Category Archives: Playful Parenting

Straight No Chaser

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No, I have not taken up drinking–much. Just wanted to inject a moment of harmony into your day (in-case you were having trouble finding some.)

Christmas Can Can

 

 

 

 

Straight No Chaser

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Find some cheer every day of the year.

 

 

 

 

NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.

Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

 

Big Bad Scary World View

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Without a “felt sense” of safety, our children with complex developmental trauma (abandonment + abuse) default to a big, bad, scary world view. Translated, that means very high anxiety, through the roof cortisol spikes, and super huge walls of defensiveness. Frankly, they are often reactive, verbally and physically defensive, rejecting, fearful of change and new things, rigid, and controlling.
Fear is powerful poison in the well of a child’s psyche.  It changes children from roly-poly bundles of silly delight and giggles into hypervigilant, self-focused and sometimes maniacal survivalists.
Therapeutic parenting is all about creating a patient, playful environment where chronic poor choices are seen as mistakes to learn from, rather than calculated misdeeds that need to be punished. “Felt safety” cannot grow in an angry, punishing family.
 
Therapeutic parenting tip number 1,000852:  Start every day anew.  And to quote Taylor Swift, “Shake it off. Shake it off.”
 
Love Matters,

The Attach Place Logo 3

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions. Click here for more information.
 
The next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

 Put on some music and dance around. Come on. Shake it off.

Halloween Bah-Humbug

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Halloween gets my Bah-Humbug going.  
 
Where did my playful, sense of fun at any cost, dressed-up fairy-self go?  Bah-Humbug. Dysregulation is a stir, so I’ve
strapped on my Nerves of Steel spanx (big NS on the chest) for the rest of the day, and will probably wear it under my clothes throughout the weekend. 
 
From too many cupcakes at school, through too much candy door-to-door, to no candy because “Honey, you are allergic to Red dye #4, Yellow dye#2, Blue dye of any number, and sugar–sorry–here is an organic, gluten free, non GMO, cranberry edamame vegan bar. YOU loved these yesterday.”
 
Be patient. Have compassion. Expect too much sugar, too much fun, too much cortisol, and a blowout or three.  It’s Halloween! (Yay. Bah-humbug.)
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
This is controversial: I allowed my kids to eat their Halloween candy as soon as I inspected it (yep, I’m that paranoid) and throughout the next day. Whatever was left after 24 hours was dumped.  Some years they were rolling around with tummy aches, but mostly they ate a little all day at intervals.  When I dumped it, they had had their fill and didn’t really pitch much of a fit.  To me that was better than trying to spread the sugar out in single pieces FOREVER!

School Refusal

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This is day two of school refusal for my son.  He usually is a school lover, but he has a new teacher that treats him like a Kindergartener (he says) so now he hates it. On top of that, yesterday he sprang onto my bed around 6:30am with his new phone excited to show me the new apps he had just downloaded on it.  
 
Drolly (I think that is a real word) I asked, “Are you going to show me the apps I told you not to download on your phone (because the old phone this new phone is replacing was corrupted by your downloading APPS!!!!!!)?  Bingo, cortisol spike–reason to refuse school for two days. Okay, I might have revised history right there. The parentheses implied I didn’t say that last part, but really, I DID!  Couldn’t help myself.
 
This morning I sat down on the side of his bed and asked him to open an eye, which he did.
 
“Are you going to school today?”  The eye closed.  
 
“It is beginning to smell like something dead is in this bed. May I suggest a shower sometime today?”  The eye opened. Then closed.
 
“I’ll take that as a yes eye.” 
 
Parenting is fun.  I am enjoying it immensely.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 I am not kidding.  Parenting has become fun.  I just don’t take it personally anymore–that was the epiphany that took me from parenting crazy town to parenting clown house.

I prefer the latter. It’s simply more fun.

Shake It Off

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Good Morning Fellow Parent,

Got up this morning to the usual:  Teeth, Deodorant, Zipper?  Close, but no trifecta.
 
Just have to Shake It Off with Audrey and Dad:
 
Shake It Off
 

Honestly, it has been one of those kid weeks. It’s definitely my house, because the same things happen every day, every day, every day.  Shaking it off is the only answer.  

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.

 When nothing else makes sense, DANCE.

Celebrate, YOU Need It

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I am a sucker for a good ol’ Snoopy Happy Dance.  Snoopy Happy Dancing is a time to cut loose, twirl around, be silly, act ridiculous.  
 
Come on, celebrate life with me.  
 
This is it. 
 
This is livin’ the dream.  
 
