Category Archives: Regulation Activities

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.

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.

Mindfulness Is A Door

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Mindfulness is a door into regulation.  YOU can help your child learn to tolerate feelings, rather than try to get away from them.  In this way, the window of emotional tolerance widens. Our complex traumatized children have very narrow windows of tolerance for any heightened emotion, including excitement.  
 
What do you do to get them to tolerate their emotions?  Find a form of meditation the family can do at any time to find the still point inside themselves.
 
There is a fun box of cards you can purchase on Amazon called Yoga Pretzels.  I love this box because it is fun for kids to do. Get them to hold their poses as long as they can.  That is the still point. 
 
Sitting Criss Cross Applesauce, placing hands palm up, and slowly letting out a low key OOOOMMMM is the still point. 
 
Lighting a candle and focusing on it is finding the still point.  
 
Western culture is not very good at promoting stillness.  We are much more about distraction, addiction, avoidance, and denial. Finding the still point is probably the single most effective way to improve the quality of our lives–sit quietly in the still point 5 minutes every day and see how your life changes–if you dare.  
 
Be playful with your kids and tell them you are learning to find the quiet spot inside your mind.  Ask them to sit with you silently and see if they can find it inside themselves.  Do this for one minute every day for a week. Build up to five minutes over five weeks. When the whole family finds the still point inside their minds each day, there is a small reward.  YOU are in charge of the reward (make it small, but fabulous so they want to do it again and again and again.)  
 
Quiet sitting can compel mindfulness when dysregulation is at hand. Stop, drop and OOOMMM.  Hold it as long as you can and start again. Make it fun. Allow for silliness. YOU are encourage a bit of quiet regulation, then you can release your child meditators back to play–the real language of children.  
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 June 10th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
We had a fun first half of the 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  over the weekend.  Looking forward to Day 2 on Saturday.  Next course–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.

“…Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”  
                                                                     –T.S. Elliott
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Upcoming C.A.S.E. (Center for Adoption Support and Education) Webinars

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FYI: These webinars have been quite interesting and meaty.  If you register ASAP you could get in free, otherwise they are $25.00 each.

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Search and Reunion in Domestic and International Adoption
Product Description

The media loves stories about adoption reunion, presenting them as dramatic, intense and emotionally heartwarming. For those involved, the reality is much more complex. After a brief overview of the common questions and concerns that are part of this experience, Ellen Singer, LCSW-C, will moderate a panel of adult adopted persons, a birth parent and an adoptive parent. Participants will learn how to 1) prepare for this unique experience and 2) address the common relationship challenges that can surface after reunion. (LIVE) Thurs, May 21, 2015 @ 1:00pm-2:30pm EasternExtended Access: May 22-28, 2015Thanks to Jockey Being Family, the first 300 registration spots are free! Use coupon code SEARCH101

$25.00

Search and Reunion in Domestic and International AdoptionWEB109
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Emotional Regulation and Relaxation Techniques for Parent and Child
Children who have experienced early childhood abuse, profound neglect, or other traumas often have difficulty regulating their emotions and behaviors, lack the skills to self-regulate and also resist co-regulation attempts from their parents. This is the result of the negative effects of prolonged or reoccurring arousal of the fight, flight or freeze response. Although much progress can be achieved with attachment-focused therapies and parenting techniques, these interventions may not include a neuro-physiological component specifically targeting the child’s bodily experience of regulation or dysregulation. C.A.S.E. therapist, Penny Zimmerman, LCSW-C, will introduce message, relaxation, sensory and mindfulness techniques parents can easily put to use at home to improve this area of functioning for their child(ren). The webinar will include a combination of lecture, hands-on practice, and Q/A. Attending with a friend or partner is encouraged, but not required.

(LIVE) Thurs, June 18, 2015 @ 1:00pm-2:30pm EasternExtended Access: June 19-24, 2015

$25.00

Emotional Regulation and Relaxation Techniques for Parent and Child WEB110
Thank you for supporting The Center for Adoption Support and Education – a non-profit adoptive family support center. Since 1998, adoption-competent experts at C.A.S.E. have dedicated their work to ensuring the well-being of foster an

Parent Regulators

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If a child came from difficult beginnings in the first 33 months of life, then it is likely that child will have difficulty with emotion regulation.  One of the main goals of the parent/child relationship before the age of two is to imprint the child with an effective arousal relaxation system by meeting crying upset with soothing care.

If your child gets over the top when upset, YOU are going to have to help your child “learn” to do what otherwise would have been hardwired in the first two years.

How the heck do you do that?

