Category Archives: Therapy for Attachment Disorder Children

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

Spiky

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Sometimes when I explain the effects of Complex Developmental Trauma on the brain and therefore on the behavior of a child to a parent, I get a quick push back.  It sounds something like this, “Okay, but she isn’t always like that. Sometimes she is perfectly fine.”   What the parents are telling me without knowing it is that their child is spiky.  That means there are skips and stops and gaps in development over several domains–cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual.  Spiky behavior is confusing to many people–therapists, psychiatrists, teachers, parents and extended family members.  
 
Some days my son remembers to do his chores completely and some days he doesn’t.  Sometimes he follows all the rules and sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes he brushes, zips, and puts on deodorant and sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes he is completely chill and sometimes he is molten lava. He has been like this for 16 years.  He isn’t being defiant, lazy, oppositional or deliberately anything.  He wants to please me and feel good about himself, but his behavior is spiky.  If he slept poorly, ate poorly, felt bored, had a disagreement with a friend, didn’t do well at school, felt misunderstood, had a nightmare, broke a rule, ate all the donuts, had a great day, is planning a sleepover, went to a birthday party, got a gift, didn’t get a gift…he gets dysregulated. Life is dysregulating to him and sometimes it isn’t.  He is the poster child for spiky.
 
Just to be honest here, spiky makes me crazy.  I can’t depend on my son to consistently do anything.  I am worried he will forget something important if I don’t check up on him–like leaving the blender on, letting the dog run out, getting really lost, getting stuck somewhere, forgetting his meds, letting the sink run over, coming home hours late, not calling when he said he would, not following instructions, misunderstanding directions, and the list goes on.  
 
So, what is the solution for spiky?  You aren’t going to like this: acceptance, understanding, empathy, and patience–all YOURS.
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.

Spiky is as spiky does.
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4:20 Day

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I’ve been down for the count with a cold since Thursday evening.  As I age, my bounce back time increases.  Sad Face.  The Happy Face part?  Since Thursday, I taught myself how to use Photoshop (very complicated and not intuitive at all); I listened to a series on neurobiopsychological research presentations (so interesting); watched the entire Sanjay Gupta series on Marijuana (I might have to shift my position on this, but not for adolescents); read nothing; wrote nothing; ate nothing; and did nothing else.  I am a strangely productive sick person.
I say all that to say this:  Today is 420 Day.  If you don’t know what that is, then you probably need to raise up and smell the skunk weed in the air.  If you and your children have managed to remain completely sheltered from the world at large (bless you and your tenacity), then YOU do not need to know about this until your child(ren) enters the world unsupervised for the first time.
420 Day is the biggest pot smoking day of the year.  FYI:  420 (pronounce four twenty, not four hundred twenty) is slang for marijuana.  The origin is a ridiculous creation from the 70s though most people are mired in mythology about how it came to be.  Teens usually have no idea, except that 420 is shorthand for “Do you smoke pot, have pot, or can you get pot?”  With the marijuana laws changing all over the U.S. and the world, everyone is going to have to reexamine marijuana as a medicine and recreational drug. More research will be helpful I am sure.
Still, there is universal agreement that excessive 420 use before the brain has finished its initial development (around 26 years old) can interrupt the healthy unfolding of the brain’s Reward System. Not a good thing.  You can see how sugar interrupts Reward System development in teens because they are driven to eat excessive amounts of sugar, fat, and salt and will go to great lengths to get it. That is the Reward System in full swing.
Anyway, beware: unsheltered teens, young adults, and many old adults everywhere are trying to get high today.
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.
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.

If your child smokes pot today (unless in recovery), it is a small problem, try to respond with a small and clear response.  Too much focus on what you don’t want, will get you more of the same–Attachment Challenge 101.
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Tax Day

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Be careful what you are ignoring when you follow advice from parent educators to “ignore” your child’s negative behavior. Sometimes we parents get confused what that means.  It doesn’t mean ignore the child.  It means ignore the behavior.  Some attachment challenged children have a multitude of negative behaviors. You could end up ignoring your child at regular intervals all day every day.  
 
If YOU had a bad habit of mumbling your words or talking a little too loud or too much or chewing vigorously at dinner and your beloved ignored you whenever it happened, how might you feel?
 
Ignored?
Hurt?
Rejected?
Shamed?
Angered?
Furious?
Reactive?
Rebellious?
Oppositional?
Bitter?
Unloved?
Disengaged?
Done!
 
Enough said, right?
Attachment challenged children are not usually capable of discerning exactly what you are ignoring.  They often take it to mean YOU are “mean” and they are bad.  
 
A better approach with soft loving eyes sounds like this:  
“I love you and yelling when you are angry hurts my ears.  
“I love you and chew with your mouth closed, Sweetie Pie.”  
“I love you and I couldn’t hear what you said.  Try again please.”  
 
Yep, say those sentences 15 times a day instead of ignoring your child 15 times a day.  Could be life changing.
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.
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.

Dear Parents: I love YOU and I need you to 
take better care of yourselves.
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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 4–Hope

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Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 4. There was once a time in my mothering life when “Despair” was my middle name.  I don’t know how I got through it.  Must have been some kind of divine intervention.  All I know is that I felt like an anvil was embedded in my chest and there was an awful vibration rattling me to the core.  I felt like I was going to explode, implode, or both; every day I had to white knuckle this horrible experience in a way that didn’t further harm my already traumatized children.  At that time I was sure my kids were never going to grow up and that I was going to combust before they made it to adulthood. I told you it was “Despair.”
 
