Tag Archives: adoptive children

Let the Negativity Begin

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 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.

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

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.

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

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Today was a sick day for me–migraine from jackhammer.com. I don’t know about you, but my sick days have silver linings. Both of my children are angelic when I am sick. They are helpful, loving, concerned, and attentive. It is down right weird. Makes me think I don’t ask for help often enough. Apparently, I am too capable. Only under the anvil of a migraine (and cancer treatment) do I become a bed-bound-blob. I think it scares the heck out of my kids, but it shapes them up in a heartbeat and they were trained by the best on how to care for people–me.

I think I did a pretty good job of modeling caregiving, because they are good at it. Makes me think about staying in bed all day just for fun once in a while–not really. It sure is nice to see their soft eyes looking in on me, their sweet tones of voice asking me if I need anything, and their persistent checking back. I love that. I love that they both have this wired into them.

Modeling love (even when you don’t feel terribly inspired in the moment) matters–we reap what we sow.

I read that somewhere. wink

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

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.

Look for the silver linings.

Annoying For Attention

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I have a number of children I work with who annoy for attention. Attention is attention to them regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Some attachment challenged children have difficulty being vulnerable enough to seek attention in a pro-social way. To do that would be to admit that s/he has emotional needs in the first place.

My son has mastered the art of the ridiculous question to get my attention. Last night he came into the room where I was writing with, “Mom, I’m wondering why it is that I really like to go to those swim parks. Why do you think I like them so much?”

Out of the blue from another child, “One time when I was visiting my grandmother’s farm the dog farted so loud the cats ran into the barn.”

“Can you see air?”

“I noticed cats have big eyes.”

“Can we talk? I have a mod and the thingys are cute. Can I show them to you?”

“Mom, I didn’t know you were home. Are you home now?”

“Why do I like cauliflower that way and not the other way?”

“The worst thing to call a teacher is Mrs. P.”

Really?

Our children need attention and they need corrective parenting. They need help seeking attention in a positive way. Give solid eye contact saying, I would love to talk with you about something more interesting or in a voice that I can better listen to or about something more meaningful to you. Here I am. Try again, Sweetie Pie.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

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.

Genuine connection is a skill and a gift.

Pigeon Holes Are Tricky

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What we believe about ourselves, we manifest. What we believe about our children, they become. Be careful what YOU believe.

All day today I thought my son didn’t get up in time to go to school. At some point during the day I sent a note to his school saying so. Then in the afternoon I texted him a reminder that no school means no computer. He texted me back, “I’m on my way home from school now Mom.”

Wha?

Because he woke himself up by his own alarm, left no crumbs across the kitchen, and exited kindly without a peep so as not to awaken me from my sleep, I thought he was still cocooned behind his closed bedroom door. I left for work believing he, as usual, did not get himself up and, as promised, I was stridently refusing to be his alarm clock.

My son is pigeon holed in my mind by my beliefs about him. It is wrong of me. He can be a good family member. He was this morning. Once he “gets” something, he usually gets it for good. Of course, there are relapses, but my pigeon hole is not going to be the reason.

What do you believe about your attachment challenged child?

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

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.

Believe.

How Trauma Works

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The brain records trauma in such a way that it keeps getting triggered over and over again, even after the abuser has long left the picture. Your child repeatedly relives the past in the present. That is the definition of posttraumatic stress, and Complex Developmental Trauma is attachment challenge plus posttraumatic stress. This makes your child tread as though the abuse is about to recur at the next turn.

My son recoils from me whenever I make a sudden move near him. I have never beaten him, but he is afraid I will because he has that memory encoded in his implicit (unconscious) brain from before he was two years old. My daughter, on the other hand, is drawn to recreating the traumatic experiences of childhood neglect in her adult life, over and over. She relives the past every day and struggles to survive as if she has to do it that way.

I try to support both of my children to rise up from the imprints they received during those traumatic times, but it has been difficult. Our work, as healing parents, is to help our children understand and perceive themselves as something other than victim, and to not be controlled by the ever-reactive trauma brain.

Building a new sense of self is monumental. Think how you would feel if YOU were tasked to rewire yourself from the ground floor up, childhood to now. Just changing one little bad habit feels impossible to me sometimes–Step away from the chocolate.

Your kids need YOU to keep your perception of them pure and precious, so they can begin to see themselves through truly loving eyes. That is a child’s birthright after all.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

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.

Taylor Swift and I Shake It Off every day.

Trauma Messed With Your Child

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If your child had trauma in the early years, then your child is still impacted by that trauma. Trauma is hardwired into the brain. Three specific things are altered by trauma: your child’s perception of self, your child’s perception of others, and your child’s perception of the world. That means that every experience, thought, and feeling your child has is filtered through the lens of traumatized perceptions. EVERY experience, thought and feeling!

