Category Archives: Reactive Attachment Disorder

On Being Mean

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Parents are human, and sometimes humans are mean.  In the same way we would look underneath the behavior of our children for the cause, the root, or the trigger that fueled the negative reaction, parents need to do the same thing for themselves.
 
Instead of feeling guilt, shame or like a bad parent, find the root of your upset.  Only then, will you be able to make a change.
 
Example: 
The kids are begging you for a trip to the park.  You are busy with other things, but you decide to squeeze it in for them.  On the way to the park, they hit each other, run ahead, lag behind and make the walk to the park unfun and frustrating.  Halfway to the park, you get exasperated, pull up short, and say very calmly or maybe very loudly, “That’s it, no park!”  You turn on a dime and walk home with the children refusing, resisting, and shouting mean things at you about being a mean mommy.  You tell them and yourself that it is the consequence for their unruly behavior on the way to the park.
 
On the face of this it makes sense.  Not getting that thing they want is a natural consequence of poor behavior.  It just doesn’t work for what you are trying to get from them–better behavior.  Their stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) likely shot to the top of their brains blocking the meaning of the consequence. The way the consequence got dished out was mean because of the voice tone, the frustration, the punitive way the park was taken away.
 
I am not telling you to reward poor behavior.  I am trying to get you to see the delivery process of the consequence can be relationship damaging or relationship growing.  What was going to be a fun, nice mommy gift to your children, is now a punitive, mean mommy relationship sting to the relationship.  Your unmet needs and feelings can lead to behavior on your part that you regret and that your children fear.
 
Alternatives:
Squeezing in a child activity is not a great idea.  You will feel pressured, stressed, and less tolerant of the usual child behaviors. That often causes dysregulated, mean behavior.
Instead of getting frustrated on the way to the park because of unruly behavior, tell yourself the truth: your children are excited and unable to maintain the rules on the walk because of their dysregulation.  
 
Create structure before you set out.  
  • We are going to the park for a short playtime.  This is what needs to happen for us to get the most time playing when we get there.
  • On the way, everyone is going to walk together on the sidewalk. No running ahead.
  • Body space and listening ears on the way. Got it?
  • What did I say?
 
On the way, when one child gets away from the expected behavior, you STOP and say, “What needs to happen for us to get to play at the park? “When you do that, it is not keeping body space. Let’s try again”. 
You may stop 6 times on the way to the park for one child or the other.  That’s okay and that is why you cannot squeeze anything in. Time for training is required. Soon enough the children will get that play in the park is shorter when the walk is longer due to stops for training. YOU don’t need to tell them that.  They will experience it on their own. Let them.
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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online atwww.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.

Squeezing your kids into a too tight schedule will pinch your own mean behavior right out of you.

Be Careful With The Healing Heart of Your Child

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When our hurting children start to heal and they have a streak of positive behavior, beware.  YOU and your child are in very different places. 
 
Our children are not able to use “meta-mind” to step outside themselves and look back at how they are behaving. They may be seeing themselves as “doing good,” rather than “doing bad.”  They may be feeling safer, but their trauma is lurking right there below the surface.
 
Parents may be waiting for the next shoe to drop, as it were. While others may feel relief when there is a break from the shenanigans. That relief may trigger YOU to take a vacation from therapeutic parenting.
However YOU feel, be careful with your child’s healing heart. This is not the time to start traditional parenting, leaving your child to self-soothe,  using consequences, stop engaging.  Actually, this is the time to step it up.  Be even more engaging, more attentive, more available. Reward your child’s positive shift with the gift of more, not less.
Your child’s brain is better attuned to taking your therapeutic efforts in during times of peace.  If you go back to traditional parenting because you think your child doesn’t need it so much now, you will be unconsciously drawing your child into shenanigan behavior to get the therapeutic goodness back.
Make a commitment to be a therapeutic parent for a lifetime.  First of all, it is the most loving way for parents to be for any child. Secondly, traumatized children will always need you to be careful with their healing hearts–that means in good times, and during the emotional shenanigan times.
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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online atwww.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.

