Category Archives: www.attachplace.com

Mea Culpa

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My blogs have been irregular for the past few weeks.  Mea culpa, I am sick with a common cold and in a work/bed/work/bed cycle. How a cold can take me down when my kids cannot is a mystery to me.  It is what it is.  Still, I am sorry to be hit and miss with YOU. Hope the rest of this makes sense.  My head is a big red balloon.
 
Recently I read a quote by Bryan Stevenson that struck a chord. “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” When I was a child it felt like my torso was really an ever expanding bucket filling up with shame.  Only recently, one of my colleagues helped me expel through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a trauma reduction therapy) the last drop of childhood shame from the bottom of that bucket.  Free at last.
 
My parents used shame freely.  They never realized their message was distorted inside of me.  I learned that I was shameful; the functions of my body were shameful; my human desires were shameful; and, my childhood lack of self-restraint was shameful. That didn’t leave much to feel good about except being smart and pleasing my parents, which I found I had a hard time wanting to do. I was an attachment challenged child raised with traditional parenting strategies–plenty of shame, smarting smacks across the face and butt, angry punishments, and a lot of disapproval.
 
As you blog readers know, I wielded my own traditional parenting at my children when I first adopted them.  I still grieve my ignorance.  
 
In my bones I have  known my troubled children were more than the worst things they had done (something my husband had trouble grasping.)  In my opinion this is one of the most loving things you can do as a parent: forgive your children every day for the worst things that they did yesterday. Your children are more than the worst things they have done, and your forgiveness will allow YOU to parent them with the end in mind, rather than from the troubled place you find them at any given moment. 
A question for YOU to ponder:  if my parents had known I was going to grow up into the person I am, do you think they would have spared the shame and bathed their child instead in love and acceptance?  I know for a fact carrying that shame bucket did not make me the person I am today.  I am who I am despite the heavy weight of it.
What kind of parenting does your hurting child deserve?
 
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.

Shame and love are mutually exclusive.

Play Deficits

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Yesterday, I made my two adult teenagers (both formerly diagnosed with a zillion things including RAD and maltreatment) to leave the house. They had been indoors on some form of electronic device in separate rooms for three days.  I am not kidding you.  I only saw either of them when they came out to barely eat and even then they brought some kind of electronic device to the kitchen or table. 
 
It took them about two hours to finally leave, and they were back within 20 minutes.  We live in a very lively downtown area with sidewalk sales, people dining and conversating on every corner, and lots of bustling activity of every kind. Personally, that is why I live here.  I enjoy wondering around with curiosity, as there is never a dull moment.  That’s me.
 
If your child came from difficult beginnings and had a hard time figuring out how to play when very young, you can bet there will be trouble figuring out how to be entertained in the later years.  Electronics are the super easy go-to for our kids because all the action, bells and whistles are built in. There is an obvious reason to play those games–to get from here to there, win a sword, kill the enemies, build a town, or raise the score. 
 
Oh, our kids can get into plenty of mischief following peers’ shenanigans out in the world all right. They can even entertain themselves by burning down the house playing with matches in their closets, but they have trouble figuring out how to enjoy the mysteries of life, be curious about the ordinary or the miraculous, and engaging the world naturally for no reason except because they live.  
 
Frankly, both of my kids would have appreciated my taking the walk with them.  They love for me to walk the dogs with them.  Their trips to McDonalds are more fun when I come along.  That is because they have figured out how to use my brain to entertain them.   Yesterday, I was in bed recovering from a nasty summer cold, so I wasn’t up for it.  
 
The very best thing YOU can do for your child of any age is to teach them how to play by playing, and actually bring to their attention how to observe and be curious.  Observation and curiosity have to be tenaciously taught to our children not through telling (Go out and be curious! my fallback mode,) but rather by actively engaging them with their world. If they internalize these processes when young, they will be curious and engaged for a lifetime.  If they don’t, they will be bored stiff without their electronic brains in hand.
 
I wish I had understood the difference between engaging and telling when my kids were young.  They are paying for my ignorance now.  I am desperately hoping YOU can learn from my mistakes, or I wouldn’t be telling you this.  The engaging is up to 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 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.

Curious sounds like:  Look at that bird singing in the tree. I wonder what it is singing about right now?  What do you think the words would be?  Let’s sing some words to its song.  

It’s A Fact

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Horrible stress changes a kid’s brain.  Abuse and abandonment trauma are horrible stressors.  What adults may see as ADHD or Learning Disability may in fact be the results of trauma-related stress on the brain.
 
