Category Archives: Parenting Attachment Challenged Children

Feeling Alone

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It can be so isolating to have challenging children.  They feel isolated, and so do we.  Break the barriers.  Find a support group and go. Create a support group and stay. Meet other challenged, exhausted, amazing parents like YOU.  We are all in the same boat. It’s nice to have company there–deck chairs all lined up and all. No, not the Titanic.  More like a Disney Cruise with zoo animals. 
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 June 10th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Attachment challenged kid shenanigans 
are not a reflection of YOU, unless YOU make it that way.
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Upcoming C.A.S.E. (Center for Adoption Support and Education) Webinars

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FYI: These webinars have been quite interesting and meaty.  If you register ASAP you could get in free, otherwise they are $25.00 each.

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Search and Reunion in Domestic and International Adoption
Product Description

The media loves stories about adoption reunion, presenting them as dramatic, intense and emotionally heartwarming. For those involved, the reality is much more complex. After a brief overview of the common questions and concerns that are part of this experience, Ellen Singer, LCSW-C, will moderate a panel of adult adopted persons, a birth parent and an adoptive parent. Participants will learn how to 1) prepare for this unique experience and 2) address the common relationship challenges that can surface after reunion. (LIVE) Thurs, May 21, 2015 @ 1:00pm-2:30pm EasternExtended Access: May 22-28, 2015Thanks to Jockey Being Family, the first 300 registration spots are free! Use coupon code SEARCH101

$25.00

Search and Reunion in Domestic and International AdoptionWEB109
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Emotional Regulation and Relaxation Techniques for Parent and Child
Children who have experienced early childhood abuse, profound neglect, or other traumas often have difficulty regulating their emotions and behaviors, lack the skills to self-regulate and also resist co-regulation attempts from their parents. This is the result of the negative effects of prolonged or reoccurring arousal of the fight, flight or freeze response. Although much progress can be achieved with attachment-focused therapies and parenting techniques, these interventions may not include a neuro-physiological component specifically targeting the child’s bodily experience of regulation or dysregulation. C.A.S.E. therapist, Penny Zimmerman, LCSW-C, will introduce message, relaxation, sensory and mindfulness techniques parents can easily put to use at home to improve this area of functioning for their child(ren). The webinar will include a combination of lecture, hands-on practice, and Q/A. Attending with a friend or partner is encouraged, but not required.

(LIVE) Thurs, June 18, 2015 @ 1:00pm-2:30pm EasternExtended Access: June 19-24, 2015

$25.00

Emotional Regulation and Relaxation Techniques for Parent and Child WEB110
Thank you for supporting The Center for Adoption Support and Education – a non-profit adoptive family support center. Since 1998, adoption-competent experts at C.A.S.E. have dedicated their work to ensuring the well-being of foster an

Control Issues Galore

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Traumatized children have an inordinate need for control.  Well, as I write that, I realize that they actually have a justified need for enormous control.  After all, before YOU, the people who were supposed to be in charge, in control, obviously weren’t.
 
If you find yourself, your child’s siblings, and peers constantly angered by the mighty Control Chihuahua in your child, consider implementing some of the following things (but don’t do any of them if you cannot follow through consistently.)  Children cannot give up control if you give them all the control, because they will not feel safe.  So be aware this is shared power YOU give, not YOU giving in, giving up and letting go of your little Chihuahua to shred up your life. 
 
  1. Allow your child to decorate and organize the bedroom space.
  2. Once a week on a specific day you select, allow your child to choose between two menu items what the family will eat for dinner.
  3. Share power around choice of two after school activities once in awhile.
  4. Give two choices often, but don’t allow your child’s choice of a third option you didn’t offer.
 
If you allow your child to be in control in appropriate ways there will be room for your child to relax in other ways. This is not a fast solution, but over time the enormous need subsides.
 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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Who has the control issues:  YOU or your child?  
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This Is Clean?

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I wonder when I became so obsessed with CLEAN.  Seriously, at one point in my life I lived in a dirt floor house with no thought about it being dirty.  Is that the definition of ironic?  Alanis Morissette and I are unclear on the definition, but we think so.
 
