Tag Archives: adoptive children

Know-It-All

Leave a reply
This morning my son woke up about 2 minutes before his ride for school was to show.  Instead of popping up and getting clothes on, he ran toward the kitchen to take his meds like he always does. 
 
Whoa, whoa, you have two minutes to get dressed, Goof-ball.  Get dressed first and grab your meds on the way out the door!
 
Goof-ball stopped in his tracks, deer in the headlights style, then reluctantly (and very slowly, I might add) turned back toward his room.
 
In my infinite know-it-all condition I was thinking, This kid has no prefrontal cortex access to logical thinking.  
 
Off-handedly, I asked him, “Why do you think it is so hard for you to make a little change that would help you do something more efficiently–like get out the door on time?”  I wasn’t really expecting him to tell me his prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped.  As a matter of fact, I have no idea why I persist in asking these kinds of questions. One might wonder about the capacity of my pre-frontal cortex.
 
He said, “I don’t like change.  Change scares me, so that’s why.”
 
Huh, wrong part of the brain, Ms. Know-It-All.  He is all limbic all the time. Of-course, that IS the reason he has so little access to his neo-cortical functions.  
 
Ta-Da! Ms. Know-It-All retakes her slim lead in the I Know More Than An Eighteen Year Old Game we play around here.
 
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Change is scary for our kids, even tiny changes in the daily routine.
The Attach Place Logo Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

Once Upon A Time

Leave a reply
Everyone needs to make sense of their lives.  Our children especially need to understand their own stories.  Until they do fully, tell them stories.  Once upon a time stories…  I remember when stories…  Moral of the story stories… Happy ending stories… I’ll start and you add-on stories… Alternative ending stories… When I was little stories…  My grandfather stories…  Hero stories… Good vs. Evil stories… Tell me a story about your day stories…  When you were a baby, I bet stories… One time stories… Bedtime stories… Daytime stories…  Story for the sake of stories stories…
 
Children love stories, whether you make them up, repeat a few, co-create them, imagine them, write them, share them, re-tell them, or listen to them.  Do more of what your children love.
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Children love stories.
The Attach Place Logo Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

Who Needs the Therapy?

Leave a reply

Parents often call my office looking for therapy for their attachment challenged child(ren). When I share our comprehensive family approach, many are accepting and excited. Some however are white-knuckling every day, worn out to the core, and reluctant to put in even an ounce more energy. These parents are desperate to get help for their child and they focus on that.

He never does what I tell him to do.
She only cares about herself.
Something is wrong with him.
She sneaks around all the time.
He steals things from everyone.
She doesn’t have a conscience.
He lies about everything.
She is grieving about her past.
He is negative all the time.
She doesn’t care about anything.
He hurts his brother.
She hates me and her life.
He is self-centered and disrespectful.
S/He needs therapy.

I have no doubt.

Here is what I see in the room with me:

YOU are hurt.
YOU are triggered.
YOU are reactive.
YOU are adversarial.
YOU are resentful.
YOU are grieving.
YOU are angry.
YOU are depressed.
YOU are dysregulated.
YOU are exhausted.
YOU feel hopeless.
YOU need therapy.

Your whole family needs help, because YOU are the healer for your own child. Therapy isn’t effective without YOU.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

When YOU have trouble finding yourself,
YOU need help.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th. Save the date.

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.

Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.

YOU Are Scary

Leave a reply
Ever wonder why your children from hard places are more shenanigan prone with YOU than with any other person?  Doesn’t it seem sometimes like your mere presence in a room invites behavior that your mother-in-law swears didn’t happen all day until YOU showed up?  Doesn’t it feel like all of these shenanigans are your fault or directed at YOU?  After all they are mostly happening when you are there.  
 
Okay, I give you credit for knowing the ins and outs of this. I know you know it is because they come from difficult beginnings and have been hurt and abandoned by the beloved.  Just to drive it home–truth be told–the real reason is simple: YOU are scary. Yep it is YOU. YOU, the current attachment object.
 
Attachment is scary.  Have you ever had the feeling that you might be falling in love and really needing someone before you know for sure they feel the same way?  Ever been hurt by someone you trusted wholeheartedly and then felt guarded and apprehensive about the next relationship?  Ever act completely a fool in the presence of someone you gave yourself to, but the relationship deal has not been struck yet?  Ever found yourself doing shenanigans that you are not proud of out of insecurity or fear of loss?  See, attachment is scary; and, you are an adult.
 
You and your child from difficult beginnings are in the scary dance of attachment.  It takes a long time for any human to give their heart vulnerably and securely to another.  If you come from your own difficult beginnings you can multiply that vulnerability by 10 or so. Our kids are right there.
 