Research shows that the behaviors YOU may be living with in your children, such as:
slow processing
poor attention 
poor concentration
poor decision-making
poor choice-making
tuning out
hyperactivity
speech delays
reading and writing problems
lack of memory
are all about stress from trauma.  What normally acts as danger alarms, become alarms stuck on a perpetual fire drill.  Makes it hard to think.
 
The goal of regulation is to shut off the fire alarm, and only use it when there is actual fire.
 
Here are some systematic things to work on with your children:
  1. Calm down (easier said than done, of-course).
  2. Get connected (eye contact and hugs will do).
  3. Think it through (process what happened and how it can be different next time with practice).
Ready, set, go.
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.

Skill development is necessary to create new neuropathways.  

Tired To The Bone

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How familiar are YOU with these fun conversations?
 
Me: I was surprised to hear you went to the store Saturday and bought two swimsuits after we talked about your having two new swimsuits already.
 
Son’s Girlfriend:  It was Friday.
 
Me:  Okay, Friday, you bought two swimsuits after we talked about how you didn’t need new swimsuits.
 
Son’s Girlfriend: I only bought one.
 
Me: Yes, though you tried to get two and didn’t end up with enough money at the checkout, right?  That really isn’t my point though.
 
Son’s Girlfriend:  No eye contact and total silence.
 
When we returned home, I reminded my son to do his chores.
 
Son:  I know.
 
Me: Great, how about now?
 
Son:  I did one.
Me: Great, how about the rest?
Son: What are they?
 
Me: The same ones you have every day.
 
Son: I don’t have the same ones every day.
 
Me: Nearly every day then.
 
Son: No eye contact and total silence.
 
At that point I needed a little time out in my room to regulate.  Two adult RAD kids are enough to make my head spin, Exorcist style, over nearly nothing.  I must get a grip.  Do you know where I can buy one?
 
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.

Taking this stuff seriously will make your head explode.  

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.

Split Off Parts

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When children have been abandoned, neglected, abused or maltreated in early childhood, their brains physiologically hard wire their regulatory systems into fairly fixed and heightened states of neurochemical arousal. Essentially, they are perpetually geared-up and on their marks for a fight, a sprint, or an immediate shutdown in the face of real or even imagined hints of danger.  Not their fault.
 
Along with this biological imperative to survive at all cost, the child’s psyche is susceptible to shutting off parts of awareness in order to compartmentalize disturbing material into manageable emotional bodies we clinicians often refer to as “parts.”  When I talk about splitting off parts, I am talking about these emotional bodies of experience and reaction that can be in or out of a person’s conscious experience. Children usually have no awareness of these parts.  That is why they often don’t remember when they have done something awful to YOU or their sibling or their teacher.  It was a part of them, they do not yet know about, jumping into action, then just as quickly receding back into the psyche’s island of bad boys and girls until the next time.
 
I am not talking about complete splits, as in what we colloquially call multiple personalities with names and separate histories, though that is the result of similar severe circumstances.  I am talking about triggered moments of irrational meanness, viscousness, violence and vile verbal assaults.  I am talking about triggered moments of instant regression into a screaming 2-year-old, only the child is far from that actual age. I am talking about triggered impulsive acts of diving into pornographic darkness, sexual enactments, senseless stealing, attempts to kill an animal, or extreme expression of gory, bloody flashbacks.
 
These moments can scare us parents into survival modes of our own.  We become frightened of our children.  We start thinking in terms of good and evil. We pull back and self-protect. We start imagining the worst case scenarios and outcomes for the future. We lock our bedroom doors. We begin serious consideration of sending them to treatment.  Those are all normal responses to abnormal circumstances. 
 
While residential treatment may be necessary, it is not required to deal with most child “parts.” Trauma treatment is, however, necessary to help the child acknowledge and increase tolerance for the experience and intense emotions each part is literally holding for the child.  
 
In everyday life, we can begin to understand our children and become a trauma-informed parent.  We can begin to be therapeutic and healing with our children by being curious about what they thought happened just before they, for example, bit you, what they felt when biting you, and how they experienced the event afterward.  Identify their feelings to them if they cannot.  Ask them to feel their body sensations, so they can identify moments when they may be emotionally dysregulated.  Teach them about their own body responses and their actions.  Give them skills for managing these intense experiences. Be soothing, loving, empathic and informed about what is really going on and how YOU can be part of the solution.  Healing is possible.

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.

Don’t let fear get in the way of being therapeutic.

Deja Vu All Over Again

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First day of summer school.  About 5 minutes before the ride to school shows, I knock for the third time on my son’s door, and finally open it a crack to see if it’s alive.  Sitting frozen in the middle of the disheveled bed is an equally disheveled man-boy in boxers and one sock.

