Tag Archives: adoptive children

Delicious Reports

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

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Keep the faith.

Love matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Take care of yourself while keeping the faith.

The Condom Talk

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I have to admit that teen girls scare me.  My son is cute, personable, and seriously gullible.  Girls have been trying to hold his hand, kiss him, and date him for years. I have always been grateful that he wasn’t really ready for any of it.
 
I saw a post yesterday on Facebook that he is in love.  Oh my. I knew he started liking a girl at school and that they were planning a Starbucks date.  Within two weeks, they are “in love.”  Time for the condom talk.
 
Oh sure, I have had it before many times with him, but he wasn’t interested.  This time the kid was bright red and nearly crawling under the chair.  That told me volumes. Definitely time for the talk.  When I told him I was going to show him how to put one on, he screamed No! and crossed his genitals with both hands.  He’s a bit literal, and I am not. Causes some momentary cortisol spikes.
 
I’m telling you this because it is good to continually prepare our kids for what they may not really, actually understand despite all the talks and all the emphatic, “I know, Mom”.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 

Candyland Nightmare

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Oh my goodness, woke up from a weird dream, nightmare maybe.  I was sleeping in the dream and awoke under candy wrappers stacked to the ceiling.  There was sticky stuff, like melted ice cream, dripping down my neck.

It was flashback dreaming. Back to the time when hoarding candy, amongst plenty of other stuff, was a major force in my house.  Where does all the candy come from?  I watched so closely, and yet candy wrappers magically appeared by the dozens, stuffed in every nook, drawer, vent, pillowcase, and behind every bed, dresser, and door.  Amazing really.

Sweets, like alcohol, jingle the reward system in children (and adults for that matter).  Dopamine is the reward system’s candyman. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that makes all of us humans feel GOOOOOOOD. Soothed. Happy. Too much dopamine, however, can lead to psychotic behavior.

 
YOU can see why our attachment challenged children, who often have deficits in the happy neurotransmitters, would be seeking something sweet, eventually maybe sweet and alcoholic, to make all the pain in their hearts go away. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work long-term and their urgency amps up. My traumatized children are sweet-seeking missiles, even today.
 
Part of dealing with this is managing diet, providing sweet natural alternatives, sensitizing your children to loving touch, and letting go.  YOU cannot control behavior, so you have to let go of trying so fiercely that it interferes with your relationship with your child.  
 
You can give soothing whenever you can.  Hold your babies (even if they are 18) when they ache.  If they cannot tolerate touch because of complex trauma, sit close, use soft eyes, and talk sweetly.  The positive neurochemical cascade can be ignited those ways, too.
 
Isn’t that term funny? Talk “sweetly.” Ha.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Sweet talk is a love language.
Broken-hearts need a lot of sweetness to heal.

Fear Is Not Required

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One of my children was potty trained and talking at 1.5 yrs. The other was 4 yrs. before either of those things happened. I was frightened by both.
 
One of my children was astute and controlling everything and anything in her worldview. The other was forever a baby, needing help with simple tasks through the teen years. I was frightened by both.
 
One of my children was cunning and shrewd. The other was gullible and passively uncooperative.  I was frightened by both.
 
One of my children used a 10″ butcher knife to threaten her adult step-brother and carve a line in the wall about waist high in every room in our house.  The other foreshadowed this years earlier by meandering toward me with a similar blade, which seemed longer than the arm that was wielding it. I was frightened by both.
 
My fear made me distant.  My children needed me closer.  
 
Go closer.  
 
Get some skin in the game.  
 
Fear less.  Engage more.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

 

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

The Quiet Talks

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The quiet morning talks are always so enlightening around here.  Today’s topic:  Hatred.
 
“I do love you, but I also hate you.”  Never has a truer sentence been spoken.
 
My son tells me that he, “Can’t put two and two together when it comes to any sort of consequence.”  He says, “Consequences seem like they will last forever, even though I know nothing ever goes away for longer than a day or a day and a half.”  In that moment, “I hate you.”  
 
“The rest of the time there is this feeling inside me like defiance of rules…Whenever there is a rule, I feel hatred for it…Sometimes I just won’t ask you for something because I am afraid how I might react if you say no.”
 
How frightening it must be to react so emotionally violent to every day structure, rules, and expectations?  That is a thwarted, everything-is-against-me worldview many of our traumatized children experience.
 
My compassion for the collective struggle our children experience continually increases over time, and my ability to hold my son with soft eyes and empathy grows exponentially alongside it.  Better late than never, I tell myself, though my grief for how long it has taken me is right there, just under the surface.
 
                                                                 Love Matters,

The Attach Place Logo 3Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Be Gentle and Kind

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When we teach scripts to parents for correcting and redirecting attachment challenged children, the first one is usually Be Gentle and Kind.  At various places around the office that direction can be heard throughout the day, every day, every week, all year long, year after year. It takes thousands of repetitions to stick the landing of a new neuropathway.
 