Swearing boy

Go put your shoes on, Honey.

NO!

Here is your favorite snack.

I don’t want that!

I love you.

I hate you! And I will never love you! Why did you even adopt me!?!

I know YOU are tired and you find yourself quietly (or even loudly on stressful days) wanting your child to simply act normal, have normal responses to everyday life events, respond normally to interactions, and feel basically normal inside.

Guess what: your child probably can’t. It isn’t on purpose. It’s not because of stubbornness. Opposition is not the root. And defiance is not that fun. Trauma messed with your child’s brain.

Being angry and grief-stricken is natural given the daily frustrations of parenting an attachment and abuse-traumatized child. However, behaving with frustration and anger toward your child for a “brain thing” is harmful and negatively reinforcing to their already distorted perceptions.

self care

What can YOU do?

Don your Big Lady panties (unless you prefer boxers.)

Get support.

Take care of yourself.

Respite is necessary.

Seek

counseling.

Hobbies work. Weekly date night–a must. Tea breaks with friends save sanity. Parent helpers are angels on Earth. Housekeepers and landscapers are peacekeepers. Lightening-up helps. Ask for what you need. Take naps. Take walks. Take breaths. Take heart.

YOU are not alone.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

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.

Forgive yourself your shortcomings and wipe the slate clean every day.

Positive Experience Changes Brains

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Keep hope alive folks, because there definitely is plenty of reason to do so. The brain is capable of repair beyond our current scientific understanding. Play, laugh, talk together about real life things, so your child can learn about life the best way–from YOU.

Our traumatized children have a hard time feeling safe with parents, so they often cannot learn from us. Playing, laughing, rolling around, and acting silly together creates safety–felt safety. Felt safety is what allows a fragile brain to grow new neuropathways, new insights, new access to the part of the brain that governs memory and executive functions such as logical sequencing, cause and effect thinking, connections, organization, theory of mind, empathy, and moral reasoning.

Your child may not fully heal while living at home, but positive experiences change brains and move children further down the road to a fulfilling life. That’s really all we are hoping for, right?

Play more. Bark less.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop 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.

Practicing what YOU know is hard work.

Get support from others who are “in the know.” YOU will be glad you did.

Fear Strikes The Core

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Like a lightening bolt, fear strikes the core of our complex traumatized children in nearly all that they do.

Last night, I came home from work and walked in the door to my son beginning a lie before the door had even closed behind me.

“I cleaned my room, Mom, but I already messed it up again.”

In my world owning up to an ugly truth is difficult, but entirely freeing. For my son, fear strikes his core before he can think of the truth, so the lies shoot out in my face like spring-loaded slinkies–one right after the other in a barely detectable loop-de-loop.

Once quiet again and out of his fear-stricken state, for the 5000th time I asked him, What could you do instead of lie?

He responds, “Not be afraid.”

Well, can you actually control your fear?

“No.”

Did it occur to you that you could not be afraid by simply cleaning your room?

“Oh. Pregnant pause. “No.”

This is an executive function problem. Putting two and two together in a logical order is very difficult for some of our traumatized children. I wish it were different, but it isn’t.

For the 5001st time, Well, you could do your chores or not do your chores. Since you don’t get in trouble for not doing your chores, there is nothing to fear and nothing to lie about either way. Cool, huh?

“I’m really trying Mom.”

I know, Honey. I know. Just go clean your room.

“Okay. Can I tell you about what Mr. XYZ did today?”

Yes, three seconds after you clean your room.

“You’re funny Mom.”

I know, Honey. I know. Go.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop 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.

Repetition creates new neuropathways.

Brains seem made of cement around our house.

Control Is Like Air To Birds

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YOU can fight if you must, but control is the medium through which your child survives. Like air to birds, your attachment challenged child needs the predictability of control or a feeling spiral akin to falling out of the sky occurs that feels like sure death.

The overarching therapeutic parenting goal is to create a safe and predictable enough environment for your child to trust s/he is not going to smash to the ground when s/he lets go into your care.

My suggestion is to accept your child’s need for control as one of the basics–air, food, water, shelter, love. Little by little, show just how safe YOU are because you understand, share, forgive, accept and shape the internal landscape of their brains to need just a little less of it over time.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Workshop is planned for May 16th and March 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.

Fighting a starving man to give up his one slice of bread makes no sense.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Tag Archives: adoptive children

Let the Negativity Begin

Coercive Therapy

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

Annoying For Attention

Pigeon Holes Are Tricky

How Trauma Works

Trauma Messed With Your Child

Positive Experience Changes Brains

Fear Strikes The Core

Control Is Like Air To Birds

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