You need to get going.  Uh, what are you doing?

“I’m looking for my pants.”

My eyelids close in slow motion and I vividly detect a sandy burn around the inside landscape of my eyes before saying,  That is an interesting vantage point for your search, son.

The usual stunning silence.

Slowly pulling the door closed, I perk up saying, Okay, good talk.

School is on and I am in deja vu purgatory.  How about YOU?

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT

     Inquiring minds want to know: yes, he found pants and caught his ride on time.

          Why do I so fret his timelines?

The Attach Place Logo The Attach Place provides a monthly no fee Trust-based Adoptive Parent Support Group in Sacramento, every 2nd Wednesday of each month.  Next group is August 12th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
 
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
 
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course begins September 12th and 19th 2015 from 10am to 3pm each day.   Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.
 
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans.  Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment and 20 session course of treatment.
 
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to receive Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

The Great ChildCare Hunt

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

No, no they aren’t.

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo The Attach Place provides a monthly no fee Trust-based Adoptive Parent Support Group in Sacramento, every 2nd Wednesday of each month.  Next group is July 8th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins July 25th and August 1st, 10am to 3pm each day.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans.  Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment and 20 session course of treatment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to receive Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

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

Be The Leader Not The Director

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I have a sweet friend, Grish, who raised a great son who also happens to have Autism.  He is graduating from UC Davis on Saturday.  Isn’t that cool?

Okay, I am mentioning this because I am proud of him and of her forever loving support of him.  I also want to share something she taught me about how she handled his incessant, self-focused talking. She taught him she could hear about four sentences on a topic before she stopped being able to hear at all.

Lightbulb!  I had never thought of that before that day.  I could just teach my children to stop after four sentences.  That turned out significantly harder than it sounds, of course. Isn’t everything?

My kids both get it now though.  They talk enough to share and not too much to make me start to pull my hair out.  It took about a year to drive it home, but it was worth it.  

I love it that my kids both still want to talk to me, share with me, get my ideas on things, etc.  I also really love that I can stop them now after a few minutes without hurting their feelings.   As a matter of fact, when their eyes glaze over when I am talking to them we can joke about my having over-reached my four sentences.

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Logo The Attach Place provides a monthly no fee Trust-based Adoptive Parent Support Group in Sacramento, every 2nd Wednesday of each month.  Next group is July 8th at 6pm. Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required.   Child care provided.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins July 25th and August 1st, 10am to 3pm each day.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans.  Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment and 20 session course of treatment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to receive Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

When they talk, listen.  Just be sure to take care of yourself by limiting the amount of talk your ears can tolerate.

Freud Is Not My Friend

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All weekend I cogitated, marinated, stewed on letting go of everything, only I did it Freudian style, unconsciously.  Without realizing it, I set about divorcing everything that I love.  Started with trying to pull the plug on my sweetheart of a husband, moved on to my children, cut off a colleague, Dear John lettered another, and finished with a vicious hostile divorce nightmare (during a precious, coveted nap, no less.)  

Then, I got confronted (thank you “thera-friendies” all around me) and realized this was all about grief.  I am scheduled to put my best doggie friend of 12 years down on Monday and the grief is unbearable.  Unconsciously, I started cutting my ties so I would never have to feel this horrible heartache again–EVER.  You know, getting all the grief of a lifetime over in one week.  That’s possible, right?

I think my unconscious self is about 6 years-old, full of magical thinking and a desperate desire for chocolate.  The crying around here has been akin to a marathon meltdown–this time it’s all me.

I’m telling you this because unrecognized, unidentified, denied, repressed or ignored grief about the reality of your life since bringing kids home may leak out in other ways.  Grieve what is right in front of you or you might do things you regret Freudian style.

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The loss of a dream is painful.  It’s okay to grieve, as it does not negate the decision you made to love your children.
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.
The Attach Place is offering a weekend workshop for couples on July 18th and 19th, 9am to 5pm each day, to help you create the loving relationship you want and deserve.   Jennifer Olden, MFT and Certified Emotionally Focused Therapy Supervisor, will conduct a two-day Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop.  For more information, call Jennifer at The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships 916-403-0588, Ext 3.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course  every other month.  Our next course begins July 25th and August 1st, 10am to 3pm each day.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up online at www.attachplace.com.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans.  Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment and 20 session course of treatment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to receive Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

The loss of a dream is painful.  It’s okay to grieve, as it does not negate the decision you made to love your children.