When I truly think about it, my clean obsession has waxed and waned throughout my kid rearing years.  Both of my children are hoarders, so their rooms could be horrifying.  I have gone between zero tolerance for found objects (gutter trash, candy wrappers, dead birds, someone else’s discarded chewing gum), to allowing one bucket of stuff and nothing else (except that overflowed daily with newly found old stinky stuff), to closing my eyes and holding my nose (the full-on disgusting period I will spare you the mental image of), to requesting a weekly semi-cleaning on the order of “Just make it ‘look’ clean for Mama.”
 
Now I have a housekeeper and ask my son to shovel his stuff onto his bed once every two weeks so his room can be vacuumed.  It still smells in there, but that is de rigueur for teenage boys, right?
 
I know YOU struggle with this as much as I do because I hear from parents all the time about their hair pulling frustration over it.  I wish I had a sure fire solution for you, but I don’t.  
 
Just one thing: I know it was never worth the relationship damage I caused trying to stem the garbage tide.  I caused the most family upheaval by making “dirty” something to get dysregulated over. Why in the world would I put clean above love?  All I had to do was accept the reality that I would be teaching, training, and talking about it regularly for years.  So what, right?  I talk about the same stuff over and over with my kids all the time.  We all do.  What do you say, let’s collectively get over it.  Our stress levels will significantly drop when we do.  
 
Think about it. 
 
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Cleanliness is next to godliness 
might be one of those expressions we need to get over.
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Regulation Is Peace

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So, today I come home at 6:30pm to chores not done and a “play it off” lie that they were.  Silly me, I bought it, too.  Then, when I silently spied the overflowing recycling, my son rushes in saying, “Oh shoot Mom, I forgot the recycling. I’ll do it right now.”  
 
I say “No problem.”  
 
Then I get to the laundry room and there is zero stinky-boy laundry swishing around.  “Oh wow Mom, I meant to start that.  I’ll do that right now,” he says in a kind of overly compliant and slightly anxious voice.
 
Now, I’m on to him.  He didn’t do any of his chores.  One might call me naive, but really it is “hope springing eternal.”
 
The beautiful thing is that I had no dysregulation. None. I had no disappointment.  No frustration.  No anger.  Weirdly, I felt empathy for how hard it is for my son to do what he is supposed to do without being told every second.  The note I leave on the counter every single morning with the three chores list, the reminder to do chores first, and the time I will be home with “X’s and O’s Mom” is not enough to keep him on track.
 
I think he wants to please me, but–like forgetting Mother’s Day after eating a Mother’s Day brunch with a friend and his mom before coming home from an overnight–he can’t really remember to do it.  
 
See: my “hope springs eternal.” This is what I know. Regulation is peace.  Do everything YOU can to get regulated, because you can do everything you can to get your attachment challenged child to remember to get the chores done, and you might not ever get that to happen on a regular basis.
 
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Regulation is peace.  Get some.
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Mother’s Day 2015

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Hello Ce,

I am not particularly fond of just one day singled out to celebrate mothers (probably because of the massive messes I have cleaned up in the kitchen on Mother’s Day over the years), but I am a fan of yours.
 
               Happy Mother’s Day to all YOU Mom and Dad heros.
 
superhero parents
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Behind every superhero is a superhero mom! 
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Double Bind

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I spent most of last night and some of today engaged with my young adult, attachment-challenged daughter who once again is in a terrible crisis situation that I see is of her making but on the face of it has the appearance of unfairness or injustice by the social system that is there to support her family.  She feels like she is in a double bind. The expression of which is something like this: If I do this, then I will get punished by the system.  If I don’t do this same thing, then I will get punished by the system.  I can’t win.  I am a victim.
 
She has been struggling in this crisis for quite a while now and my heart breaks for her.  It literally aches right now.  I have offered her any number of ways to get out of this mess, though it involves following my rules.  Since she came home to me at 3-years-old, she has been 100% unwilling to follow any rules of mine.  
 
Today my daughter is caught in a perceived double bind and she shares the experience with me by setting up a situation where I am now in a double bind with her.  If I do xyz I am making it easy for her to be a victim of the system.  If I don’t do xyz I am making it easy for her to be a victim of the system.  
 