It is NOT your fault.  It is your gift to them to hold steady, keep dancing, and be the safety, the love they don’t yet trust exists in the world.
 
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love the way you want to be loved–wholeheartedly.
The Attach Place Logo Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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.

Eyeballs

Leave a reply
When was the last time you said to your child, “Let me look at those beautiful eyeballs of yours”?  
 
When you do playfully get them gazing back, YOU can respond with a sweet, loving, eyeball-to-eyeball smile of recognition–I claim YOU, sweet child; YOU are home in my heart.
 
Soft, eye contact is a pathway to the deep heart of your child’s brain. With every intimate look, you and your child get a jolt of oxytocin and dopamine–ahhhh, love juice.
Eyeball Challenge: Consciously double your soft, playful eye contact every day for a week and see what happens.  I dare YOU.
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

YOU must claim your child first
before expecting your child to claim YOU back.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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.

It’s A Lying Shame

Leave a reply
Being a card-carrying resident of “Crazy Town,” it became very clear to me that most of my children’s wacky shenanigans were about their compulsive defense against feeling shame that plagued them. The currency of our Crazy Town was nonsensical lying, sneaking, never taking responsibility, blaming, minimizing, excuse making, and becoming zero-to-60 enraged when hiding from the truth is impossible. 
 
Sometimes it is hard for parents of attachment challenged and traumatized children to pull out of the insanity long enough to empathize with how painfully horrible it feels for a child to dip into overwhelming feelings of being “bad, hopeless, worthless and unlovable.”  After all, they think their own birth parents didn’t love them enough to hold them precious, hold them emotionally, or simply hold a safe and stable space for them to grow up with a true sense of self-worth.  On top of that, some of our children were harshly and excessively disciplined; they were left alone and punished with isolation; they were rejected through love-withholding and emotional cruelty; relationship repair non-existent; they were criticized for their child-like thinking, feelings and desires; and, finally, they were abandoned, thus internalizing the destruction of their birth family as “their own fault.”
Every child experiences small amounts of normally occurring shame in the first few years of life following moderate Mommy and Daddy hairy-eyeball correction. That short loss of closeness during correction helps a child develop an internalized sense of right from wrong.  These experiences of shame followed by experiences of parental repair allow normal development of socially acceptable guilt and remorse for behavior that is harmful. Excessive shame defenses in children cause an extreme self-centeredness that ultimately prevents the development of empathy for others and appropriate guilt accompanied by responsibility-taking for actions that have harmed.  My kids were never wrong or totally wrong. Sound familiar?
When shame is acknowledged, negative feelings embraced, and regular repairs are made by loving parents, our wounded children slowly develop what we call conscience.
Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Too much shame causes 
compulsive, self-centered avoidance of accepting responsibility.
It’s a lying shame.
The Attach Place Logo Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
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.

Parent Healers

Leave a reply

There is a place for therapy for attachment challenged children, but only after parents have regulated themselves, adjusted their parenting practices, and addressed their own childhood wounds. Without consistent emotional safety in the family home, traumatized children cannot do the work YOU might want them to do.

For example, chronic control, lying, defiance, manipulation, opposition, and badgering are not going to get better by sending the child to therapy. Those are all behaviors that spring out of insecure attachment, avoidant attachment, complex reactivity and poor parent/child relationships. Trauma is about the only thing that can be lessened one-on-one in therapy with an attachment challenged child, and even that is hit or miss.

Attachment challenged children can make great strides in Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy with the parents.

There is no way around YOU being the best healer for your child. YOU have to learn the tools though.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT

I always wished a therapist could help my children, but I was the only one who could find that tiny hidden doorway into their hearts.

 

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th. Save the date.

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.

All Roads Lead To Abandonment

Leave a reply
Some of us are equipped better than others for quieting the anxieties attachment challenged children are haunted with. Since TV raised me (mostly), I wasn’t that well informed.  Mr. Spock from Star Trek was my role model.  I had to learn about soothing through the experience of doing it. I quickly discovered that all roads led to abandonment for my children, so anxiety was the mood of every moment.
 
Today I am having two minor medical procedures.  I had to tell my son because I will take to my bed when I get home.  Immediately he went into anxiety mode thinking I might die, so I spent the good part of last night reassuring him that I wasn’t.  For me, this is like lying to children for years about the existence of Santa Claus.  One day I will die–probably not today, but who knows?  He will likely deal with that inevitability like he did the unveiling of Santa–YOU lied Mom! What else are you lying about?
 
Easter Bunny, Leprechauns, Tooth Fairy, Elf On A Shelf, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer…me dying someday.
Parents can’t be trusted.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Oh, the conundrum of lying to children.

