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The Opposite Of Traditional Parenting
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Tag Archives: Adoptive Parents
2014 In Review–Wisdom For Adoptive Parents Blog
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.
Attachment Challenged Dog
Twelve years ago my husband brought home (surprise) a shelter puppy with very big paws. Just the way that puppy ran told me he was from difficult beginnings. My previously perfect and pristine home became mud-tracked, hair-blanketed, and basically gritty everywhere, including the bed. Fall, Winter and Spring became my nightmare seasons. Well, I will always have Summer (not really.)
This dog is untrainable, sort of. He is willful, fearful, smart, and kind of dull all at the same time. However dull his abilities for following commands, Frank (his name is Frank) brought a liveliness to our house, the likes of which had previously been unknown.
This is just how lively: There is the bolting for the front door whenever anyone goes in or out. There are the constant appointments with trainers and vets of every ilk. There are anti-anxiety meds and natural, homemade, nutrient rich diets, sure to regulate him. None of that works of course. He once nearly ate our babysitter and has nipped more people than I care to count. We have been urged by many to let him go (that really ticks me off because he is my baby.) Frank scares me to death when people come over (growling, snarling, barking, jumping and acting like a SWAT K-9) and, finally, very few people ever come over to visit now because of his shenanigans.
Frank leads (not follows) me all around the house–both insecure and head-strong. Did I mention he weighs 100lbs? Without warning, he often stops mid-gait and I full on fall over him to the floor. Sometimes I think I catch him smiling, as I hit the ground. If I use a meanly spiked, pincher collar on him, all the passersby admire how well-behaved, charming and handsome he is. If I put him on one of those retractable leashes with a little wiggle room, he will run a mile and drag me (literally) along behind. Other dog owners do not think he is so cute then.
When Frank wants something, he comes climbing up into my lap, like a tiny Chihuahua. And when I want something, he is completely deaf, refusing my call. Frank never resists stealing bones from the other dogs–oh yeah, we have adopted a couple more since Frank–even when he has two of his own already. He is scared of his own footsteps on hardwood, barking fiercely and equally at leaves and squirrels and the local RT bus that stops at intervals outside our dining room window. Frank is grossly, hopelessly hypervigilant. He never misses tantruming madly at the faint shuffle of passersby, though thunder and lightning send him shivering straight into the shower.
Frankly, by all accounts, Frank is a naughty dog. Occasionally, I can be heard whispering, I can’t wait until he is out of the house (by this I mean, you know, in heaven, because all dogs go there after our house.) Those thoughts make me feel like a horrible dog mother and, generally, an all around despicable human steward.
Once in a while I am known to yearn for a full-breed of any kind that has had an easy beginning with a good-enough doggie mother that I can bring inside from our own little litter in the backyard. That’s never going to happen because our family is dedicated to saving the lives of dogs others were too careless to plan for. We are called to this life–reluctant, broken-winged.
Sometimes I wish I had hung up on that damned call, but I didn’t and I wouldn’t. The caller knew I had plenty of piss and vinegar, love, and acceptance to give. There are times when I am challenged to bring it. But mostly I can rise to the occasion.
Truth be told: I love Frank with all my heart and he loves me the best way he knows how–it’s an imprint. I’m going to love him forever and never give up on him, just like he was born in the backyard. It is his birthright to be loved this way; and I am just the dog lover to do it.
Let sleeping dogs sit up. Happy Chanukah to Frank and YOU.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
A life worth living is the only life worth living.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
Straight No Chaser
No, I have not taken up drinking–much. Just wanted to inject a moment of harmony into your day (in-case you were having trouble finding some.)
Straight No Chaser
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Find some cheer every day of the year.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
A Little Bit Emo
A little bit Emo is not to be confused with a little bit Elmo. My son told me that he and his girlfriend are “a little bit Emo.” I thought I knew what he was saying, but it is always a good idea for me to check my reality against his.
Yep, I got it. He was telling me that they consider themselves to be on the emotional side of things. That means they blowout, melt down, cry, and over-react. Sounds like a great life together–not.
Today was an Emo day for my son. He came home full of stories about emotional encounters that didn’t seem to have a point. I wondered why he was telling me, sort of. Finally, I felt I needed to ask:
Why are you telling me these things?
“Aren’t you interested in Emo things?”
Uh, not sure, maybe.
“I thought that’s what therapists’ liked–Emo stuff. So, I’m telling you about all the Emo stuff that happened today.”
Oh, thanks for thinking of me. I have to go to work now and talk to people about Emo stuff.
Love ya.
Love ya.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
I miss Elmo stuff.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
Practice Regulation
Attachment breach and abuse in the first two years of life almost always instills an inability to self-regulate emotions in a child. Providing emotion regulation is one of the fundamental functions of a mother or caregiver for a newborn baby. That looks like consistent caregiving in the form of meeting a baby’s survival needs to be soothed, dry, full, and safe. Separation from a birth mother or abuse by a mother or other person in this formative time prevents the child’s emotion regulatory system from developing properly, which can cause regulation problems for a lifetime.
As adoptive parents or parents of children from difficult beginnings, our job is to understand, teach and practice emotion regulation with our children. When we do this, we help develop parts of the brain that are underdeveloped. We can literally create new neuro-pathways in the brains of our children. Cool, right?
