Category Archives: Parenting Attachment Challenged Children

They Do Grow Up

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Yes, they do grow up–eventually.  While I have been gone, my daughter sent me a bittersweet text. It was 12 messages long and arrived in the middle of the night.  Just like her.
She was lamenting how hard it is to be a mother with a child from difficult beginnings.  Her little 11 month old daughter has been very ill since birth; the magnitude of which is only just now sinking in for her.  Sadly, my daughter’s poor decision making led to my granddaughter’s permanent brain damage. This is a hard reality to swallow.
The bittersweet part was her profound epiphany that raising children (like her and her brother) was probably hard for me.  Her conclusion:  I don’t know how you ever did it with me.  I honestly don’t know how you did it.  You are the strongest Mom I know…and I love you with all my heart no matter how many fights we get in or how many times I say I don’t.  I always will and will never ever be able to repay you for everything you have done for me.
 
You just did, sweetheart. You just did.
And I love you, too.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Just when you think nothing matters, love does.  
Love matters.

Back Off And Balance

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If YOU have been helicopter parenting to the point where even just the sound of your voice is creating reactivity from your attachment challenged teen, back off and get some balance.  Back way off.  Let them come to you for what they need.  I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it works. When YOU give them space, and space, and space, your children come seeking contact with YOU.  Be very low key about your response.
 
Without irony, accept the overture, and be the hero:  “Sure, I will drive you to your volleyball game.”
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Let your children seek YOU. That can turn the tables.

Grieving Is A Process

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Our children grieve things they do not understand or know about.  They grieve the loss they feel in their cells for their birth mother and they grieve the loss of the imaginary perfect mother who gave them away.  They grieve getting YOU, because YOU are real and flawed and here every day. YOU don’t measure up to the fantasy, so there is the overwhelming grief that causes their rejection.
 
Your adopted child may tantrum in grief, rage in grief, cry in grief, reject in grief, defy in grief, withdraw in grief, or cling to strangers in grief.  They may do this for years.  It doesn’t mean they aren’t attaching to YOU.  It does mean they are fundamentally changed because they have this pain like dying in their guts now because they were abandoned (and some were both abandoned and abused.)  There is no worse pain on Earth for a human being than to lose connection with one’s mother forever.
 
In order to act as an attuned container of empathy for your child’s many permutations of grief, YOU will need to grieve your own idea of the perfectly loving child YOU thought you were adopting.  When that is done, YOU will be better able to “hold” the emotional depth and upheaval of your child’s grief and loss.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

When your child wants the birth mother say, “Oh my precious sweetheart, I know your heart hurts so, so much.  I will help you hold the pain. Come into my arms, my circle of love.  I am here for you, when you feel that terrible pain in your heart, in your whole being.” 

Oh Dear Parent

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It’s the middle of the week.  What are YOU doing for yourself today?
 
Some of YOU have this down pat.  Raise your hand if this is YOU.  To YOU, I give maximum applause.  YOU have figured out that the best way to care for your special needs child(ren) is to start with yourself. Bravissimo!
 
If your hand lifted a little, but not all the way:  Good for YOU! YOU are on your way to better parenting through self-care.
 
The rest of YOU, hands still on the keyboard: YOU are not alone.  Many of us have trouble making this paradigm shift. What can I do to encourage YOU?  
 
Okay, here goes.  One question:  Have you lost your patience, temper, sanity with your child in the past week?
 
Yes?
 
Then take a break and do something you haven’t done in a long time that would feel good.  
 
Need ideas?
 
Eat a slice of cake from that bakery you love (Ignore calories today.)
Go to the gym and work out; or don’t work out and soak in the hot tub or steam yourself in the sauna.
Mani/pedi?
New shoes?
Take a scented bath.
Chat with a friend over tea and biscuits.
Take a slow walk in a place without playgrounds.
Eat a PB&J sandwich on a park bench with good people watching opportunities.
Check out a new art or museum installation.
Make your bed, open the windows, and lay naked in the breeze (Am I the only person who loves doing that?)
Read a mindless romance novel or People Magazine will do.
Watch a R-rated movie in the middle of the day.
Make a beautiful, tasty salad for yourself, just the way YOU like it–add lots of kid-hated veggies with grown up dressing.
Clear off your messiest counter top.
Listen to music from the years you most loved music. Turn it up loud. Dance.
Make something, paint something, break something.
Nap.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

YOU Matter,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
 

The best parent is the one with the most rest.  Rest can look a bunch of different ways.  Pick one.

 

 

If Only You Were Different, I Would Love You

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Have you ever been in a relationship where you spent a lot of time trying to get the other person to change?  
 
