Category Archives: Parenting Attachment Challenged Children

Trauma Messed With Your Child

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

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.

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.

Fear Strikes The Core

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Like a lightening bolt, fear strikes the core of our complex traumatized children in nearly all that they do.

Last night, I came home from work and walked in the door to my son beginning a lie before the door had even closed behind me.

“I cleaned my room, Mom, but I already messed it up again.”

In my world owning up to an ugly truth is difficult, but entirely freeing. For my son, fear strikes his core before he can think of the truth, so the lies shoot out in my face like spring-loaded slinkies–one right after the other in a barely detectable loop-de-loop.

Once quiet again and out of his fear-stricken state, for the 5000th time I asked him, What could you do instead of lie?

He responds, “Not be afraid.”

Well, can you actually control your fear?

“No.”

Did it occur to you that you could not be afraid by simply cleaning your room?

“Oh. Pregnant pause. “No.”

This is an executive function problem. Putting two and two together in a logical order is very difficult for some of our traumatized children. I wish it were different, but it isn’t.

For the 5001st time, Well, you could do your chores or not do your chores. Since you don’t get in trouble for not doing your chores, there is nothing to fear and nothing to lie about either way. Cool, huh?

“I’m really trying Mom.”

I know, Honey. I know. Just go clean your room.

“Okay. Can I tell you about what Mr. XYZ did today?”

Yes, three seconds after you clean your room.

“You’re funny Mom.”

I know, Honey. I know. Go.

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.

Repetition creates new neuropathways.

Brains seem made of cement around our house.

Control Is Like Air To Birds

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YOU can fight if you must, but control is the medium through which your child survives. Like air to birds, your attachment challenged child needs the predictability of control or a feeling spiral akin to falling out of the sky occurs that feels like sure death.

The overarching therapeutic parenting goal is to create a safe and predictable enough environment for your child to trust s/he is not going to smash to the ground when s/he lets go into your care.

My suggestion is to accept your child’s need for control as one of the basics–air, food, water, shelter, love. Little by little, show just how safe YOU are because you understand, share, forgive, accept and shape the internal landscape of their brains to need just a little less of it over time.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop is planned for May 16th and March 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.

Fighting a starving man to give up his one slice of bread makes no sense.

Karyn Purvis in Sacramento

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Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. 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.

Connect and learn with other parents in the same boat.

Too Much Freedom

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If your child gets into shenanigans when outside your visual supervision, then YOU have given your child too much freedom. This is on YOU, not your child. How can that be, you say?

Calibrate freedom at the level for your child’s success–shoot low to guarantee it.

I know this is contrary to awe-inspiring motivation posters about Aiming High, but you can rest assured your child will fail if you do so and they miss–over and over and over. Continuous failure insures lack of confidence, low self-esteem, lack-luster motivation, and snail-speed executive function growth over time.

Imagine what continuous success insures over time. Yay-ah Baby. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. 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.

Baby steps lead to success.

Forced Knowing

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Sometimes my compassion for my son is about puddle deep. I just want him to get things he doesn’t get. And yet, I keep trying to force the issue. When will you get that you have to rinse the food monoliths off the plates before you put them in the dishwasher? I know you just learned how not to leave them dirty in the sink, but just add a little step. You would think I was teaching him past participles in Hebrew.

As I think about it, that sentence to him is almost acceptable, but that is because you cannot hear the tone I used when I said it and it would have been nice to truncate that humiliating, When will you get… part.

It is all an executive function thing. I need to chill. Why in the world am I getting all flummoxed about an obvious disability? Oh, right, it isn’t that obvious, but it is a disability. I must choose to tread lightly. I can be way too hard on this boy who comes from very difficult beginnings. Up the compassion. Up the empathy, Ce. YOU can do it. YOU want to do it. YOU have enough love in your heart to be generous. Just do it.

Okay, I will. I declare my home and my mouth Compassion Zones.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

The Attach Place announces the beginning of our monthly no fee Trust-based Adoptive Parent Support Group in Sacramento, every 2nd Wednesday of each month. Come join us. Online RSVP each month required. Child care provided.

Next Trust-based Paren Workshop is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. 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.

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 could helpfully have said, Let’s work on creating a habit of rinsing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

Our dishwasher will be happier if we do.