It is what YOU make it.  
 
Make some happy dance memories for yourself and for your kids. Give them one more thing to remember in their childhoods that is joyful, lively and without trouble.  It’s free, no ticket line, no sweaty heat, no chilly breeze, no clean-up necessary, no muss, no fuss. 
 
Just fun.
 
Have YOU forgotten how to do the Snoopy Happy Dance?  Here is a primer.
Snoopy's in the house
It’s Friday.  Celebrate with a little happy dance of your own.
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
  • Save the Date: Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend is September 19, 20 and 21, 2014.  Email for more information:  jennifer@attachplace.com.
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.

Slow Down YOU Move Too Fast

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There is an old Simon and Garfunkel song from the 60’s:
 
skippingSlow Down 
YOU Move Too Fast
You’ve Got To Make The Morning Last
Just Skipping Down The Cobblestones
Looking For Fun and Feeling Groovy
 
If YOU know this song, I am sure I just clicked it on “repeat” in your head for the rest of the day.  
 
Now do it. 
 
Love Matters,
The Attach Place Logo

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Favorite Sentence

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One of my favorite parenting sentences (I think I stole from PCIT, but who can remember such details at my age?) to get the kids moving.  I don’t know why this works so frequently, but it does.  It’s sharing power, so it makes sense that it works, now that I think about it.

Okay, time to go to bed.
Noooooooo!!! I’m not done!
How much more time do you think you need? [That was the favorite sentence, though I see now that it is really a question, my favorite parenting question.]
10 minutes.
Let’s compromise–5 more minutes.
Awwwa, okay.
Two minutes later, he is done and down the hall to the bedroom.

I know you don’t believe me, so start small and build up to bedtime.

cartoon momMy son has been home “sick” in bed for two days.
I asked him, How much more time do you think you need?
Uhh, I’m pretty sick.  My stomach really has been hurting.  Uh, a week?
Let’s compromise–you’re getting your butt to school to-mor-row.
It was worth a try, Mom.
We giggled.  He’s going to school tomorrow.

Wow, crazy as it seems, I have raised a seriously reasonable kid.  I worried that would never happen.  I often had so little faith in the face of so much fear.

Good thing I kept putting one foot in front of the other.  Just like YOU.


Keep the faith. Keep walking forward.
The Attach Place Logo

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Count down to the next Trust-based Relational Parent Training—May 10th and 17th.  Very excited. Really enjoy being with parents for these extended time periods.  Love it.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Fun with Boundaries

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Hi Sweet Parent–AKA, Child Whisperer,

Parent PlayingHaving fun is imperative for raising healthy children with attachment challenges. Play with boundaries is the way to go. Use your sense of humor and playfulness to teach expectations, social skills, and appropriateness. Stop the fun to set a firm boundary, when the train suddenly goes off the rails. Then, go right back to being playful. This way of engaging your child will help her learn regulation and to accept your wisdom.

Watch your own tendency to be sarcastic, dry, and snarky. If that is your style of play, you won’t be surprised then when your child returns your humor with sarcasm, sharp sardonic quips, and snark. I learned this the hard way. Keep your humor innocent and playful, rather than quick and cutting. YOU and your child deserve the lightness of being silly, emotionally safe, and joyfully engaged.

Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT and Mother
Attachment Specialist and
Parent Whisperer

Fierce or Funny

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Troubled Boy

 

 

Sometimes the gravity of raising an attachment challenged child makes parents focus on every last negative behavior as if it might be the one that sends their child over the edge and straight to jail in adulthood. Right?

Some of us are so incredibly scared by the constant behaviors of attachment challenged children, that we treat them like they are candidates for perpetrating Columbine or Newtown style massacres. Let me remind YOU: Those tragedies were committed by biological children living in the homes of their biological families, not attachment challenged children living in the homes of their adoptive families.

I am not discounting the “hell” some of you are living in. I know that is real, and continually threatens your sanity; however, the fear of eminent tragedy has loving people parenting fiercely and without humor. This is my point–playful correction is easier than it seems and super effective.

Last week one of my colleagues shared that her three-year-old son was introduced to the F-word in preschool and couldn’t get enough of saying it all over the place.

Swearing BoySwearing BoySwearing Boy

Since he is possessed with a three-year-old oppositional nature, she was quick on her feet to say in response to his superlative repetitions, “Just don’t call me MUSTARD!” Of-course, mustard was all he could think of calling out after that.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

We can get freaked out and fierce, or we can be playful and silly. Which do you think will support the parent/child relationship?

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT and Mother
Attachment Specialist

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.