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.

I Am Stunned

2 Replies
Wow, I am having a jaw-dropping experience at my house and it is a long story.  Sorry.
 
For 16 years (and counting), I have had to wake up my child from the death-grip of sleep; then wait 10 minutes and do it again;  then wait 10 more minutes and do it again; and so on.  To correct this frustrating habit, I have done any number of desperate things: rubbed his back, waved food under his nose, reminded him of rewards, talked ad nauseam about it in therapy, made agreements, bargained, physically roused him, threatened him, yelled at him, poured water on him (not proud), dragged him, pled with him, threw my hands up and simply shut the door–done, you win.
Some of these approaches worked for a morning or two, but never longer than three days in a row.  And, honestly, some of these things bordered on child abuse, damaged our relationship, and made our mornings together seriously unpleasant for 5,840 days (sans weekends and school breaks) of our lives.
Two weeks ago, I had a very calm, very serious moment with him. I reminded him that he would be 18 in two weeks, at which time I would be done having bad mornings.  While I was at it, I let him know that I was also done with breaking rules, lying, general opposition, and passive aggressive disrespect. I was on a roll. Yep, I did what I always tell YOU not to do.
To my surprise, my son started to cry.  Really cry.  It was heart breaking.  I was sure I had scared him to death and that his tears were about thinking he was about to be homeless (which I would never do to him.)  I told him I wasn’t going to say more and asked him if he needed anything. Again, to my surprise, this 5’10” tear-faced boy with a beard asked, “Can I have a hug?”
When I opened my arms, he threw his whole body into me, weeping for 10 minutes more.  Finally, he sat back with a big grin saying, “That was the first time I have really hugged you.”
I know. It felt really good (and it really did.)
 
After that he tells me he feels ashamed of himself because he can’t stop thinking about killing me in my sleep and other things he couldn’t bring himself to speak.  He was genuinely scared of his own mind and he told me he has been having these thoughts for years.
 
Years? Yikes!
I tell him I understand, thanked him for trusting me with them, and empathized with how hard it must have been for him to hold in these thoughts like poison secrets inside his mind.  I tell him I love him with all my heart. He tells me how he has hated me and my husband for what he calls “nothing really.” He tells me about grudges he has been holding from years ago.  He tells me he never does what I want because he is angry (duh) and these scary thoughts make him closed off and shut down.
Good talk.
For two weeks he is a changed person.  Gets himself up early. Does his chores, mostly well.  Zips his pants, brushes his teeth, puts on deodorant without reminders.  Asks permission.  Has broken no house rules. Is pleasant. Smiles. Gives hugs. He says the gruesome thoughts are completely gone and he can’t believe it.  He thinks all of his shenanigans were related to them.
Too good to be true, right?  I am waiting for the next shoe to drop. Until then, I am one amazed and happy mamma.
 
Note to self: get a lock for my bedroom door.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

He was brave to tell me and I am brave not to flip out.
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.

This Is What Empathy Sounds Like

Leave a reply
Maybe using the word empathy to communicate what is required to support your child’s healing is not ringing the “I can do that” button for YOU.  YOU can do it though. Empathy sounds something like this:

 
Your child: “I hate you and I don’t care that you love me!”
 
YOU: I am sorry that you are feeling so bad Honey.  It must be awful to feel so alone. 
 
Your child: “Get out of my f***ing room! I don’t want you in here.”
 
YOU: I can see you are very angry right now and I think you are telling me you need some space, so I am going to go turn the spaghetti sauce off and give you a few minutes.  I will be back though.
 
Okay, dinner is taking a time-out while we talk. I am not sure why you are so angry.  Maybe I am missing something.  Tell me again please what you are angry about.  It is okay, I can handle you having angry feelings. Try me.
 
Your child: “I am never going to love you, so leave me alone.”
 
YOU: Sometimes love takes a long time to grow and it sounds like you think I won’t be here for you if you don’t love me. I want you to know that I am here for you either way.  I think you might be mad about being a kid that needed to be adopted.  Is that right?
Your child: “No!”
YOU: Okay, you don’t think so right now.  I am going to hang out in here with you for a while.  Something has been making me really nutty, I keep trying to figure out why Easter bunnies lay eggs. Shouldn’t they be Easter chickens?
“Da-ad.”
What?  I can’t figure it out. What do you think?

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Stay present, adult, and focused on the feelings beneath the biting words.

Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th.  Save the date.
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Attach Place/Neurofeedback Solutions is an active supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project. We give free neurofeedback treatment to veterans.  If you know someone  in the Sacramento area who is suffering from the effects of war, we are here to help one soldier at a time.