Tag Archives: adoptive children

Bam Bam Bam

Bam, Bam, Bam… That is the sound of me banging my head against the wall. No, not really. Sometimes I feel like I am though. The amount of times I say the same things over and over are head bangers.

Come on neuropathways. Grow! Grow!! Grow!!!

I know YOU know what I mean. Bless you for all that you do, over and over and over again.

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 May 13th. Come join us. Online RSVPeach 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.

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.

Someone needs to invent an ice pack for the parenting mind.

4:20 Day

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I’ve been down for the count with a cold since Thursday evening. As I age, my bounce back time increases. Sad Face. The Happy Face part? Since Thursday, I taught myself how to use Photoshop (very complicated and not intuitive at all); I listened to a series on neurobiopsychological research presentations (so interesting); watched the entire Sanjay Gupta series on Marijuana (I might have to shift my position on this, but not for adolescents); read nothing; wrote nothing; ate nothing; and did nothing else. I am a strangely productive sick person.

I say all that to say this: Today is 420 Day. If you don’t know what that is, then you probably need to raise up and smell the skunk weed in the air. If you and your children have managed to remain completely sheltered from the world at large (bless you and your tenacity), then YOU do not need to know about this until your child(ren) enters the world unsupervised for the first time.

420 Day is the biggest pot smoking day of the year. FYI: 420 (pronounce four twenty, not four hundred twenty) is slang for marijuana. The origin is a ridiculous creation from the 70s though most people are mired in mythology about how it came to be. Teens usually have no idea, except that 420 is shorthand for “Do you smoke pot, have pot, or can you get pot?” With the marijuana laws changing all over the U.S. and the world, everyone is going to have to reexamine marijuana as a medicine and recreational drug. More research will be helpful I am sure.

Still, there is universal agreement that excessive 420 use before the brain has finished its initial development (around 26 years old) can interrupt the healthy unfolding of the brain’s Reward System. Not a good thing. You can see how sugar interrupts Reward System development in teens because they are driven to eat excessive amounts of sugar, fat, and salt and will go to great lengths to get it. That is the Reward System in full swing.

Anyway, beware: unsheltered teens, young adults, and many old adults everywhere are trying to get high today.

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.

If your child smokes pot today (unless in recovery), it is a small problem, try to respond with a small and clear response. Too much focus on what you don’t want, will get you more of the same–Attachment Challenge 101.

Tax Day

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Be careful what you are ignoring when you follow advice from parent educators to “ignore” your child’s negative behavior. Sometimes we parents get confused what that means. It doesn’t mean ignore the child. It means ignore the behavior. Some attachment challenged children have a multitude of negative behaviors. You could end up ignoring your child at regular intervals all day every day.

If YOU had a bad habit of mumbling your words or talking a little too loud or too much or chewing vigorously at dinner and your beloved ignored you whenever it happened, how might you feel?

Ignored?

Hurt?

Rejected?

Shamed?

Angered?

Furious?

Reactive?

Rebellious?

Oppositional?

Bitter?

Unloved?

Disengaged?

Done!

Enough said, right?

Attachment challenged children are not usually capable of discerning exactly what you are ignoring. They often take it to mean YOU are “mean” and they are bad.

A better approach with soft loving eyes sounds like this:

“I love you and yelling when you are angry hurts my ears.

“I love you and chew with your mouth closed, Sweetie Pie.”

“I love you and I couldn’t hear what you said. Try again please.”

Yep, say those sentences 15 times a day instead of ignoring your child 15 times a day. Could be life changing.

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.

Dear Parents: I love YOU and I need you to

take better care of yourselves.

How Big Is the Problem?

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A HUGE part of self-regulation for a parent is determining how big the problem you are looking at really is:

tiny small medium LARGE

Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room. How big is this problem? Hint: tiny.

Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room at least three times a week. How big is the problem? Hint: tiny.

Your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room every day. How big is the problem? Hint: small. Yes, really!

You flip your lid every other day because your child leaves a backpack in the middle of the living room every day.

What is the problem? Hint: Your DYSREGULATION..

How big is the problem? Hint: Large.

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 RSVPeach 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.

Address tiny problems with regulated tiny responses.

Gratitude For YOU

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A group of about 12 parents attended our Trust-based Parent Support Group tonight and by the end of the night I felt my heart swell with love. Honestly, big, big LOVE.

I am not sure many would adopt children if they knew beforehand the actual truth: the truth about the crap shoot they were undertaking and the incredible sacrifice they would be making. Frankly, I am pretty sure I would have taken a pass had I known. (Shhhhh…my children don’t know and they never will.) My parenting journey was…well…challenging for me, the woman who wanted to be “Mom” all of her life and tried so hard but couldn’t be one without adoption.

Tonight, I was thanked by a parent for whatever difficulty I went through to get to the place where my experience could be helpful to adoptive parents. She truly meant that. It may not seem like it in this blog, but I am rather shy about receiving such praise. I made a joke to shake it off, but while I was doing that I felt a wave of loving gratitude wash over me. And this is what unfolded: I really love YOU parents. I really do. I hope YOU can feel it in these emails and in every contact you have with me. I am humbled before YOU.

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.

YOU are loved and AWESOME.

