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Tag Archives: adoption
Empathy Cools the Jets of Anger
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.
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. 
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,
Love Matters,
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
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.
Love Matters,
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
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.
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. 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.
One Day Later
Moms, I am sure you are still reeling from all those pancakes in bed, bouquets of flowers, handmade gifts, and gobs of gratitude and love showered upon YOU yesterday for Mother’s Day. YOU are probably still lounging in bed with a cappuccino dreaming about it all–right? Dads, YOU will get your turn next month.During the Trust-based Parenting course over the weekend I spent a good bit of time helping parents see that their interpretation of their child’s motives for behavior are often misunderstandings.Here are a couple comments (paraphrased) I heard that you may think, too:
My child doesn’t value anything she has because she doesn’t care when I take her stuff away.
My child isn’t scared of anything so I have to be a drill sergeant.
My child doesn’t love me because she doesn’t even refer to me as her mother.It is an innate human drive to attach, love, and be loved. Similarly, an innate human response to the fear following a loss of attachment (compounded when there is maltreatment) is elevated survival instincts–fight, flight or freeze.
My child doesn’t value anything she has because she doesn’t care when I take her stuff away.
My child isn’t scared of anything so I have to be a drill sergeant.
My child doesn’t love me because she doesn’t even refer to me as her mother.It is an innate human drive to attach, love, and be loved. Similarly, an innate human response to the fear following a loss of attachment (compounded when there is maltreatment) is elevated survival instincts–fight, flight or freeze.
If your child comes from difficult beginnings, most of the negative things YOU think about why your child is tantruming, not caring, not responding, or rejecting is a misinterpretation of a fight, flight or freeze survival/trauma reaction.
So here is the most accurate interpretation of nearly all persistent, negative, confusing behavior: Our kids are stuck on surviving, which makes them seem uncaring about anything beyond themselves. They care about everything, just not more than their own survival.
Love Matters,
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
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.
Attachment Panic
Attachment panic in our children is painful and scary. It occurs when insecurely attached children are triggered by some kind of deprivation–major or minor, real or perceived–to experience abandonment at the core of their being. When the child feels that core abandonment, s/he goes into survival mode–fight, flight or freeze–because at least once, and often many times in the past, s/he endured the bone chilling fear of eminent death by abandonment.
What you need to know is that YOU cannot always prevent this kind of triggered panic. Over time YOU can build in your child a felt sense of safety by creating a safe, sensory-rich environment, being a safe and attuned parent, and helping your child understand that manipulation, excessive control and violence are misguided ways to get connection. It takes a long time to turn this around and heal the wounds. Keep the faith. Healing happens with consistent therapeutic parenting.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
UPCOMING EVENTS:
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.
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th. It is close to full already, so go to www.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.
Check out our three blogs:
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.
Loving Restraint
This weekend The Attach Place held a small and wonderful Hold Me Tight Workshop for parents like YOU. A good time was had by all, except one little guy who I ended up restraining. Yep, you heard it here. I had to restrain one of the children in child-care who was harming his siblings and himself. It had been a long time since I held a child “against his will,” which is a terrible feeling. Sometimes holding is the only way to keep everyone safe.
In that moment I was hurled back in time when restraining my children was a daily event. While I was stroking the forehead of this little boy to soothe him, I was filled with love for him and his parents. Simultaneously, I felt a kind of forgiveness wash over me for the mother I had to be 10 years ago.
We do what we have to do. Shame is not required.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th. It is close to full already, so go to www.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.
Check out our three blogs:
State Dependent Learning
State-dependent memory, or state-dependent learning is the biological process through which memory retrieval is heightened and most efficient when an individual is in the same state of being (consciousness, mood, emotion) as they were when the memory was formed. Context-dependent learning is the process through which memory retrieval is heightened when an individual is in the same place or environment as they were when the memory was formed.
When your child is ALWAYS reactive in specific places or ALWAYS reactive when hungry, then your are likely dealing with a combination of things, and state-dependent learning and context-dependent learning may be at work.
So?
Well, this means you have some additional ways of helping your child recall what they have learned previously about managing their emotions, such as using their words or taking a breath.
Example for hunger reactive child: Proactively give healthy snacks at two hour intervals to prevent the internal state of hunger which triggers reactivity.
Example for a school reactive child: Play some happy music at home while teaching your child to deep breathe. Then, on the way to school in the car play the same happy music and practice deep breathing.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Our children have a story they tell themselves. Do you know what your child’s internal story is? You might hear it leaking out in times of emotional upheaval: Nobody likes me. I never get what I want. It’s too hard. I can’t. You don’t love me. I don’t love anybody. I hate myself. I hate everyone. I can do it without anyone’s help. I don’t need you. I don’t need love. I hate love.
Having a coherent narrative is one of the keys to mental health. Whenever you can, tell your child the story you want them to tell themselves inside. YOU don’t need to make anything up. Your child is precious, loved, planned, wanted, adored, valued, appreciated, and special. Make sure you say these things all the time–10,000 times to make a new neuro-pathway.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
PTSD + Attachment Challenge = Complex Developmental Trauma
Children who have been traumatized by maltreatment of neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and/or exposure to various forms of environmental toxins and violence, plus they have been taken from their birth mother in the first few years have Complex Developmental Trauma. YOU or your therapist won’t find that in the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual for diagnosing mental health conditions) because it hasn’t been accepted into that tome yet. There is a long, laborious process to get any new diagnosis into the manual, so it will be years before Complex Developmental Trauma Disorder can be diagnosed officially.
That doesn’t mean that it cannot be known and treated. If your child has been diagnosed with PTSD and has attachment breaches, then very likely Complex Developmental Trauma is a more accurate diagnosis. YOU might ask why that distinction is important. The number one reason is so that your child will get the most effective treatment for what is actually going on.
So many of my young clients have been misdiagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and half diagnosed with PTSD. They have received every kind of intervention under the sun–PCIT, CBT, DBT, Trauma Focus-CBT, hospitalization, stimulant medications, medical restraint medications, various behavioral (stick and carrot) programs, and best buddy supports. There is a place for these interventions, but you can be sure that none of them will be effective without a comprehensive approach that includes sensory interventions, therapeutic environmental interventions, attachment therapy based on relationship and play, narrative therapy that builds a coherent personal story, brain-based therapeutic parenting, parent support and treatment for early trauma, and child trauma therapy to bring down the child’s anxiety that “looks” like ADHD, but isn’t.
Just thought YOU might like to know.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS:
Get more information and reserve your spot here for our upcomingHold Me Tight Couples Workshop for Parents of Adopted, Attachment Challenged, and/or Special Needs Children in Sacramento, CA on April 25th, 26th and 27th.
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th. It is close to full already, so go to www.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.
Check out our three blogs:
Wisdom For Adoptive Parents 