Category Archives: Regulation Activities

Eyeballs

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When was the last time you said to your child, “Let me look at those beautiful eyeballs of yours”?  
 
When you do playfully get them gazing back, YOU can respond with a sweet, loving, eyeball-to-eyeball smile of recognition–I claim YOU, sweet child; YOU are home in my heart.
 
Soft, eye contact is a pathway to the deep heart of your child’s brain. With every intimate look, you and your child get a jolt of oxytocin and dopamine–ahhhh, love juice.
Eyeball Challenge: Consciously double your soft, playful eye contact every day for a week and see what happens.  I dare YOU.
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

YOU must claim your child first
before expecting your child to claim YOU back.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

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.

Practice Regulation

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Attachment breach and abuse in the first two years of life almost always instills an inability to self-regulate emotions in a child. Providing emotion regulation is one of the fundamental functions of a mother or caregiver for a newborn baby.  That looks like consistent caregiving in the form of meeting a baby’s survival needs to be soothed, dry, full, and safe.  Separation from a birth mother or abuse by a mother or other person in this formative time prevents the child’s emotion regulatory system from developing properly, which can cause regulation problems for a lifetime.
 
As adoptive parents or parents of children from difficult beginnings, our job is to understand, teach and practice emotion regulation with our children.  When we do this, we help develop parts of the brain that are underdeveloped.  We can literally create new neuro-pathways in the brains of our children.  Cool, right?
 
So, resist the urge (and the headache) to keep your child calm “all the time.”  Instead, at regular intervals (practice every day), purposely get your child excited with sensory stimulation, then help your child calm down. That is what is needed. Being calm all the time will not teach your child to self-soothe.  In a playful manner, amping up and calming down, over and over, is the way.
 
Ready, set, go play.  Fall down, calm down, and start again.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Practice makes perfect neuro-pathways.

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.

Sporadic Outbursts

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Sporadic outbursting is not a sign that your regulation challenged child is a brat.  Your child’s brain is developmentally unable to manage high emotion–sometimes.  Period.
 
Outbursting needs healing, not punishment.  
 
Do your best to intervene within the first two minutes of a meltdown because you have a slight chance of turning the tables if you do.  If you wait until the tornado gets on the move, you have missed your cortisol/adrenalin window to bring the sun back.
 
Intervening looks a lot of different ways.  Here are a few:
  • Oh, did I say something that upset you Sweetheart?
  • I know you really wanted to do that longer.  How much more time do you think you need?  Let’s negotiate that to 5 more minutes.
  • You can finish that game before you take your bath in 5 minutes. Would you like to do that?
  • Which would you like to do first, clean up your room or take your bath?
  • I can see you are very upset.  I am not trying to make you mad. Tell me what you need right now Honey? I love you.
  • Oh my, Mommy said that kind of loud, huh?  I am sorry.  I must have scared you.
  • (Touch a hand, arm, back gently.) You are safe Sweetie.  
  • There is plenty of food.  Would you like another snack? 
  • I can see why you are getting upset.  Let’s figure this out together.
  • I’m sorry.
  • I didn’t mean to upset you Babe. We just don’t sing during dinner.  
  • I love you and I want you to feel safe.
  • It’s okay to be angry.  Tell me what you are angry about.
  • Uh oh, tickle time.
  • Uh oh, wild hugging time.
  • Uh oh, stomping our feet time.
  • Hey Sweetheart, look at my eyes.  Can you see the love in my eyes.  I am not mad at you.
  • It’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. I make them all the time.
  • I know you feel bad.  You are not bad.
 
The Attach Place Logo Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

YOU are a precious child in my eyes.  Make sure your eyes are saying that.

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.

Up And Down Whiplash

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Our kids are in survival mode much of the time.  Sometimes they seem so “normal” and even recovering nicely. Then, BOOM!  A bomb drops and we are reminded that our children’s brains are different.  Their stability is tentative.  Our job is to stay steady, stay the course.  It is our stability that saves the day and facilitates our children forward on the path to healing.

I call this the “UP and DOWN Whiplash.”  My emotions are in a perpetual “rear-ender.”  The whiplash is profound.  Put your neck brace on and steady on.

I am a grounded, loving person and my children struggle.  That is a fact.

I put my oxygen mask on before assisting others.  I have to.  How about YOU?

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Breathe.

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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Good Morning Fellow Parent,

I reply to many email questions daily from parents with parenting questions.  I welcome questions in email, so families can get support between sessions.  Turns out, I don’t always understand the questions and offer less than what is expected; however, sometimes the replies have a universal quality.  This is a response to a recent email I thought might be helpful to share with you.

I wanted to follow up about that “glee” you experience in your (child) when he is blowing out.
That is a chemical reaction.  When he is blowing out, his brain is flooded with cortisol (stress hormone taking his prefrontal
cortex–judgement, caring, ability to respond appropriately–off line), his adrenaline pumps through his body (giving him the feeling of superman like physical power), and endorphins are released because of the over-arousal (giving him a burst of relief and, dare I say it, exuberant satisfaction) which makes him seem to ENJOY a good blow out while it is happening.
What you interpret as “enjoying the negative escalation” is really “enjoying the chemical process” of the blow-out, not the defiant behavior directed at you. To top it all off, this chemical alchemy is ADDICTIVE, so the blow outs become habituated because unconsciously he is seeking that intense feeling.
That said, what is the answer?   While you are getting him into recovery from addictive blow-outs, you have to do some therapeutic things that maybe seem counter-intuitive and like way too much energy to be putting into a kid that is old enough to do the basic tasks of getting dressed, taking showers, etc. Remember, his brain is addicted to blowing out.  He has been blowing out most of his life; it isn’t just for you.  You will have to do the regular, daily, hard work of re-organizing his experiences to replace the blow-out habit with a new positive addiction like relational, interactive play (the language of children).
Keep your emotions light and be playful… Give him the same chemical alchemy in a positive way.  Morning pillow fight to get his blood pumping? Game of tag around the house before a shower? Turn on some rock and roll and dance around like an idiot?  Tickle fest?  Serenade him with I’ve Got a Hammer?
 