So, resist the urge (and the headache) to keep your child calm “all the time.” Instead, at regular intervals (practice every day), purposely get your child excited with sensory stimulation, then help your child calm down. That is what is needed. Being calm all the time will not teach your child to self-soothe. In a playful manner, amping up and calming down, over and over, is the way.
Ready, set, go play. Fall down, calm down, and start again.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Practice makes perfect neuro-pathways.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
Milestones
If your child is healing from Complex Developmental Trauma, ticking off milestones is a little bit foreign. We know what two steps forward, three steps back feels like. We know what stuck at about 2 years old feels like. The excitement of seeing our children grow emotionally in accordance with their chronological age is rare indeed.
Let me share my delight last night at sending my 17-year-old son off to his very first rock concert. I will be forever grateful to his friend’s father who said he would be the chaperone if I would foot the bill. I would have bought the tickets, stretch Hummer limo, and a Morton’s steak to get him to do it. When my son came home this afternoon, he was all smiles and full of stories for me. He is finally enjoying teenage things–milestone. Delicious milestone.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Hang in there. Milestones do show up.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
Sporadic Outbursts
Sporadic outbursting is not a sign that your regulation challenged child is a brat. Your child’s brain is developmentally unable to manage high emotion–sometimes. Period.
Outbursting needs healing, not punishment.
Do your best to intervene within the first two minutes of a meltdown because you have a slight chance of turning the tables if you do. If you wait until the tornado gets on the move, you have missed your cortisol/adrenalin window to bring the sun back.
Intervening looks a lot of different ways. Here are a few:
- Oh, did I say something that upset you Sweetheart?
- I know you really wanted to do that longer. How much more time do you think you need? Let’s negotiate that to 5 more minutes.
- You can finish that game before you take your bath in 5 minutes. Would you like to do that?
- Which would you like to do first, clean up your room or take your bath?
- I can see you are very upset. I am not trying to make you mad. Tell me what you need right now Honey? I love you.
- Oh my, Mommy said that kind of loud, huh? I am sorry. I must have scared you.
- (Touch a hand, arm, back gently.) You are safe Sweetie.
- There is plenty of food. Would you like another snack?
- I can see why you are getting upset. Let’s figure this out together.
- I’m sorry.
- I didn’t mean to upset you Babe. We just don’t sing during dinner.
- I love you and I want you to feel safe.
- It’s okay to be angry. Tell me what you are angry about.
- Uh oh, tickle time.
- Uh oh, wild hugging time.
- Uh oh, stomping our feet time.
- Hey Sweetheart, look at my eyes. Can you see the love in my eyes. I am not mad at you.
- It’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. I make them all the time.
- I know you feel bad. You are not bad.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
YOU are a precious child in my eyes. Make sure your eyes are saying that.
NOTE: If you are planning to sign up, please go ahead and do it because I think the space will end up being limited this time around. The next REVISED Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here. If you have been through this course in the past, you will be getting significantly more hands on experience than ever before.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
The Art of Repetition
You might have noticed that I say the same things to YOU, over and over and over in a bunch of different ways. I do this because it it is difficult for parents to develop new mental models for therapeutic parenting, because you have to bust through the old template of how YOU were parented.
Our kids are the same, because their brains and our brains are similar. Depending on your early childhood and trauma experiences, YOU may actually have a VERY similar brain, as your child.
I say all of that in order to say this: Therapeutic parenting requires a tremendous amount of repetition to create new neuro-pathways to replace the negative templates in a traumatized child’s brain. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. NAGGING is not the repetition I keep recommending you use over and over and over. See what I mean?
Your child does not need exasperated, humiliating, eye-rolling, hard repetition of a command. That is nagging with negative attitude. That tells your child, “I am sick and tired of you and you are too stupid to live, YOU annoying, worthless brat!” Yes, that is how your child hears it, even if you think they know you don’t mean it.
Your child needs soft eyed, patient, empathic, brain-building, neocortex developing, repetitive interaction about how, why, and when something either needs to happen or something did happen. Build the prefrontal cortex, executive function of your child if you want them to make better choices. It’s not what you tell them. It’s how you engage them that develops the part of the brain that will allow you to be less repetitive over time. Your child has to be helped by YOU to use that part of the brain in order to grow it.
Nagging keeps your child and YOU stuck in a negative feedback loop.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Everything Is A Seed
Everything you do or say to your child is a seed. Beware of what you sow, because you are planting the internal garden of a future adult. What kind of person do you want your child to become?
I am so disappointed in you and your behavior.
I hate you sometimes.
I don’t like you.
You are nothing but trouble.
You make me sick.
You are annoying.
I cannot stand being around you.
You are selfish.
You are ugly.
I think you are ridiculous.
What a worthless piece of crap you are becoming.
Get away from me.
You stink.
No one will ever love you if you don’t change.
You can’t be trusted.
You are hopeless.
No wonder your parents gave you up.
You are thoughtless.
You are stupid.
You are frightening to me.
Our lives are ruined because of you.
You are lucky I don’t drop you on the side of the road.
You don’t deserve a nice home and loving parents.
That’s it. I am done with you.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
Love Matters,
Wisdom For Adoptive Parents 