Tag Archives: adoptive children

A Little Bite of Neuroscience On Sleep

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Here is some simple reality about human brains and sleep related to, you guessed it, phones, tablets, computer screens.  Sleep is the number one source of environmental empowerment of our children.  Let’s be sure we are looking at screen time, when kids are melting down during the day.

dan siegel on slepp

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 November 11th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers an 8-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are December 5th and 12th, 2015. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Screens are a fact.  
Let’s learn to use them in ways that won’t hurt our brains.

Kindness Transmission Processes

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Sometimes I am astounded by the kindness of my children.  A couple days back from vacation I came down with a virus.  Nothing terrible, just ugly to listen to and look at.  

When my son sees I am under it, he immediately says, I’m sorry you are sick again Mom.  I will do anything you need.  Do you need something?  Can I help you?

When my daughter hears I am sick after visiting her house (7-hour round trip) where my sleeping grandbaby had a virus, she says, Mom, I am so sorry you are sick.  I should have told you before you came here that she had a virus.  I love you, Mom, so much. Thank you for visiting.  It meant so much to me for you to see my new home. I miss you.

There were so many years when I was called upon to be kind in the face of anger, rage, rejection, assaults.  Mostly I managed to do it, though not always. This is the payoff.  My children are kind adults.  What more could I really ask for?

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 November 11th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers an 8-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are December 5th and 12th, 2015. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Kindness translates well into the future.

Sensitivities

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I have saved myself quite a bit of money over the years being sensitive to perfume. Yep, I can’t spend more than 15 minutes in Macy’s, Nordstroms, or any mall anywhere without getting sneezy, wheezy, and dizzy.  I am amazed by this fabulous built-in shopping deterrent.  
 
Just as I am sensitive to scents, my children and likely yours are sensitive to rejection and humiliation.  Their sensitivities make them prone to lying and reflexive arguing.  Hardwired into parental brains is a monumental dislike of a child’s back talk.  Our instant ire at compulsive lying goes without saying, right?
 
Attachment challenged, traumatized children cannot tolerate being wrong, bad, criticized, or humiliated (due to feeling damaged from abuse and abandonment before you), so they are on auto-lie and auto-defend most of the time. You can help them by being a safe person in their lives who does not over-react emotionally to their defend and deny survival instincts. 
 
When you detect an auto-lie, lovingly say, “I know you are scared right now.  You are not in trouble. Let’s talk when you fell less afraid to tell me.  Try again in a few minutes, okay honey?”  Follow this with a hug and, “I love you.”  Remember auto-lying is not about YOU, so you don’t have to take it personally.
 
When you get a rash of defensive denial, say something like, “I know you don’t want to be wrong, and you aren’t.  I only want you to hear what I am saying and to understand what you are saying.  That’s all honey.”   Follow this by a genuine loving smile and reassurance.  Remember they are sensitive to being wrong, which makes it hard for them to hear parents.  Tip: Ask yourself what makes it hard for YOU to hear children?  
 
You can decrease your child’s sensitivity to feeling bad or wrong by allowing room, little by little, to let learning be your goal and being in trouble to be obsolete.  Learning to be a healthy adult is the primary point of raising a healthy child.  Anger, shame, humiliation, exasperation, and rejection block all learning in everyone, especially your traumatized child.
 
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Learning only happens in a safe space.

Waiting for the Next Shoe to Drop

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Beware your human nature to be stuck in emotional neutral waiting for the next shoe to drop.  Trust me, if you have children from difficult beginnings, the shoe will drop.  
 
How about doing life differently?  Consider leaning into the peace, moving forward, accepting positive lulls, breathing freely, embracing the good stuff. The opposite will likely cycle back in the next few minutes, few hours, few days, few weeks.  Why stick in an anticipatory fear state waiting for the worst?  Doing so makes it nearly impossible to enjoy your child in-between the shenanigans.  
 
For argument sake, let’s say it takes 400 repetitions to create a new neuropathway. That means there will be four-hundred and one opportunities to enjoy life joyfully between the repetitions.  
 
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Lean into the peace; good stuff happens there.

Teenage Play Dates

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I am a mother who had very few Mommy Moments in the raising of my children. You know, those sweet moments when a warm feeling blossoms up like a big Pink Peony in your chest? Pretty sure many Dads aren’t feeling the Pink Peony metaphor, so substitute here whatever the man equivalent of that is–Red Lamborghini Moment? Sometimes I like being completely sexist, so stop groaning. YOU may not be getting many of those sweet moments right now either if you are still in the daily trenches of humiliating Target meltdowns, broken dishes on the kitchen floor, spilled milk all over the restaurant, and bite marks on your forearms.
 
In the past, overnights and playdates just couldn’t happen without incidents of grand proportion, so they eventually got ruled out entirely.  I got tired of my kids losing already tentative friendships and trying to get into the good graces of parents who might give my kids another chance with their kids in the park or at the pool party or overnight in their living room (without locking up all the food, cell phones, wallets, and car keys.)
 
Now that I have six adult teens in my life (four of whom are previously diagnosed RAD kids),  I am getting an odd abundance of Pink Peony moments.  This weekend my house was taken over by boys eating, laughing, playing video games, going out for snack attacks, and coming home just to eat again. At the same time, one of the girls flew to and from L.A. by herself to visit family that previously refused to accept her into their home–even for a one hour visit.  She had a great, incident-free day. And yesterday, two others gushed over their beautiful, smiling daughter in pictures taken with the new iPhone I sent them in the mail last week–tag lines like I love you so much Mom and She is smiling because we are saying, ‘Smile for Grammy over and over.’
 
With attachment challenged, traumatized, and special needs children the Pink Peony moments may be delayed.  Wait for them.  I promise they arrive little by little over time until in young adulthood they have no trouble expressing how much YOU mean to them.  Wait for it.
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Blue Carnation Moments? 