Flipping Your Lid

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Watch this 2.5 minute video. Commit the model to memory and teach it to your children. It is one of the best ways to help them understand regulation and dysregulation–flipping their lids and breathing them right back on.

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.

Handy model of the brain–catchy.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 4–Hope

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Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 4. There was once a time in my mothering life when “Despair” was my middle name. I don’t know how I got through it. Must have been some kind of divine intervention. All I know is that I felt like an anvil was embedded in my chest and there was an awful vibration rattling me to the core. I felt like I was going to explode, implode, or both; every day I had to white knuckle this horrible experience in a way that didn’t further harm my already traumatized children. At that time I was sure my kids were never going to grow up and that I was going to combust before they made it to adulthood. I told you it was “Despair.”

Turns out I have a few characteristics hardwired into me that rose to the parenting occasion: seriously die-hard work ethic, blind faith, and a belief in the healing power of love. Together those things buoyed me when I was going under for the third time. I didn’t even know enough to tell myself this, but it turns out it was playing in the background anyway: Just keep going, keep loving, and have faith in what you believe.

If you find yourself living side-by-side your own version of “despair,” take heart. YOU are your child’s best hope for healing. Don’t personalize their trauma reactions. They do grow up. They are better for having YOU. Never give up. Your hard work pays off. YOU just have to wait for it.

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.

Hope springs eternal.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep

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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep. Yesterday YOU looked at what is bugging you. Today, dive a little deeper. Sometimes things happen to make us feel really upset, super dooper worried, or scared out of our wits. These things strike us at the core and we go into survival mode. What puts you into survival mode?

Triggers send you straight to fight, flight, flee or freeze. Zero to 60 and you are gone baby. Write ’em down. This is your work. When you see a challenge up ahead, regulate before you get your survival on. That’s how you treat a trigger with lots of good fresh air–deep, deep breaths, space, and TLC for the tremor at the core of YOU.

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.

Know thyself.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 2–Owning Your Own Sh#*t

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Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2 starts with “owning your own crap.” I have suddenly become very PC. What is bugging me is my problem.

My son enjoys talking to me a lot of the time. He is doing nothing wrong, but it bugs me; therefore, it is my crap, not his. When I get crazy irritated, it is my irritation. He isn’t making me feel anything. I am responsible for taking care of myself, and, as a mother, helping my son see how his desire to talk can be annoying to others who are not in the listening mood. His talking is not the problem, per se. My not taking care of myself is.

The solution might be managed entirely by me, entirely by him, or by collaboration. If I were to handle it in a vacuum, I could walk away every time I am not in a listening mood or I could announce that I am not in a listening mood the second I realize it. On my own, there is no way to make him stop talking or to have better social skills.

If he managed it entirely, he might stumble upon a social cue that could help him read the listener better, so he knows when enough is enough. He could decide he doesn’t like talking to me and never speak to me again. Then again, he could have some kind of sudden spring into maturity realizing that everyone is not interested in his every thought–we know that is not likely to happen.

If we collaborate, I could ask for what I need from him–some non-talk together time. I could suggest we divine a signal to help him see that I am not in a listening mood. I could help him see the social cue every time I am giving it. If he has trouble observing the cue, I can go back to resolving the problem on my own–leave the room.

Making talking the problem is the problem. Ownership is the answer.

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.

If I’m bugged, it’s my bug.

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 1

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I am so excited. I must be, because it is 5am and I am up and ready to roll. The Attach Place is in “Love Matters” Bootcamp–Day 1–with a family of six from out-of-town. Bootcamp is an attachment-intensive therapeutic dose of family healing–no boots required.

Come along for part of the ride by trying on something new each day for two weeks that can help propel your relationship with your attachment challenged child forward. Since it is Spring Break for most kids, this might be a good time to pump up the volume on the heart of things.

Day 1–Try This:

Get out a nice fancy piece of paper, giant poster board, or even a recycled lined notebook sheet (if that’s what you have.) During snack time today, put a nice treat on the table and tell your child(ren) that YOU really want to acknowledge his/her “fabulousness.” Then, proceed to write down on that paper (big and celebratory or small and humble) your child’s strengths. YOU start with one strength and then ask your child for another. If you have more than one child, have everyone contribute a strength for that child. Repeat until your brainstorm naturally runs out.

If you have lots of children, this is a great opportunity to take turns around the table shining on everyone in round robin style. Make it quick and light, being sure to stop before the fun runs out. If your child(ren) gets into it, then make an art project out of it by having your child draw/color a picture of him or herself being all these wonderful qualities at once. Pin it up somewhere public.

If this activity goes sideways, it will likely be because of shame hiding in the background. No worries. Take over, list a few strengths YOU see, and quickly stick the paper on the frig with a magnet. Your child is watching, so don’t let shame reign. Be proud. Be delighted. Be done.

See YOU on Love Matters Bootcamp–Day 2.

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.

Resist letting your child’s hardwired shame rule the day or draw yours out.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Tag Archives: adoptive children

Bam Bam Bam

4:20 Day

Tax Day

How Big Is the Problem?

Gratitude For YOU

Flipping Your Lid

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 4–Hope

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 3–Diving Deep

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 2–Owning Your Own Sh#*t

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 1

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