Be careful with the healing heart of your child.

Let The Super Sleuthing Begin

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What YOU can know for sure is that your child is from difficult beginnings.  Adoption alone makes this so.  The question I have for you is this: Are YOU from difficult beginnings, too?
 
I am writing a little book for adoptive parents that is requiring me to produce a biography. It is no secret to readers of this blog that I come from difficult beginnings, right?  Wow, do I ever.  Writing this bio has brought that fact sharply into focus.  Holy-mole, no wonder I struggled with regulation.
 
I challenge YOU to write a narrative, like a bio for your own book, about your early childhood through early adulthood.  You might be surprised at what you discover about yourself.
 
Here are ONLY a few things to consider:
  • Your genetic load from grandparents and parents–mental health, substance abuse, intellectual capacity, and physical health (we inherit a bunch)
  • Your parents’ situation at your conception (yep, conception matters)
  • Your parents were adopted or abused in early childhood.
  • External and Internal  condition of your mother when YOU were in utero–poverty, violence, stressors, trauma, unwanted pregnancy, unwed, unhappy, too young, ill-prepared, unsupported, underfed, unaware, unhealthy, physical illness, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, despair, grief, fear, shame
  • Pregnancy health–diabetes, pre-eclampsia, bed-ridden, hospitalized, operated on in utero
  • Labor/Birth–breach birth, complications, prematurity, NICU stay, emergency measures, loss of parent in childbirth, trauma, removed from mother by adoption plan
  • Adoption trauma at birth or in the first two years
  • Adoption trauma after the first two years
  • Maltreatment, neglect, physical, emotional or sexual abuse
  • Parental mental health problems
  • Single parent
  • Divorce of parents in first two years
  • Divorce of parents
  • Death of parent(s)
  • Death of siblings
  • Multiple babies
  • Large family
  • Caregiving transferred to others
  • Global crisis
Believe me, the list goes on and on.  All of these things impact your experience, your window of emotional tolerance, and your ability to regulate in times of stress.
 
So, when you are wondering why you get so dysregulated in the presence of your child’s attachment challenged shenanigans your bio will give you the information you need to understand.  A coherent narrative about your childhood is the very first step in changing the dysregulation in your home while you raise your own regulation-challenged child.
 
Be a Super Sleuth about your own life for a change.
 
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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins in October.  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.

Let the Super Sleuthing begin.

Quizzing Is Not Talking

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Quizzing is not the same thing as talking with children/teens.
 
How was school?
Fine.
Do you have homework?
No. It’s finished.
What did you learn today?
Nothing.
Talk to any friends?
Yeah.
Anything happen of interest?
No.
Why don’t you ever want to talk to me?
I do.
But you don’t. Why don’t you?
I don’t know.
Try a few of these:
 
  • I saw this funny thing on You Tube today I want to show you.  Watch.
  • I made this video of Rough and Tumble today. So cute. Look.
  • I heard you tell Joe you made an 3D intro to your channel.  I want to see it.
  • I’m thinking about things to do next weekend.  Help me find something fun to do.
  • Here are three recipes I’m thinking about for dinner tomorrow when your friend is over.  What would be the most yummy for you guys? 
  • Which do you like better potato chips, french fries or potato salad for the BBQ tomorrow?
  • Hey, I’m picking up Gatorade today.  Which flavors are your favorites? Blue?  What flavor is Blue anyway?
  • Try this chocolate chip cookie.  How does it rate in your world of perfect chocolate chip cookies?
  • Which band boy are you liking on right now?  Let me see a picture.
 
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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins August 22nd and August 29th, 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.

Maybe you could care less about You Tube videos.  
You can bet your child cares more.

Dysregulation Is An Human Condition

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When I was in school, I learned that a becomes an when put in front of an h.  Is that a thing still?   Dysregulation Is An Human Condition (today’s title) just doesn’t sound right, but a or an aside, dysregulation in traumatized humans is still a thing.
 
