Category Archives: Parenting Attachment Challenged Children

Odd Suggestion

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This may seem like an odd suggestion, so bear with me. Teen daughters fare better when they are given structure, guidance, and daily expectations from fathers. 
 
mother teen daughter
 
Adoptive mothers (or any parent who is seen as the primary nurturer by the child) often, though not always, are the targets of projective anger from past abuses by birth mothers. During the teen years, when identity development, separation, and individuation are the developmental goals, teen girls often up the ante on rejection of their mothers and intensify their reactivity when being corrected.  
 

father daughter

Since reactivity is intensified in the teens years, it makes sense to enlist fathers to do most of the corrective parenting, structuring, and guiding. Teen girls can often take in information from their fathers in a way that they cannot from their mothers.
 
While this is painful for adoptive mothers, having fathers step in more can keep girls from running away, reacting aggressively, sexually rebelling, and refusing to do anything suggested by a reasoned mother.
 

mother daughters

 
The good news is that this phase doesn’t last forever. Young adult daughters usually come back to their mothers for guidance as they age into their childbearing years.
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

 
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Fear At The Core

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If your child came from difficult beginnings, YOU may be noticing that there is a fear at the core that there is not 

angry childenough, that they might be left or rejected, and that they have to get what they want at all cost. Despite the current abundance of their home life, that fear fuels many behaviors adoptive parents come to misinterpret as controlling, self-centered, manipulating, and calculated. 

 
angry teenLook again at the behaviors you dislike, define negatively, and work endlessly to stamp out of your child.  These things come from hardwired fear that has long gone into a perpetual, unconscious drive to survive.
 
Punishment for negative behavior is not the answer.  A felt sense of safety IS. Your reassuring parenting–safe words, soft tone, attuned understanding, empathy, structure, nurture, playful engagement, and willingness to be with your child when they feel unlovable and out-of-control–is the pathway to healing. 
 

Mending Heart

It takes a long time to heal fear at the core. That often expert-quoted equation–It takes therapeutic parenting for one month for each year of your child’s age to heal–is wrong.  It is just wrong. Your child needs constant mindful parenting.  Period.
 

Mother love

Don’t give up.
Hang in.
Your perseverance will pay-off in the future.
Broken hearts heal.
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

 

Quick Learner

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Mommy Dearest

I broke my Golden-Self-Care-Vacuuming-Rule this morning–in case YOU don’t know, it is: Vacuum Only Twice A Month no matter the shape of things–and I vacuumed a third time.  I have hardwood floors in my new house, so I am teetering on changing the Golden-Self-Care-Vacuuming-Rule in order to avoid the Retrospective-Self-Disgust-Bad Mother-Rule. I am weighing which one gives me the most grief–exhaustion from compulsive house cleaning or shame from being a bad mother with a filthy house. There it is. That is the dilemma.  What would Mother Teresa do?  
 
Never mind, that was a digression.  While I was vacuuming at 6:30 am, my son interrupted the process by urgently proclaiming, as if the house were on fire,  “Mom! Mom!! I’m a quick learner.”  
 
“Yaaa-yaaa right you are,” I say in my best dismissive Fargo accent. I’m sure my eyes rolled. His face looked slightly crestfallen and he retreated back to readying for school. Honest to goodness, I was just dumbfounded in the moment. QUICK LEARNER could only be printed on a little last place trophy.  You know. the kind of trophy he got from the Participant Trophybasketball team fiasco when he was 7 where he stood center court with both arms raised yelling, “Pick me, Pick me” for 15 games straight. Boy got a trophy. Boy is a tedious learner of the 10,000 drops of water on the forehead kind. Bless his little heart, because he tries really hard, but he is out-of-sync and that doesn’t lend to Quick Learning awards.
 
Still, after a few seconds, I knew what he was talking about. Yesterday, he learned three chords on his new electric guitar all in one day.  Feeling so much pride in himself, he wanted me to be proud, too. Darn it. If only at 6:30 am, before my second cappuccino, in the soothing roar of breaking the Golden-Self-Care-Vacuuming-Rule, I could have realized that.
 
Do over for Mommy Dearest.  “Hey Babe, I’m sorry. I just realized you are really proud of learning those chords and you caught on SO quickly.  I am glad you are proud of yourself and I am proud of you for sure.  You are a quick guitar learner (reframe).” He beamed ear to ear. Being loving is so easy when regulated (after savoring my second non-fat, half-packet-of-sugar, extra-frothy cappuccino with chocolate sprinkled on top.)
 