Parenting 101

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Our children do not cause our poor parenting behavior–yelling, demanding, demeaning, belittling, overpowering, physicality, threatening, arguing, meanness, etc.  Those behaviors belong to us and no amount of attachment challenged child behavior is responsible for our “low road” reactions.
 
Because this is true, I have mastered the art of the sincere apology.  I often owe that to both of my children.  Whenever I suggest that parents owe an apology to their children before expecting their children to sincerely apologize, I get push back like there is no tomorrow.  
 
“Absolutely not!” retorted one parent, when I asked if she had something to apologize for after she wrongly accused her daughter of something she had actually done herself.  “If she didn’t lie all the time, I wouldn’t have falsely accused her.”  Okay, but you did wrongly accuse her, and really you owe her a sincere apology for wronging her, right?  “No.”  Hmmmm.
 
If we expect our children to sincerely feel remorse and apologize for their wrongs, then we have to model it first.  Otherwise, we are blaming them for our behavior.  
 
Isn’t that what they often infuriatingly do 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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Being the grown-up is so hard sometimes.

First Line of Correction

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The first line of correction is playful engagement, not emotional reprimand.  
 
Example:
Situation: When messing around, your child spills milk. 
Correction: Oh oh…it’s a messy day.  Let’s clean it up.
Situation: When continuing to mess around, your child spills milk a second time.
Correction:  Oh my goodness, I need to buy a cow to keep us in milk. Let’s push the milk back a little so your flying hands don’t knock it over.  Run get a cloth to wipe this up.
This can be taken care of without an ounce of anger, frustration, negativity or shame.  It’s just spilled milk.
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

What behavior is worth flipping your lid over?

Evolution of a Disorder

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Don’t forget to let your children emotionally evolve.  I wish there were a shorthand way of saying my formerly diagnosed reactive attachment disordered child (FDRAD has so many possibilities), so I can pay homage to the history without sticking my children firmly in the past.  
 
The history is important because there are residual effects of RAD long into adulthood.  Still, RAD is not the primary issue into adulthood.  The FDRAD issues usually revolve around attention, dysregulation, poor decision-making, lack of motivation, and delayed maturity.  While these are significant issues, they are not attachment issues, per se; they are executive function issues.   
 
Poor executive function is the result of regulation difficulties in early childhood due to attachment challenges and trauma on the brain. So, regulation is the ultimate goal of all treatment.  Be sure regulation is being addressed in your therapeutic model at every age.  
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm.Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Take a look at The Zone’s of Regulation curriculum if your therapist hasn’t already implemented it.  Turns out it is effective for teaching regulation to any age child or adult (including yourself.)

Reach Back

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All of us make bids for love and attention.  I think about my own ways of getting my husband’s attention and it makes me chuckle.  I put on my best 5-year-old pout face, exaggerate the frown, and say something in a whiny, yet demanding voice like, “Heyyyyyy, you didn’t kiss me this morning.”  To which my husband smiles, opens up his arms, and comes in for a hug and kiss.  He knows I am kidding, and he knows I am not really kidding, too. I need my attention and kiss; then I am shored up for the day, and he is free to be on his way.  
 
I’m 57, and I make childish bids for love and attention that way. I promise I make them as an adult, too, in case you are worried about me.  Imagine how I would feel, though, if my husband didn’t reach back for me when I made my childish bid?  What if he walked away, told me to stop being ridiculous, or to grow up? 
 
When your five foot tall child runs up to you with arms up-raised like you could actually lift her into your arms (like when she was much younger), smile and open your arms for a hug and kiss.  No questions, no hesitation, no rejection.
 
Be easy with your affection, attention, smiling eyes, and love. We humans have these gifts in abundance, and we are free to give them away.  That’s a good thing because our children need so much love to feel good enough to take it in and give it back
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30 pm. Join us.  Online RSVP each month required when you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Even when the bid for love seems ridiculous, 
find a way to respond with abandon.  Love matters.

Blind to the Forest

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Some days it is hard to see the forest for the dirty bowls. A few days ago all of my cereal bowls went missing.  I thought someone put the dishes away in a new interesting way where the bowls could not be found.  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I thought someone accidentally broke all the bowls.  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I thought a bowl burglar broke in and, well, took all the bowls.  Nope, that probably wasn’t it.  
 
I asked my husband, the kids, and even had a serious talk with the dogs about the bowl mystery, but no one knew.  My son said, “I even noticed this morning that the bowls are missing, but I can’t think of what happened to them.”  He opened a bunch of cabinets to see if maybe they were in one. Nope, not in any of them.
 
When I came home from work yesterday, miraculously all the bowls had found their way into the top shelf of the dishwasher. I was suddenly crestfallen, realizing my son had gone to great lengths to escape my learning the actual whereabouts of the bowls–the ones dirty and hidden under his covers. All of the darned bowls were hidden under his bed covers!  Did I mention, all the bowls in the entire house?  Okay, I did mention that.
 
Thought we had nipped this eating in the room, hiding the dirty dishes habit.  Really thought we had made it over that hurdle. Nope, back to the drawing board.  It may take me two or three days before I can regulate, because right now my dysregulation is over the moon.
Breathing. I’m breathing.
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 October 14th at a NEW time–5:30pm.Come join us.  Online RSVP each month required especially if you need child care.
The Attach Place offers a 10-hr. Trust-based Parenting Course every other month.  Our next course dates are October 10th and 24th.  Child care provided for an extra fee. Sign-up by calling 916-403-0588 x1 or email attachplace@yahoo.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.

Two steps forward, three back.  We always recover.  We always recover.  We always recover.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  Waiting for it. Waiting…