I was working with an almost 18-year-old attachment challenged, formerly maltreated, boy yesterday and I realized that his very, very, nice demeanor was really a dysregulated state.  Shabam! Nearly got by me. 
 
He was here for one chronic misbehavior; otherwise, he wouldn’t be back here, as he graduated from my care nearly 6 years ago.  I did two sessions of cognitive behavioral conversation with him and assessed for deeper attachment challenged reasons for his misbehavior, when suddenly a revelation.  He sweetly (not oppositionally) says, “I don’t know” to nearly everything I ask, as though he knows nothing about himself.  After some serious digging, he was able to say that he is nice and smart, maybe.  
 
Turns out he has a dysregulation “tell.”  When he gets a rise in cortisol (stress hormone from dysregulation) his face does not change one tiny perceptible degree and his body stays relaxed looking and still; although, he does become even nicer and seemingly more empty saying, “I don’t know” to unpredictable questions.
 
Now that I know his “tell,” I can help him begin to notice how he is on the inside.  Before, it just seemed like there was no there there, which is never true. Once he begins to notice his own dysregulation, the odds quadruple for changing that one chronic misbehavior of his from the inside out.
 
Do you have a chronically nice child from difficult beginnings? Investigate her tell.  Explore her inner landscape for hidden dysregulation that is keeping your child’s personality from blossoming or holding a few negative behaviors frustratingly static. 
 
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 September 9th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required only if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins August 22nd and August 29th, 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.

Our kids need help knowing what is happening to them emotionally on the inside, so they have a better chance of making thoughtful decisions and good choices on the outside. 

Stress Kills

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I know it seems like you have to live with stress because you are parenting children who present with behavior that is stressful.  That has a certain logic, but I think it is an excuse for not regulating yourself so you can be less stressed.  I certainly have blamed my children for my stress level.  It was hard for me to take responsibility for myself, for my health, for my stress reduction strategies.
 
Are YOU taking responsibility for your emotional state?  
 
Here is a suggestion:
 
Take your stress temperature at regular intervals throughout your day.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where are YOU?  If you use the Zones of Regulation, which I suggest you do with yourself and your children, ask yourself what zone you are in regularly throughout your day.
 
  • If your stress level is above a 7 or in RED, YOU have flipped your lid. Stop whatever you are doing and take a break.  Let the kids coast on a benign beloved activity (yes, even TV or iPad,) so you can breathe yourself off the ledge.
  • If your stress level is between 4 and 6 or in YELLOW, YOU are about to flip your lid.  Gather up your kids and go outside to run around in the yard, a park, or the gym.  Engage all the children in a rev up and calm down activity like racing then resting, climbing then crawling, screaming then humming.  Do it all with them until you are below a 4 or in GREEN.
  • If your stress level is between 1 and 3 or in GREEN, YOU are alive and living the dream.  Enjoy it and remember you need to do something actively to stay that way.
  • If you cannot even find your number or in BLUE, YOU are too low and in need of rest, relief, exercise, friendship, hugs, food, laughter, love.  Go get it now.
Everyone raising children from difficult beginnings needs to actively regulate moment to moment.  It is not a passive thing.
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 August 12th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins August 22nd and August 29th, 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 read this somewhere:  Love says, ‘I’ve seen the ugly parts of you, and I’m staying.’
I love being loved that way.

Harassment For The Greater Good

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It has been a long time since I wagged my index finger in your face.  Today is the day.  Take time for yourself. Have YOU made every effort to find respite for yourself that includes an overnight?
To quote a famous tennis shoe, Just do 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 August 12th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins August 22nd and August 29th, 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.

Respite is the key to long-term regulation.  Get some.

Grocery List

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I asked the kids, as I do each week, to leave me a list of food they want me to get.  Last week the list had only three things: peaches, plums, oranges.  All but the oranges rotted in the bowl. The oranges are still there. 
 
