Category Archives: Therapy for Attachment Disorder Children

2014 In Review–Wisdom For Adoptive Parents Blog

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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.

Milestones

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If your child is healing from Complex Developmental Trauma, ticking off milestones is a little bit foreign.  We know what two steps forward, three steps back feels like.  We know what stuck at about 2 years old feels like.  The excitement of seeing our children grow emotionally in accordance with their chronological age is rare indeed.

 
Let me share my delight last night at sending my 17-year-old son off to his very first rock concert.  I will be forever grateful to his friend’s father who said he would be the chaperone if I would foot the bill. I would have bought the tickets, stretch Hummer limo, and a Morton’s steak to get him to do it.  When my son came home this afternoon, he was all smiles and full of stories for me.  He is finally enjoying teenage things–milestone.  Delicious milestone.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 Hang in there.  Milestones do show up.

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.

They Will Not Just Grow Out of It

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A common thought for parents, when a child has certain problems or ways of thinking, doing or being, is that “S/he will grow out of it.” That is a very normal sentiment and it is often true for children; however, our children, our children with complex traumatic experiences in their early years, are special, with special brains–They will not just grow out of it.  Without therapeutic treatment and therapeutic parenting, they will likely stay the same and often get worse.
 
The very way the brain develops, builds itself, around early life experiences is the reason why traumatized children in large proportion develop emotional disorders later in life.
 
The good news is that there are ways of supporting the brain forward, unfolding the parts that are delayed and under-functioning. It is specific and laborious and it is well worth the effort.   YOU are going to have to trust me on this.
The Attach Place Logo
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Don’t wait to get yourself and your child help.  
Brains need guidance.
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.

 

The Art of Repetition

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You might have noticed that I say the same things to YOU, over and over and over in a bunch of different ways.  I do this because it it is difficult for parents to develop new mental models for therapeutic parenting, because you have to bust through the old template of how YOU were parented.
 
Our kids are the same, because their brains and our brains are similar. Depending on your early childhood and trauma experiences, YOU may actually have a VERY similar brain, as your child.
 
I say all of that in order to say this:  Therapeutic parenting requires a tremendous amount of repetition to create new neuro-pathways to replace the negative templates in a traumatized child’s brain. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over.  NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over.  See what I mean?
 
Your child does not need exasperated, humiliating, eye-rolling, hard repetition of a command.  That is nagging with negative attitude. That tells your child, “I am sick and tired of you and you are too stupid to live, YOU annoying, worthless brat!” Yes, that is how your child hears it, even if you think they know you don’t mean it.
 
Your child needs soft eyed, patient, empathic, brain-building, neocortex developing, repetitive interaction about how, why, and when something either needs to happen or something did happen. Build the prefrontal cortex, executive function of your child if you want them to make better choices.  It’s not what you tell them. It’s how you engage them that develops the part of the brain that will allow you to be less repetitive over time.  Your child has to be helped by YOU to use that part of the brain in order to grow it.  
 
Nagging keeps your child and YOU stuck in a negative feedback loop.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships


Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Engagement is like water to a garden in Spring.

The next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.

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

Delicious Reports

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I have the deep privilege of getting to know many families who are loving through the light and the dark days of raising traumatized children.  The most delightful part for me is getting updates out of the blue about the happenings in your lives long after I have stopped being intimately involved in your family shenanigans.  
 
This Thanksgiving I got an inbox full.  What I can easily pull together is a common theme.  Blood, sweat, and tears eventually fall away to delightful times of joy and love.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Keep the faith.

Love matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Take care of yourself while keeping the faith.

I Wish I Had An Attitude Adjustment Earlier

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I bought a panini maker.  Mmmmm, nothing like a cheesy/carbo-load to get the kid out of bed. What I discovered is how sweet my son is when he knows I made it for him, whether he has time to eat it or not. When he was younger, I would have pitched a fit if he lollygagged and didn’t eat it.  Then he would have pitched a fit back, maybe throwing the hot panini puck at my face. I would have insisted at higher and higher volumes that he NEEDED to eat breakfast, but why was I MAD when he didn’t. After awhile, I took everything personally.  It felt like these shenanigans were by way of gutting me with a fishing knife. I started to hate my life and my kids, too. This is the ugly truth.
If you are waiting for your children to have love in their eyes before YOU have love in yours, YOU will be waiting a very long time.  Oh, I know you used to have love in your eyes, but your child’s attachment challenged shenanigans drained you to flat, hopeless, and sometimes bitter despair. I’ve been there. I know. And, I don’t judge YOU. I get YOU. I am YOU. I am YOU years down the road.
When my kids were younger, I wish someone had bonked me on my head, like a V8 commercial, so I could have had an earlier attitude adjustment.
So, (if you need one) here is my attempt at a “bonk” on your pre-frontal cortex.  If you are a parent who adopted a child, YOU are their best hope of finding the buried treasure of love in that damaged heart (a.k.a. pre-frontal cortex.) Have I mentioned that pre-frontal cortex is my favorite set of words? Of course I have.
Here is the key:
YOU must make a DECISION every day to BE a loving person. Period.
No one loves the shenanigans of traumatized children–the mean, hateful, scary, snide, cunning, unrelenting, mind-boggling, mind-numbing, heart-stopping, shitty crap (clinical term) they dish up. No one is made for that, better suited for that, temperamentally predisposed for that.  So, YOU wishing you could give up, throw them back, leave them on a corner, put them back on a plane, or relinquish them is very human, understandable, and evidence of the magnitude of grief YOU feel to the bone.  I wish I could hug YOU.  I know you need it.
If you consider yourself capable of being a loving person, then be that in the face of adversity. Raising this kind of child is the definition of adversity. There is a payoff.  It is down the road. Essentially, your love is “paying it forward.”  It will come back to YOU.  Gandhi said it best,Be the change you want to see in the world. Be the love you want to see in your child.  It starts with YOU.
Shenanigans be damned, but not the heart-broken child or the heart-broken parent.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Love in the face of adversity is the definition of love.