FYI:  Now I am the bad mother.  This happens on a regular basis, but hasn’t for a few months so I thought it was over.  Well, under stress it is back.  This time, however,  I am stepping out of the double bind by holding my ground, which is this:  My daughter is a victim of her own choices.  Make better choices (that are right here in front of you, but you would need to abide by a few ordinary rules.)
I know she was a victim in her early years, so she comes by her behavior honestly, but I can’t live in this double bind anymore.  If I do, eventually, I will be jobless, homeless, and destitute, too.  I have to let go of her hand and she needs to walk on her own.
This may be the most painful thing I have experienced in quite some time.  I love her so much.  Sometimes love means letting go of helping because helping is hurting.
Double binds are staring me down like a pack of rabid dogs.
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

I exquisitely understand this saying: 
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  
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Self-Care

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The words “self-care” must have concrete meaning to YOU.  Every day, what is your self-care?  If your answer is a big question mark, then know this, YOU will eventually break down under the constant stressors of raising a traumatized, attachment challenged child.  
 
Better proactive than reactive, right?  Don’t wait until you have a stress disease, depression, massive dysregulation, cancer, etc. to think about yourself.  Put that darned oxygen mask on!  YOU matter.
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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 care for yourself, you care for your family.
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Codependence in Parent/Child Relationships

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Relationships between parents and their traumatized children often resemble terribly destructive codependent relationships. Here are some tenets of codependence I want to share that may give you some insight into how YOU may be making your parenting situation worse.
 
Codependence:
 
  • Personalizing your child’s behavior, good or bad
  • Taking on a victim mentality by thinking your child owes you good behavior or your child’s behavior is about you
  • Using guilt or shame to get the behavior you want
  • Needing to be right
  • Only pretending or rarely listening to your child’s point of view
  • Dismissing as ridiculous or irrelevant your child’s feelings, thoughts and beliefs
  • Turning emotions into an art form through withdrawing, angry yelling, crying, or other dramatic emotional in or out bursts
  • Mocking your child by parroting back at your child an accusation or nasty tone of voice they have just slung at you
  • Crazy making communication–I am SO INCREDIBLY ANGRY you didn’t call when you got there like I told you to do! Nevermind, I don’t care.
  • Subtle and covert manipulations that can not easily be called out but are definitely felt by your child–passive aggressive statements, withholding eye contact or affection, giving the silent treatment, denial of wrong-doing, making all things seem like the child’s fault
  • Controlling, controlling, controlling is name of the daily game
 
Most of us have done some of these things once in a while because they are human behaviors.  If you are stuck in one or many, you need to take a long look at yourself. YOU may be making the situation in your home worse. Your behavior is not because of your child’s behavior.  Your behavior is your healthy or unhealthy reaction to it.
 
I think most of you know I learned all of this about 5 years into raising my attachment challenged, severely traumatized children.  I can’t believe I didn’t get my part for that long, but I just didn’t.  I can beat myself for what I didn’t know or I can applaud myself for finally seeing it.  Honestly, I vacillate.  
 
If you see yourself stuck in a codependent dance with your attachment challenged child, you will probably need some help climbing out. It’s okay. You are worth it. No shame.
 
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Shame keeps us in the dark.  Where there is light, there is healing.

Teenagers From The GitGo

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I feel like I have been raising teenagers for 19 years.   Because traumatized children are on survival mode, they seem to have teenager-like behaviors from the gitgo.  Yep, I said “Gitgo.”  I looked it up.  It is still a word to Webster.  
 
Today, I woke my son for school and thought the same thing I have thought every day for all these years: He needs to clean this disgusting room.  That is an hysterical repetitive thought process. How can I possibly care about his room for 16+ years?  HE obviously doesn’t NEED a clean room.  The good news is I didn’t say anything. If I said something every time I thought it my children would hate me.
 
Parents don’t have to parent everything.  If we did, our children would be either passively resistant or aggressively resistant 24/7. By the actual teen years, we would be totally tuned out and without influence in our children’s lives.
 
Relationship is everything.  Clean rooms, not so much.
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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

Cheers to maintaining your influence for your child’s lifetime.
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