1.  Stop talking when you see your child is getting upset.   STOP TALKING.
2.  Be a soothing influence.  Soft eyes, neutral voice, loving facial expression.
3.  Be a safe influence.  Kneel down, step to the side, breathe deeply and slowly.
4.  Be an empathic influence.  You must feel really awful right now. I am sorry you feel so bad.  Focus on your child’s needs, rather than your own.
5.  Assure your child you are here, s/he is safe, and that together everything will work out.
6.  Resist letting your child’s dysregulation gobble-up your regulation.  Without yours, there is none.
7.  Wait it out.  Safety hold if you need to.  Offer love, help, support, solutions when the storm has cleared.
8.  Calmly talk it through, listen, redo without shaming.

Then…get support for yourself afterward so you can be emotionally held.  YOU need that to stay steady and empathic.  YOU have a tough job.  Get some love for yourself.

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 May 13th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.
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.

The world seems upside down sometimes.  Today is one of those days.
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How Big Is the Problem?

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A HUGE part of self-regulation for a parent is determining how big the problem you are looking at really is:
 
tiny       small      medium        LARGE
Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room.  How big is this problem?     Hint:  tiny.
Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room at least three times a week.  How big is the problem?   Hint:  tiny.
Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room every day.  How big is the problem?   Hint:  small.   Yes, really!
You flip your lid every other day because your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room every day.
What is the problem?   Hint:  Your DYSREGULATION..
How big is the problem?   Hint:  Large.
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 April 8th. Come join us.  Online RSVPeach 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.

Address tiny problems with regulated tiny responses.
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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep

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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep.  Yesterday YOU looked at what is bugging you.  Today, dive a little deeper. Sometimes things happen to make us feel really upset, super dooper worried, or scared out of our wits. These things strike us at the core and we go into survival mode.  What puts you into survival mode?
 
Truth zone
Triggers send you straight to fight, flight, flee or freeze.  Zero to 60 and you are gone baby.  Write ’em down.  This is your work. When you see a challenge up ahead, regulate before you get your survival on.  That’s how you treat a trigger with lots of good fresh air–deep, deep breaths, space, and TLC for the tremor at the core of YOU.
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 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.

Know thyself.
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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 1

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I am so excited.  I must be, because it is 5am and I am up and ready to roll. The Attach Place is in “Love Matters” Bootcamp–Day 1–with a family of six from out-of-town. Bootcamp is an attachment-intensive therapeutic dose of family healing–no boots required.
 
Come along for part of the ride by trying on something new each day for two weeks that can help propel your relationship with your attachment challenged child forward.  Since it is Spring Break for most kids, this might be a good time to pump up the volume on the heart of things.
 
Day 1–Try This:
Get out a nice fancy piece of paper, giant poster board, or even a recycled lined notebook sheet (if that’s what you have.)  During snack time today, put a nice treat on the table and tell your child(ren) that YOU really want to acknowledge his/her “fabulousness.”  Then, proceed to write down on that paper (big and celebratory or small and humble) your child’s strengths.  YOU start with one strength and then ask your child for another.  If you have more than one child, have everyone contribute a strength for that child.  Repeat until your brainstorm naturally runs out.
 
If you have lots of children, this is a great opportunity to take turns around the table shining on everyone in round robin style.  Make it quick and light, being sure to stop before the fun runs out.  If your child(ren) gets into it, then make an art project out of it by having your child draw/color a picture of him or herself being all these wonderful qualities at once.  Pin it up somewhere public.
 
If this activity goes sideways, it will likely be because of shame hiding in the background.  No worries.  Take over, list a few strengths YOU see, and quickly stick the paper on the frig with a magnet. Your child is watching, so don’t let shame reign. Be proud. Be delighted. Be done.
 
See YOU on Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2.  
 
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 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.

Resist letting your child’s hardwired shame rule the day or draw yours out.
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Know-It-All

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This morning my son woke up about 2 minutes before his ride for school was to show.  Instead of popping up and getting clothes on, he ran toward the kitchen to take his meds like he always does. 
 
Whoa, whoa, you have two minutes to get dressed, Goof-ball.  Get dressed first and grab your meds on the way out the door!
 
Goof-ball stopped in his tracks, deer in the headlights style, then reluctantly (and very slowly, I might add) turned back toward his room.
 
In my infinite know-it-all condition I was thinking, This kid has no prefrontal cortex access to logical thinking.  
 
Off-handedly, I asked him, “Why do you think it is so hard for you to make a little change that would help you do something more efficiently–like get out the door on time?”  I wasn’t really expecting him to tell me his prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped.  As a matter of fact, I have no idea why I persist in asking these kinds of questions. One might wonder about the capacity of my pre-frontal cortex.
 
He said, “I don’t like change.  Change scares me, so that’s why.”
 
Huh, wrong part of the brain, Ms. Know-It-All.  He is all limbic all the time. Of-course, that IS the reason he has so little access to his neo-cortical functions.  
 
Ta-Da! Ms. Know-It-All retakes her slim lead in the I Know More Than An Eighteen Year Old Game we play around here.
 
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Change is scary for our kids, even tiny changes in the daily routine.
The Attach Place Logo Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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 sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.