My Hindsight Might Help YOU

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My daughter gets regular check-ins with CPS workers because her baby is so sick and, understandably, the hospital staff thought it was possibly due to neglect. Thankfully it wasn’t, but CPS stayed on.
In the middle of last night (the only time she thinks she should talk to me) my daughter texted me that she was dreading the visit from CPS in the morning.  I responded that I remember that feeling very well.
“CPS was called on you, Mom.  YOU never did anything.”
I am forever amazed at how little either of my children remember about the vast shenanigans that occurred in our home throughout their childhood years.
CPS opened cases on me three or four times–false abuse allegations, being on the run, living on the river, living with strangers, pregnant minor, etc. Every one of them scared me to death. I know this has happened to many of YOU.  And I know many of you live in fear of this.  Some of you have lost your homes, gone bankrupt defending yourself, lost family and friends, and had children taken away because of CPS allegations.
Oh, the stress and grief of it all.
Now that I am nearly on the other side of CPS’ grip (my son turns 18 in January and my daughter is 19 now), the PTSD has mostly faded and I am thinking about what I could have done differently during the “crazy” years.
1.  I could have parented with more understanding and less control. This might have saved me from some threats at the point of a butcher knife.
2.  I could have “seen” my children as individuals separate from me, and attended to their life experience more.  I never allowed wild, revealing clothes, colored hair, outrageous talk… But I wasn’t doing it either, so what was the big deal?
3.  I could have found more ways to soothe my own pain and fear, so I wasn’t so reactive.
4.  I could have joined with others more for support–online or in local groups with others going through the same thing with their attachment challenged children.  I didn’t think I needed all that.  Who was I kidding?
5.  I could have insisted on respite for myself more (though I have to say I did a pretty good job of this.)
6.  I could have shared my fear with CPS workers more, instead of being fearfully defensive. Yelling, You don’t get it!in the face of a CPS worker was probably not that helpful.
Hindsight, I know.  Some folks often feel I am hard on myself when I talk about what I could have done differently. That is not my intention.  I am pretty forgiving of myself, as I truly know that I did the best I could at the time.  I am simply hopeful my musings on the past can help YOU in the present (especially, if you are in the midst of the crazy years.)  
I know this in my bones: Our kids get better if we hang in there and give ourselves the benefit of everything we can find to support our herculean efforts.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
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The Quirks of Human Brains

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The whole Ebola situation in the U.S. tells a cautionary tale, but maybe not the one you are thinking. If you connect with the greater world via TV, Internet, newspapers, and magazines, you may have found yourself feeling a little worried about when Ebola is going to break out in your town.  Of course, it could happen (and did for those in Texas), but you are far more likely to get into a deadly car accident today, than you are to catching Ebola–and that isn’t very likely either. Just to be on the safe side, go knock on some wood (if you can find something still made out of wood.)
 
The human brain is quirky.  Much of how we think is based on pre-historic conditioning.  Yep, our brains still function as though something big and scary (maybe even hairy) is plotting to eat us at any moment. So, hearing something repeated over and over–Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola–our brains start being hyper-alert and a bit fearful to the point where someone coughing in public sends us running for our pocket-sized hazmat suits.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I am not making fun of Ebola.  It is a terrible, deadly virus. When unchecked, like in West Africa, it is one of the worst public health crises since the Bubonic Plague.  I am, however, making a point about our human brains.
 
If YOU are telling yourself over and over again that your attachment challenged child is going to grow up to be a criminal (because your child’s brain is pre-historically conditioned so s/he lies, steals and breaks rules), then YOU are scaring your own pre-historic brain to death, causing yourself hypervigilance and over-the-top parenting, and making the situation worse.
 
Pre-historic fear or love?  
 
Fear or love?
 
Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.
And nerves of steel.