If you would learn to share your feelings…
If you would try to think about me once in a while…
If you were more motivated to grow…
If you were more considerate…
If you liked my family…
If you would go out more…
If you were more adventurous…
If you were more spontaneous…
If you were more reliable…
If you were more positive…
If you weren’t so negative…
If you weren’t so judgemental…
If you would care more about how you look…
If you liked to hang out with my friends…
If you had friends…
If you helped around the house more…
If you didn’t have feelings all the time…
If you would just be happy…
If you weren’t so miserable…
If you worked less…
If you worked more…
 
Then…what?  I would feel better. I would accept you.  I would love you. 
 
That relationship didn’t work out very well, did it?  Or, that relationship isn’t going very well now, is it?
 
For a moment, think about your relationship with your attachment challenged, traumatized child.  Do you have an “IF…Then” list?
 
If you would just be normal…
If you would act your age…
If you could stop bouncing off the walls…
If you could stop talking all the time…
If you would just tell me what you feel…
If you would clean your room…
If you would tell the truth…
If you were trustworthy…
If you were honest…
If you were less self centered…
If you would think about the rest of the family…
If you would take less and give more…
If you would do your homework…
If you would try harder…
If you were pleasant to be around…
If you brushed your teeth, showered, zipped…
If you would stop badgering me…
If you would act right…
If you would do the right thing…
If you weren’t always looking for ways to make me crazy…
If you would stop scaring me…
If you didn’t need so much supervision…
If you weren’t so needy…
If you weren’t so helpless…
If you would just grow up…
If you would stop controlling…
If you would accept love…
If you would trust me…
If you would get better…
 
Then…what?  I would feel better. I would accept you. I would love you.
Enough said, right?
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love and Acceptance Matter,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Acceptance is Loving.
 
sunflowers-bottom.gif

 

Tit For Tat Gets YOU Back

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Our children do not cause our poor parenting behavior–yelling,
demanding, demeaning, belittling, overpowering, physicality,
threatening, arguing, meanness, etc.  Those behaviors belong to us
and no amount of attachment challenge child behavior is responsible
for our “low road” reactions.

Because this is true, I have mastered the art of the sincere apology.
I often owe that to both of my children.  Whenever I suggest that
parents owe an apology to their children before expecting their
children to sincerely apologize, I get push back like there is no
tomorrow.

“Absolutely not!” retorted one parent, when I asked if she had
something to apologize for after she wrongly accused her daughter of
something she had actually done herself.  “If she didn’t lie all the
time, I wouldn’t have falsely accused her.”  Okay, but you did
wrongly accuse her, and really you owe her a sincere apology for
wronging her, right?  “No.”  Hmmmm.

If we expect our children to sincerely feel remorse and apologize for
their wrongs, then we have to model it first.  Otherwise, we are
blaming them for our behavior.

Isn’t that what they often infuriatingly do to YOU?

Because Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is
September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/9ba51af5e7/TEST/c0f94646cd .

Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their
own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/9ba51af5e7/TEST/b816f9fd03 .

Tit for tat, gets YOU back.

Swimming In Shame

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If you are swimming in shame, YOU need some help finding your vulnerability and compassion for yourself.  Reclaim your childhood. Shame has a tendency to well up around parenting attachment challenged children. They have difficulty accepting parenting and we have difficulty accepting that it isn’t our fault. The shame doesn’t come directly from parenting. Likely it has been there all along, from childhood.  It just gets big and overwhelming when children are added to the mix.
 
If this sounds like YOU, check out a little reading.  Brene Brown is my favorite. She has a blog (doesn’t everyone have a blog?) YOU can watch her on TED (not everyone has a TED Talk.)  Read her book.  Go to a local workshop based on her work. Join a support group based on Daring Greatly (her book.)  She is all the rage.  YOU could be part of a movement.
 
Get a little inspiration here:
 
Brene Brown on empanty
 
YOU can go to therapy, buy a workbook, find a 12-step.  What YOU probably ought to avoid?  Avoidance.
 
Because Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

YOU Still Matter.

Did YOU Come From Difficult Beginnings?

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There is a bit of an ironic truth in the therapist community that many therapists came from “difficult beginnings” and end up becoming therapists on the way to fixing themselves.  
 
Similarly, I think, many adoptive parents came from “difficult beginnings,” too. Along the way of self repair, providing a better life to an adopted child from “difficult beginnings” makes sense. Nothing wrong with that.  Actually, it is quite lovely.
 
The problem with both of these realities is that unhealed therapists and parents from difficult beginnings can find themselves in emotional disrepair as they try to be healing forces in the lives of those they care for–client or child.
 
Heal thyself.  
 
I wish I had been given, heal thyself, advice prior to adopting children so I could have done my own deep recovery before I mixed my difficult beginning with that of my children.  The result was a compounded mess of entangled traumatic material bouncing off the walls.  In my house, especially in the beginning, it was hard to say who was the most emotionally dysregulated–me or them.
 