Today, I found this list on the counter when I came home from work:
 
Gater Raid – red, yellow, blue, purple
Waffles
French Toast Sticks
Mini Pancake Chocolate Chips 
peaches
plums
apples
pizza rolls
toaster struddles – strawberry
strawberries
grapes
pop tarts strawberry and cinamine
gonalla bars
bananass
cheese sticks
Top Ramon Noodle 12 pk chicken
yogurt
soy milk
 
Wow, they have got to be kidding.  This mad craving for sugar is amazing.  When our children are free to choose, they can make some profoundly poor health decisions.  Just as 2-year-olds do not get to choose their menu, neither should our kids because the taste buds in their brains are cross-wired.  
 
Oh, and no I will not be buying most of that list.  Maybe some bananass.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Hmmm, it has been a long time since I had a Pop Tart.
Maybe I am missing out on something… Naw.
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 August 12th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
 
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
 
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course begins September 12th and 19th 2015 from 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.

Hope, Expectation, and Disappointment

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When parents have children, from day one there are implicit or maybe even explicit hopes for them.  Parents say, We want our child to grow up and be happy, and in our minds we often have a template, a blueprint for what “happy” means.  It is different for each parent, but the hopes generally exist.  Here are a few unconscious or conscious expectations:

  • Do well in school (Get As and Bs preferably, but Ds are failing)
  • Be a good person (Character, faith, conscience, family centric, stand up straight and puts a napkin across the lap)
  • Go to college (Because that is how one becomes successful)
  • Get a good job (White collar job preferably because, YOU know)
  • Find someone to love (Normal, educated, employed, responsible, possibly specific gender, possibly specific race, possibly specific class, possibly specific religion)
  • Be loved by someone (Normal, educated, employed, responsible, possibly specific gender, possibly specific race, possibly specific class, possibly specific religion)
  • Create a family (2.5 children with mortgaged white picket fence–home attached)
  • Be healthy (Have nothing go wrong with body or mind)
  • Be happy (Look and sound happy because all the points above were achieved)

Children put a kink in those expectations and from the beginning parents start to fear, fear for their own hopes for their children. Here is a word to the wise: support the child you see in front of you, rather than the one you have in your mind.  Attachment challenged or not, children have their own trajectories for their lives, which may be significantly different from the one you hold in your mind.

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 July 8th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins July 25th and August 1st, 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.

Intimate, loving attachment 
is about understanding and accepting your child as s/he is.

The Great ChildCare Hunt

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I am really empathizing with those of you who cannot keep a good child care worker in your homes to spell you from the demands of therapeutic parenting. 

 

I had this problem early on when my kids were little, hanging from the chandeliers, but finally found the best thing ever, my adult step son, to take the job for 8 or so years.  Can you believe that?  Every weekday and some weekends for eight years!  When I look back on it, I owe my sanity to that young man who nearly lost his own some days while backed into a corner at knifepoint.  True story. He never quit.  He did not quit me or them.  I have the biggest appreciation for him.  Words cannot cover it.

 

As of late, it has been hard for me to keep a child care worker for our parent training events and our monthly parent support nights.  I keep peeling them off one by one.  There is no shortage of people willing to try; however, there is a limited supply of willingness to come back.  I know many of you know this story.

 

Today, I am on my umpteenth round of solicitations on Care.com. I’m glad I have that resource.  Overnight I have a new crop of bright-eyed helpers in my inbox thinking they have what it takes to step into your shoes for a few hours once in a while.  I hope this let’s YOU know that raising attachment challenged children is nothing like raising attached children.  Nothing–no matter what well meaning people say, All kids are like that, and such.  

No, no they aren’t.

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 July 8th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins July 25th and August 1st, 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.

 Hire someone with a special needs background, pay them what they are worth to you, and send them to a Trust Based Parenting Training.  I spent a lot of money on childcare over the years.  It was well worth it for the respite.