Try it, if you think you can stay playful and tolerate the “up” energy.  You can get some replacement neuro-pathways constructed this way.

Love Matters, Ce
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Understanding your child’s behavior as a brain/body process, rather than a calculated, personal attack on YOU, is important to your ability to meet your child with love. 

 

$1 July 4th Weighted Blanket Sale

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Today Only!  July 4th $1 Weighted Blanket Sale. 

Get one of these for your child.  Works to soothe, calm, slow down, regulate and focus kids with sensory issues, which are mostly all children from difficult beginnings.
Weighted Blankets

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

  • Next Trust-based Parenting Course is scheduled for July 19th and 26th.  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. We are working on non-profit status, so these donations can be tax deductible.  Yay!

No Fear

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Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend where I found myself insisting that I have no fear.  She was doubting me and perhaps I protested too much.  Our silly banter made me ponder that concept a little more because I really don’t experience fear.  But why don’t I?  Then I was reminded how my children never seemed to express fear in the years following coming home with me.  They took big physical and relational risks, broke all rules, and seemed to be unmoved by my ire.  I came to know this as traumatic dissociation, because the longer I lived with them the more I saw how much fear and anxiety operated in them.  They were actually afraid of almost everything.

fearMy children and I have something in common.  We have all three been scared “to death” in our lives and survived to see another day.  That kind of trauma can have varying impacts on people.  Some become more fearful and others repress fear completely, thus NO FEAR (or any other feeling for that matter.)

Eventually, the feelings of fear must be uncovered, so life can be engaged with appropriate amounts of risk taking and caution. I think my children have work to do in this arena.  When my daughter calls in tears about how scared she is to be on her own, I hear the grief and work to soothe her.  My son still glazes over to avoid his fears.  There is more processing to be done for them to emerge feeling safe inside themselves and in the world.


So, what is my story.  Of course I feel fear, when I am in danger.  Since I am rarely in danger, I rarely feel fear.  I was scared to death early in my life and I think I did repress my feelings for a number of years.  In my twenties I faced my scary loss with copious crying that seemed to last forever. Talk about keeping my therapist flush with vacations for a few years. When the grief came to a natural close–my loss processed fully, made sense of, and incorporated into my narrative about myself–I returned to a life fully alive and filled with love.  That was my goal then and continues to be my goal now. I think living in love, without fear, AKA anxiety, is the outcome of doing my personal work.  I am grateful for that and for the ability to embrace life and accept it on its own terms.  For me, there is no other option.

unconditional love

Felt safety needs to be our parenting goal for our children, so they can face forward without fear and with love in their own lives.

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

 
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.

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.

Teach Regulation

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Sometimes we parents want things from our children we think they should know already.  Extrapolation, cause and effect, judgment, forethought and regulation are skills that must be taught.  They must be modeled, shaped, expanded, repeated, and taught over and over, as a matter of fact.  Yesterday, Play It Again Sam was my motto.  Today it is, Take Time for Training.  Take A Long Time For Training.

Nothing pleases me more than to see my son stop in mid-sentence, take a purposeful deep breath, and wait until his brain moves from “stuck on blank or nonsense” to engaged conversation.  He does this often without prompting.  And it makes me smile at him every time.  I usually give him a quick acknowledgement for realizing he needed to “regulate” and get on with the conversation.  It is a practice between us now.  I do it sometimes and he does it sometimes.  We are working together to fight our cycle of dysregulation.

I started teaching that breathing thing to him years ago:

  • Stop for a second, honey, and take a deep breath, so you think better about what you are saying. 
  • I need to take a breath because I am getting frustrated. 
  • When you feel overwhelmed, it just means your brain needs a little more oxygen, so breathe deeply a couples times. 
  • There is a big word for what is happening to you when you can’t think the way you want to–dysregulation.  Wacky word.  You should see how it is spelled, too.  Really wacky.  The opposite of that word is regulation.  Easier to spell. When I say regulation, I just mean remember to breathe.
  • Please take a breath so I can understand what you are meaning to say.
  • I am so angry that I need to stop talking right now and breathe.  I’ll come get you in a second so we can finish, okay?
  • I know you don’t want to have to do this, but breathing really helps.
  • It is hard to remember to breathe deeply when you are upset.  Me, too.
  • I feel badgered right now.  I don’t want to yell at you.  Please stop and take a breath cuz I am stopping and taking a breath. Thank you babe.  That really helps me regulate. 
  • I know you don’t want to badger me, but it feels like it.  Can you take a breath and slow down?
  • I just yelled at you because I didn’t take time to regulate.  I’m sorry.  I’m needing to breath more first.  Sorry.  That is my problem. I am working on it.
  • When you rush me as I first come home with your body and words and questions and computer, I get dysregulated.  I need some breathing time before I can actually listen.  Okay?  Can you give me a few minutes please?
  • Every day after I set my bags down, put my things away, and change my clothes after work, I will be ready to talk.  If you can make yourself wait, we will have a better conversation.  Breathing deeply helps me wait sometimes. Maybe you can try it. Deal?


X 10 or 20,000

breathe

Breathe.


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.

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.