Individuals with early trauma experience symptoms on a continuum  If you answer many of the following questions with a YES, YOU might need support for your own healing.  Plain and simple.  Heal thyself.
 
Y or N  Do you prefer to recharge your batteries by being alone rather than with other people?
Y or N  Did you need glasses at an early age?
Y or N  Do you suffer from environmental sensitivities or multiple allergies?
Y or N  Do you have migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, or fibromyalgia?
Y or N  Did you experience prenatal trauma such as intrauterine surgeries, prematurity with incubation, or traumatic events during gestation?
Y or N  Were there complications at your birth?
Y or N  Were you adopted?
Y or N  Have you had problems maintaining relationships?
Y or N  Do you have difficulty knowing what you are feeling?
Y or N  Would others describe you as more intellectual than emotional?
Y or N  Do you have disdain for people who are emotional?
Y or N  Are you particularly sensitive to cold?
Y or N  Do you often have the feeling that life is overwhelming and you don’t have the energy to deal with it?
Y or N  Do you prefer working in situations that require theoretical skills rather than people skills?
Y or N  Are you troubled by the persistent feeling that you don’t belong?
Y or N  Are you always looking for the “why” of things?
Y or N  Are you uncomfortable in groups or social situations?
Y or N  Does the world seem like a dangerous place to you?
          (Recognizing the Symptoms of Early Trauma by Laurence Heller, Ph.D.)
 
Heal thyself.  No shame.  Only love.
Because Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

YOU Matter.

Name the Shame

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When I was growing up, I am pretty sure my parents read some kind of
parenting book entitled, Shame Your Way to Perfect Children.  Or
maybe topping The New York Times best seller list for non-fiction
during those years was a blockbuster book called, Best Kept Secret
For Good Behavior: Shame Works.  Sorry Mom and Dad.  The secret is
out.

My parents weren’t bad people.  They were just doing what their
parents did. It did work pretty well. I didn’t do a whole lot of bad
stuff when I was a kid. I waited until I was away at college.  Ha.

So, shame can work with normally attached children.  However, there
is a side-effect even for attached children–lingering into adulthood
a negative core belief about self worth that often takes a lifetime
to repair. That’s me.

Shame doesn’t work at all to manage the behavior of  attachment
challenged children who have a primal wound from adoption, abuse and
neglect in the early years, or birth trauma in the early years that
gets confused with a poorly formed identity.

You know that blank look, those frozen wide-open doll eyes YOU get
from your children when you confront them on their negative
behavior–that look that implies no feeling, no care, no conscience?
You know that incredible head of steam, that incensed, indignant,
“How dare YOU” bluster they can muster to deny they had any part in
misdeeds. Those two responses are a sure fire indicator that shame is
at work just under the surface and your child is calling upon every
imaginable survival skill to push away the overwhelming experience of
shame, even if that means nonsensical lying, nonsensical denying, or
nonsensical self-silencing.

Here is the real secret.  Remove the blame, address the shame, and
attend to what lies beneath–your child’s fear of being bad, wrong,
unwanted and unlovable.  Shame of being.  How sad it that? Our
children very often feel shame about who they are–and they don’t
even know it.  Every day poor decision-making adds evidence to their
internal unconscious argument that they are rotten at the core.

As parents we can work to heal this “bad” feeling in our children.
We just have to be sure that shame is not used in a misguided attempt
to make our children feel something about their negative
behavior–remorse, sorry, sad, bad, anything except nothing.

They already feel bad enough about who they are; extra is not
required.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is
September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/993b85483b/TEST/8d3e730b6f .

Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their
own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/993b85483b/TEST/c7ac59da35 .

Commit to withholding shame and in the face of negative behavior
affirm your child’s goodness at the core.

Attachment and Trauma Series

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I am pretty excited about this upcoming free series on Attachment and Trauma in the Classroom.  I can’t listen to the the whole series myself, but you might be able to or you might be able to convince your child’s school to purchase the recorded series for teachers, classroom aides, counselors, school psychologists and school staff.  I am not attesting to how great the material will be because I haven’t heard it yet; however, I know the point of view of this organization and it is right on the dime about how to heal attachment and traumatized children.
 
Very often parents invite me to Student Study Team meetings, IEPs, and school brainstorming sessions to help inform well-meaning school personnel about ways of educating our children.  I have written more letters to help support my child clients in the classroom than I care to count.  I hate to admit it. This material may be even better than a school visit from moi.
 
Here you go.  If YOU have school aged children from difficult beginnings, I hope you can make it.  It’s FREEEEEEE.  How great is that?

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

Our children are learning challenged.  
Let’s help teachers give them a chance.