Ten minutes later, he was leaving for school, guitar and binder in hand. “Have a great day today honey. I love you. “And”…wait for it…”you might want to zip your pants.”  Yaaa-yaaa, right, a quick learner you are. I only thought that last part. I have some self-restraint. Teeny bit.
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
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Spitting Mad

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Spitting Mad

Spitting Mad

You’ve heard the terms spitting mad, fighting mad, biting mad, right?  How often do you feel this way in the face of your attachment challenged (or not) child’s persistent behavior that causes you to repeat yourself? If it is often, then you have to do something different!  It won’t just go away. 

 
Up the empathy for the hard places from which your child comes by mantras and affirmations:
  • Even though I feel this rage, I love and accept my child.
  • Even though I have to repeat myself until I explode, I love and accept my child.
  • Even though I feel this rage and shame about it, I love and accept MYSELF.
What are you waiting for?  Do something different.  If you take the time to say any one or all of those mantras before you speak to your child, you will be making the change you want to see in yourself.  That’s the only person YOU can change.
 
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT

No Room For Shame

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shamed boy 2If YOU feel abundant shame, YOU may inadvertently be abundantly shaming.  Many of us were parented with a strong nod to shame to keep us following the golden rules.  Sadly, shame IS an effective deterrent to misbehavior for some children–it leaves scares, however.

It was effective with me when I was a kid, sort of.  Actually, as I think about it, I just became more sneaky and ate plenty of parent-induced and self-induced shame pie, as a result. Later in life, I came to see that I had internalized all the shaming. Not only did I see my behavior as shameful, but so was I at the core of my being, shameful.

Everything triggered a shame response inside me–tripping on a crack in Dog Shamingthe sidewalk, being complemented, making a mistake, winning awards, being seen, not being seen, laughing too much, being too much, being TOO much.  My little children’s attachment challenged behavior caused me to spin in terrible shame spirals–“bad parent” shame.  Thankfully, it was my children’s behavior that helped me get over it, too.

Nearly 5 years after I brought my children home, I began to heal and came to a solid understanding (with a lot of therapy of course) that all that shame was unnecessary and that I could keep myself “in line” with love instead.  I could help my children find their self-worth with love, too.

Forgiveness, information, help from someone wise, love from others, from a higher power, and from oneself: These are all healing salve to the shame that binds us.

There is absolutely nothing shameful about having an attachment challenged child who has difficulty in life, but sometimes we parents feel ashamed by comparing ourselves and our children to others and only seeing the ways we don’t measure up. There in lies the shame. Self-love heals shame.  If YOU have abundant shame, get abundant help.  YOU can heal.  Your children can heal, too.
self love
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

Empathy Cools the Jets of Anger

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I am intimate with anger, my own.  My misunderstanding about the meaning of behavior in the early years of parenting made my blood boil.  I really thought my kids’ behavior was purposeful.  It “felt” that way to me.  Those were only my feelings though, not the facts of the matter.  The facts of the matter were more complex and required me to dig deeper into two things: 1) my own history and 2) my children’s history.

Once I realized that the attachment challenge and trauma suffered in my childhood and the attachment challenge and trauma suffered in my children’s early years transformed our normal brains into chemical turbine factories, I had a better way of understanding behavior, which facilitated the growth of my own empathy for myself and for my children.
cool your jets

 

Empathy significantly cools the jets of anger.

If YOU are too familiar with anger in your relationship with your children, then it makes sense to up your empathy through understanding the impact of attachment and trauma on the brain’s function.  In traumatized humans, survival mode is chronic and pervasive.  Turns out it isn’t really that hard to understand from the factual side.  Tornado

However, when you are swirling in a chemical spiral of emotion, it is pretty hard to see the fear at the center of the tornado.

Behavioral symptoms of a traumatized brain:
Emotional Out-bursting
Controlling
Inflexible Reacting
Demanding
Sneaking
Lying
Stealing
Hoarding
Arguing
Defending
Refusing Responsibility
Resisting Parental Authority
Defying Direction
Running Away
Distracting
Opposing

Freezing
Freezing
Freezing

Fleeing
Fleeing
Fleeing

Fighting
Fighting
Fighting

Fearing
Fearing
Fearing

Up your empathy.

Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • The Trust-based Parenting Course  ended last weekend and a good time was had by all, though our back sides are a little sore from all that sitting. Thanks to all of you great parents for your commitment to therapeutic parenting with heart.
  • Next Trust-based Parenting Course is scheduled for July 19th and 26th.  Sign up here.
  • Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend Workshop for Therapists and Their Partners presented by Jennifer Olden, LMFT and Ce Eshelman, LMFT is scheduled for June 20, 21, 22, 2014.  If you are a therapist and interested in attending, sign up here.
  • Wow, more generous donations have come in to help other families.  YOU are appreciated–Big Love. The Attach Place is embarking on our second round of scholarships for families with adopted children who need services but have no funding to get them. We used up the last of our scholarship money last summer and are ready to start fundraising again. This time we have a pie-in-the-sky, big, hairy, audacious goal of $25,000. If you have a dollar you can afford to contribute, that is how we will pave the way–one dollar at a time. Go to: Love Matters Scholarship Fund. We are working on non-profit status, so these donations can be tax deductible.  Yay!
 
Feel free to invite your friends and family to receive Daily YOU Time emails, too. Click here to sign them up.  All you need is an email address and first name.

Painful Realities

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Some of our children won’t make it to college, find jobs with reasonable living wages, or make life long soul mate commitments.  Some will do it all. Along their paths, they may struggle.  This is the reality for all parents and children.  Life can be very difficult.  Life can be very joyful. Attachment challenged children with special needs make these unknown futures especially scary for parents.

The antidote to fear is love. I believe this in my bones.  My own fear-filled journey with my daughter recently was instantly transformed by realizing I had lost connection with my heart, my love, in favor of listening to too many critics about how I was supporting her.  Once I listened to my own heart, the fear disappeared and I could actually be the mother my daughter needed–a present and loving one.  She didn’t need my fear-informed reactions and fierce boundaries.  She needed her Mom.

YOU cannot save anyone from their own trajectory.  YOU can only hold them in your loving gaze and influence by example.  You CAN surrender your fear and transform yourself into an attachment parent, who can hold the reality of your child’s life with empathy, kindness and love.  That is attachment.  Attachment is love.  Love trumps fear.


Love Matters,
Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • The Trust-based Parenting Course  ended last weekend and a good time was had by all, though our back sides are a little sore from all that sitting. Thanks to all of you great parents for your commitment to therapeutic parenting with heart.
  • Next Trust-based Parenting Course is scheduled for July 19th and 26th.  Sign up here.
  • Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend Workshop for Therapists and Their Partners presented by Jennifer Olden, LMFT and Ce Eshelman, LMFT is scheduled for June 20, 21, 22, 2014.  If you are a therapist and interested in attending, sign up here.
  • Wow, more generous donations have come in to help other families.  YOU are appreciated–Big Love. The Attach Place is embarking on our second round of scholarships for families with adopted children who need services but have no funding to get them. We used up the last of our scholarship money last summer and are ready to start fundraising again. This time we have a pie-in-the-sky, big, hairy, audacious goal of $25,000. If you have a dollar you can afford to contribute, that is how we will pave the way–one dollar at a time. Go to: Love Matters Scholarship Fund. We are working on non-profit status, so these donations can be tax deductible.  Yay!
 
Feel free to invite your friends and family to receive Daily YOU Time emails, too. Click here to sign them up.  All you need is an email address and first name.

Sharing Info From Kate Oliver, LCSW on Delight

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A parent who is also a therapist sent me this link explaining an issue that had been perplexing her about her daughter.  She found the discussion very helpful, so I am passing it along to YOU.


Find some YOU time this weekend people.  YOU need it, right?

Love Matters,

Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Day one of Trust-based Relational Parent Training.   Super great group of parents.  Wish YOU were here.
  • Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend Workshop for Therapists and Their Partners presented by Jennifer Olden, LMFT and Ce Eshelman, LMFT is scheduled for June 20, 21, 22, 2014.  If you are a therapist and interested in attending, sign up here.
  • Big HUG and APPRECIATION for the generous scholarship contributions–YOU know who YOU are.  The Attach Place is embarking on our second round of scholarships for families with adopted children who need services but have no funding to get them. We used up the last of our scholarship money last summer and are ready to start fundraising again. This time we have a pie-in-the-sky, big, hairy, audacious goal of $25,000. If you have a dollar you can afford to contribute, that is how we will pave the way–one dollar at a time. Go to: Love Matters Scholarship Fund.