How hard is that to say? Sheesh.

Dear YOU No Hashtag

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Turns out it is easier to write a new Daily YOU Time late than it is to send old ones on time. I am letting go of getting it done uniformly every day in favor of just getting on with life the way I enjoy it–one email at a time, when I find the time. I know YOU can relate to this. Doing it all is tough sometimes. Just got to go with the flow, even when the flow is more like Niagara Falls after the thaw.

I don’t know about YOU, but I sometime feel like I am caught in some weird reverse osmosis echo chamber (Scientists, I beg you to resist telling me my science is faulty.) My echo chamber goes something (exactly really) like this on a regular basis.

My son: “Mom, I see you moved my computer from the garage. I was wondering when you were going to do that.”

Me, knowingly lighthearted: “Because it was tempting you to break the rules?”

My son, emphatically: “No, I just keep seeing it when I go down there and I have to resist doing something I know I will get in trouble for.”

Me: “Huh,” with a V-8 smash to the forehead (mine, not his.)

If this unscientific reverse osmosis echo chamber happens at your house, trust this: You child is being literal, not disrespectful. If the words do not exactly match the thoughts, then “No” with a near identical sentiment is going to follow. It isn’t as oppositionally defiant as it feels. It is truly more about rigidity of thought in the executive function part of the brain. Try not to feel corrected by your Munchkin, as that is likely not your child’s intention.

Our children are usually simply trying to be “exactingly” right. Being right is important, because the alternative is being WRONG, which invokes an intolerable shame spiral. Show compassion in the face of this kind of opposition. YOU can take the high road. Your child often cannot.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Paren Workshop is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. 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.

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

Compassion. Empathy. Acceptance. Playful. Love.

#DearMe

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This is a trending YouTube campaign that speaks to our kids. I often do this in my office with teenagers and adults: What would you tell your younger self? It can be very healing and empowering.

I sent my son to school today dressed as an Anime character for Cosplay Day. It was kind of creepy and really kind of fun making the costume together. He already had the neon red hair. When my kids were younger, I shied away from letting them be outlandish on costume days. My fear that they were going to grow into strange people on the edge of society kept me pinned in and them toned down. As it turns out, they both couldn’t wait to turn themselves into attention grabbing characters when they turned 18.

We can’t control our children’s life trajectories. They unfold in their own ways. We can give them love, structure, parental role models, guidelines, support; and the rest is up to them.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. Save the dates.

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.

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 okay to play.

Brain-Washing

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Daily YOU Time:

Wisdom for Adoptive Parents

We have to help our attachment challenged children understand how to think about what they feel. First, they need help identifying that they are even having a feeling, and then what the name of the feeling is. Text emojis only go so far.

It helps to supply thoughts they could have about the feeling, such as “Everyone has feelings like this once in a while and sometimes a lot of the while.” You might even go so far as to suggest that this is a righteous feeling they have every right to have in this situation, by golly! Then explain what “by golly” means.

To be a super good helper, you could offer some suggestions about how to act when this feeling surfaces willy nilly. I know this sounds silly (oh that rhymes with willy nilly), but practicing having this feeling and handling it in a few different, socially acceptable ways could be beneficial. Practice is just like experience only you don’t have to actually give or get a black eye in the process.

Some kids could use a picture chart to show the ways to identify and handle feelings. Most will think this is stupid, but do it anyway.

Sharing power on picking choices for how to cope with these feelings comes in handy for oppositional types. Some will do best by just being told the smartest ways.

Look for signs that your help is being taken. Throw out a compliment when you see some coping successes. It’s amazing what catching kids doing something positive can do for their self-esteem. I know they pretend it does nothing, but we parents know better, right?

Yep, that’s how you brain-wash a child effectively to cope with life’s little (massive) emotional ups and downs. I didn’t say brain-washing was easy.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a back-to-back, two-day format. Save the dates.

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.

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

Life is a lesson waiting to be learned.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Category Archives: Parenting Attachment Challenged Children

Trauma Messed With Your Child

Positive Experience Changes Brains

Fear Strikes The Core

Control Is Like Air To Birds

Karyn Purvis in Sacramento

Too Much Freedom

Forced Knowing

Dear YOU No Hashtag

#DearMe

Brain-Washing

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