoring my passwords and opening new bank accounts.   Missed Friday’s letter to YOU.  
 
I don’t think Dr. Wayne Dyer ever raised attachment challenged, traumatized children, but he could have done a great job if he lived by his own words:
 
See the light in others, and treat them as if that is all you see.
Give this a shot today.  Start by seeing the light in yourself first; then, move right along to your challenging child.  See if it makes a difference in your feelings and the behavior of your child.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online atwww.attachplace.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.

Everyone has a light inside.  It is our blessing to see it.

On Being Mean

Leave a reply
Parents are human, and sometimes humans are mean.  In the same way we would look underneath the behavior of our children for the cause, the root, or the trigger that fueled the negative reaction, parents need to do the same thing for themselves.
 
Instead of feeling guilt, shame or like a bad parent, find the root of your upset.  Only then, will you be able to make a change.
 
Example: 
The kids are begging you for a trip to the park.  You are busy with other things, but you decide to squeeze it in for them.  On the way to the park, they hit each other, run ahead, lag behind and make the walk to the park unfun and frustrating.  Halfway to the park, you get exasperated, pull up short, and say very calmly or maybe very loudly, “That’s it, no park!”  You turn on a dime and walk home with the children refusing, resisting, and shouting mean things at you about being a mean mommy.  You tell them and yourself that it is the consequence for their unruly behavior on the way to the park.
 
On the face of this it makes sense.  Not getting that thing they want is a natural consequence of poor behavior.  It just doesn’t work for what you are trying to get from them–better behavior.  Their stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) likely shot to the top of their brains blocking the meaning of the consequence. The way the consequence got dished out was mean because of the voice tone, the frustration, the punitive way the park was taken away.
 
I am not telling you to reward poor behavior.  I am trying to get you to see the delivery process of the consequence can be relationship damaging or relationship growing.  What was going to be a fun, nice mommy gift to your children, is now a punitive, mean mommy relationship sting to the relationship.  Your unmet needs and feelings can lead to behavior on your part that you regret and that your children fear.
 
Alternatives:
Squeezing in a child activity is not a great idea.  You will feel pressured, stressed, and less tolerant of the usual child behaviors. That often causes dysregulated, mean behavior.
Instead of getting frustrated on the way to the park because of unruly behavior, tell yourself the truth: your children are excited and unable to maintain the rules on the walk because of their dysregulation.  
 
Create structure before you set out.  
  • We are going to the park for a short playtime.  This is what needs to happen for us to get the most time playing when we get there.
  • On the way, everyone is going to walk together on the sidewalk. No running ahead.
  • Body space and listening ears on the way. Got it?
  • What did I say?
 
On the way, when one child gets away from the expected behavior, you STOP and say, “What needs to happen for us to get to play at the park? “When you do that, it is not keeping body space. Let’s try again”. 
You may stop 6 times on the way to the park for one child or the other.  That’s okay and that is why you cannot squeeze anything in. Time for training is required. Soon enough the children will get that play in the park is shorter when the walk is longer due to stops for training. YOU don’t need to tell them that.  They will experience it on their own. Let them.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo 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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online atwww.attachplace.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.

Squeezing your kids into a too tight schedule will pinch your own mean behavior right out of you.