Turns out I have a few characteristics hardwired into me that rose to the parenting occasion:  seriously die-hard work ethic, blind faith, and a belief in the healing power of love.  Together those things buoyed me when I was going under for the third time.  I didn’t even know enough to tell myself this, but it turns out it was playing in the background anyway: Just keep going, keep loving, and have faith in what you believe.  
 
If you find yourself living side-by-side your own version of “despair,” take heart. YOU are your child’s best hope for healing. Don’t personalize their trauma reactions. They do grow up. They are better for having YOU. Never give up. Your hard work pays off. YOU just have to wait for 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 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.

Hope springs eternal.
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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 2–Owning Your Own Sh#*t

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Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2 starts with “owning your own crap.” I have suddenly become very PC.  What is bugging me is my problem. 
Bug
My son enjoys talking to me a lot of the time.  He is doing nothing wrong, but it bugs me; therefore, it is my crap, not his.  When I get crazy irritated, it is my irritation.  He isn’t making me feel anything. I am responsible for taking care of myself, and, as a mother, helping my son see how his desire to talk can be annoying to others who are not in the listening mood.  His talking is not the problem, per se. My not taking care of myself is.
 
The solution might be managed entirely by me, entirely by him, or by collaboration.  If I were to handle it in a vacuum, I could walk away every time I am not in a listening mood or I could announce that I am not in a listening mood the second I realize it.  On my own, there is no way to make him stop talking or to have better social skills.
 
If he managed it entirely, he might stumble upon a social cue that could help him read the listener better, so he knows when enough is enough. He could decide he doesn’t like talking to me and never speak to me again. Then again, he could have some kind of sudden spring into maturity realizing that everyone is not interested in his every thought–we know that is not likely to happen.
 
If we collaborate, I could ask for what I need from him–some non-talk together time.  I could suggest we divine a signal to help him see that I am not in a listening mood.  I could help him see the social cue every time I am giving it.  If he has trouble observing the cue, I can go back to resolving the problem on my own–leave the room.
 
Making talking the problem is the problem.  Ownership is the answer.
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.

If I’m bugged, it’s my bug.
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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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Let the Negativity Begin

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Traumatized children bathe in negativity and think the worst.  That is a worldview shaped by trauma and hardwired into their forming emotional brain systems in the early years.  Then, in order to make sense of things, they believe they are protecting themselves from the worst, by thinking the worst, before the worst happens. It makes perfect sense, even if misguided.
If you understand this, YOU can be prepared for the negativity when it shows up, so you can avoid being dismissive, discounting and disparaging.  Those reactions on your part to their predictable negativity will prove to your child that their thinking is correct–the world is mean and unsafe.  See how that works?
 
I know it seems like your child at some point SHOULD be developing a sense of gratitude for what YOU have done. You might think it will eventually dawn on them that they are living a fabulous, abundant life.  And then it doesn’t.  
 
Take heart.  It will, but YOU have to provide safety and positive experiences to develop your child’s brain forward. In the face of negativity, show acceptance of the fear of the worst and with empathy encourage practice, accept missteps, and assure your child that you will be there to support them no matter what.  Do this a zillion times and one day you will see joy and gratitude creep right in.
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.

Accept your child’s point of view
 while supporting brave, bold movement forward.
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Coercive Therapy

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I read an article this morning about a psychologist in Oregon who primarily treated Reactive Attachment Disorder diagnosed children who lost her license and is being held accountable for wrongful doing after an 11-year-old child committed suicide.  I don’t know the intimate details of the case, so I am not writing this to you to say shame on anyone, her or the system.  I am writing this to you to say that treatment of children with attachment challenges is tricky and needs to be very thoroughly thought through.  
 
Be careful what advice you take.  There are coercive therapies still being readily practiced that have been deemed harmful to children. In the early years of having my own children I sought advice from many experts and the prevailing treatment for RAD was coercive.  I subjected my own children to recommended interventions, such as strong sitting for too long, forced calisthenics for punishment, therapies that demanded my children scream that they hated me, and lots of pointless hard labor.  I did this for about two years before my heart just couldn’t keep going.  
 
I made my children afraid of me through this coercive treatment.  I honestly had no idea what else to do and I followed the prevailing wisdom of the therapist I was seeing.  Actually, I sought many therapists who did this form of therapy and I did some myself. There is one popular book I still see parents come to me with that I have to dissuade them from using.  Every time I ask them not to use the interventions, they say…”But they work.”  Coercion works in the short run, but it causes long term-negative effects.  Trust me on this.
 
Over the years, I learned other ways of intervening with love and structure, empathy and understanding.  It is both harder and easier in the long run.  I had to repair much of the damage my early interventions caused, like fear and hatred in my children toward me. I did that to them, and I will be forever remorseful about it. YOU can know I have made my amends, but it doesn’t undo the damage to our relationships. 
 
Sometimes good therapies are used punitively.  Beware of your own desire to punish with perfectly fine interventions.  For example, it is okay to ask your children to sit by you until they calm.  It is okay to keep them safe by holding them until they can regulate.  What isn’t okay is using these things when you are angry and when you want to scare and control your children just because they are naughty and willful.  This is the tricky part.  It is not healthy for children to be able to hold all the power in a family, so a fine line is necessary.
 
Here is a link to what is called The White Paper on Coercion in Treatment that sets forth the standards for treatment of attachment challenged children.  It is long, about 12 pages, but an essential read in order to protect your children from misguided harm by therapists and by 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 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.

The truth is hard to bear sometimes. 
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