It occurred to me this morning that my last three Daily YOU Time emails have really fallen under the heading of Re-parenting Parents With the Script Be Gentle and Kind. 
 
I wish I had been re-parented early on to Be Gentle and Kindwith my children. I just did what was imprinted by my parents–Be Powerful and In Control.  That was misguided and made a mess of things for quite a while.
 
So, forgive me for my repetitious re-parenting script to Be Gentle and Kind.  I am simply trying to make it stick for YOU and your attachment challenged child(ren).  It makes all the difference over time.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions. Click here for more information.
 
The next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

 Be Gentle and Kind All the Time. Why not?

My Hindsight Might Help YOU

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

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
Underarmor helps.

Halloween Bah-Humbug

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Halloween gets my Bah-Humbug going.  
 
Where did my playful, sense of fun at any cost, dressed-up fairy-self go?  Bah-Humbug. Dysregulation is a stir, so I’ve
strapped on my Nerves of Steel spanx (big NS on the chest) for the rest of the day, and will probably wear it under my clothes throughout the weekend. 
 
From too many cupcakes at school, through too much candy door-to-door, to no candy because “Honey, you are allergic to Red dye #4, Yellow dye#2, Blue dye of any number, and sugar–sorry–here is an organic, gluten free, non GMO, cranberry edamame vegan bar. YOU loved these yesterday.”
 
Be patient. Have compassion. Expect too much sugar, too much fun, too much cortisol, and a blowout or three.  It’s Halloween! (Yay. Bah-humbug.)
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
This is controversial: I allowed my kids to eat their Halloween candy as soon as I inspected it (yep, I’m that paranoid) and throughout the next day. Whatever was left after 24 hours was dumped.  Some years they were rolling around with tummy aches, but mostly they ate a little all day at intervals.  When I dumped it, they had had their fill and didn’t really pitch much of a fit.  To me that was better than trying to spread the sugar out in single pieces FOREVER!

Upon Turning 18

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As your attachment challenged child inches toward 18 years old, YOU have some work to do.
 
1. If you receive Adoption Assistance, your child can qualify for it to continue beyond 18 by simply applying for it.  You MUST apply for it BEFORE 18, because once it stops it’s gone.
 
2. If your child is not going to be able to launch successfully at 18, then start the Social Security Insurance application process (if you haven’t already) to get financial support upon reaching adulthood.
 
3. If your child qualifies for Regional Center support, then look into sheltered work, day programs, and independent living opportunities.
 
4. Your child can continue schooling in an independent living program beyond 18 through the IEP process. 
 
5. Community colleges have programs for special needs children.  YOU might be surprised at what you find your child is capable of doing at the college level.   
 
6. There are local guides for supporting your special needs children into adulthood.  The following resources are specific to my Sacramento/California area, and can be replicated in your area by typing into Google the resource title with your city’s name:
 
 
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
 
Transitioning into adulthood requires planning. Know your child’s rights and resources.

Bed Head Day 5

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I have had A DAY.  It is 9:04pm and I am just now finding a minute to send YOU a daily missive.  Where are my priorities?you might ask.
 
Uh, not sure.  I do care very much about YOU.  Still, I must admit to caring about my life a little bit more.
 
This is day five of my son’s bed head, and day three of school refusal.  
 
A text I read from his confiscated phone by him to some odd anime-named girl in Michigan read, “I hate my “f-ing” mother, so I am making her suffer by not going to school.”   Huh, who knew?
 
Apparently, that comment I made about him showing me apps on the new phone I told him not to download apps on, put him over the edge. He decided in his head that I was mad. He decided in his head that he was grounded. He decided in his head that he would make me suffer by not going to school and staying in bed for 5 days straight.
Truth be told, it was like a 5-day vacation for me.  No inane conversations about Minecraft.  No stalking for attention. No requests to drive him anywhere. No requests for dinner. No smelly body in the living room. No nothing.  It was all kind of peaceful around here. I was basking in this suffering.
Still, he did need to go to school, plus he had an IEP he was supposed to attend this afternoon, so I just did the obvious:You can have your phone back if you get up and go to the IEP with me.
 
Boom.  Five minutes later he was in the car (very stinky, not having showered in 5 days) and ready for me to drive him to the IEP.  
 
We talked later about how he was the one suffering, not me. He was calm and accepted the reality of the situation.  I could have offered the phone sooner, or tried to be more soothing sooner, or offered some other reward for getting it together sooner.  That probably would have decreased the 5 day “sleep in” protest, but he is about to be 18 and I had a sense there was a better lesson to be taught by waiting it out.
 
Tonight we had the talk.  He listened and shared and learned by the lack of emotional upheaval.  That is all I can ask.
 
I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fun can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.

I love my son.  It is time he really gets what it takes to be a family kid beyond 18 years old. This is my process.