The Grief Within

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I was watching the 9/11 Memorial Museum dedication today and had a wave of deep sadness overtake me from that tragedy.  Then, without realizing it, I was consumed in old unrelated grief and simply cried it out until the tears stopped and I felt done.
 
angery griefHow this unfolded this morning in me made me think of YOU and your children. Grief often plays a big part in the background of our lives.  Our children have lost their sense of felt safety along with original attachments and sometimes many subsequent ones.  We parents have our personal grief from wounds past and re-worked dreams for the family life we hoped we were creating when we brought our children home. The grief is deeply stored as trauma in our brains, one painful event on top of another, that lends to inexplicable, triggered emotional experiences throughout our daily lives. 
How this unfolded this morning in me made me think of YOU and your children. Grief often plays a big part in the background of our lives.  Our children have lost their sense of felt safety along with original attachments and sometimes many subsequent ones.  We parents have our personal grief from wounds past and re-worked dreams for the family life we hoped we were creating when we brought our children home. The grief is deeply stored as trauma in our brains, one painful event on top of another, that lends to inexplicable, triggered emotional experiences throughout our daily lives.
 
Grief is sneaky.  It is like the background of a Jackson Pollack canvas.  We often cannot see it anymore due to the wild strokes of everyday life, but it is there, lying in wait for a scratch on the surface to reveal what hides beneath. 
 
Our kids have a complex reality and they rarely understand themselves, their emotions, or why the grief in the form of outbursts, negativity, and aggression overtake them at random intervals when they feel deprivation of any kind.
If YOU understood the grief beneath the outbursts, perhaps you would be more compassionate toward your child tragically tantruming over not getting a second cookie.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Day one of Trust-based Relational Parent Training.  Super great group of parents.  Wish YOU were here.
  • Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend Workshop for Therapists and Their Partners presented by Jennifer Olden, LMFT and Ce Eshelman, LMFT is scheduled for June 20, 21, 22, 2014.  If you are a therapist and interested in attending, sign up here.
  • Big HUG and APPRECIATION for the generous scholarship contributions–YOU know who YOU are.  The Attach Place is embarking on our second round of scholarships for families with adopted children who need services but have no funding to get them. We used up the last of our scholarship money last summer and are ready to start fundraising again. This time we have a pie-in-the-sky, big, hairy, audacious goal of $25,000. If you have a dollar you can afford to contribute, that is how we will pave the way–one dollar at a time. Go to: Love Matters Scholarship Fund.

 

Long-Term Damage Is What It Is

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tripping 2My parents sent me to 9-years of ballet lessons because they said to each other often in front of me, “She is c-l-u-m-s-y.” YOU already know I fall a lot. Yesterday, I broke my toe by misjudging a step outside my kitchen, and this morning I nearly broke my face misjudging the same darned step.

I come from difficult beginnings of maltreatment and insecure attachment, and the scourge of c-l-u-m-s-y has been with me all my life. I also have to cut every tag out of my collars and buy shoes a half-size bigger than necessary (which might explain the tripping problem on a different level–ha) because tight shoes significantly lower my IQ.

While I embark on the task of launching my son into adulthood, I am pointedly reminded of the long-term damage from difficult beginnings. I lose sight of the effects on me because, after all, clumsy and itchy are all I have ever known. On my sweet boy, the damage is what it is–long-term and pervasive.

Sunday, I started on the process of chaperoning my son on weekly grocery shopping trips for himself. He was like a deer in headlights, and the truck hit him. The cortisol flooded him so completely that he couldn’t remember what he ate last week. Beyond what I cook, he eats the same 6 things every week of his life–milk, bread, chili, ravioli, fruit, cereal. He couldn’t remember even one of those things for 15 minutes.

Eventually, he recovered his memory, searched the aisles four or five times, and got it all in the cart. It took nearly an hour. When I asked him to sign his name on the electronic pad at checkout, I thought my computer geek son was going to hyperventilate. I can’t Mom. I haven’t ever done it before. I don’t know how. I can’t write that small. I can’t handwrite. I can’t. With soothing, persistence, and prompts to breathe, he did it just fine.

After putting the grocery bags into the car, I caught a glimpse of his smiling face. “That was easy,” he said proudly. That was easy just like walking and chewing gum at the same time is easy for me.

This is just a reminder about your children from difficult beginnings. They have long-term impairment that YOU and they need to understand in order to overcome with self-esteem intact.

Love Matters,