Tag Archives: Adoptive Parents

When You Come To The Edge Of All That You Know

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Listen folks, our kids do not come with handbooks, for the attached ones or otherwise, so you are in for the ride of your life. Buckle up. It’s bumpy out here in parentland.

When you come to the edge of all that you know, jump. And, I don’t mean over the cliff. I mean jump into the kind of parenting that is not what you were raised with; the kind that scares you; the kind that has to face the fact that you are not, never have been, and never will be in control of your children.

Your child is on a path s/he is trying to figure out, too. Your parenting job is to help him find a middle ground: the path between cannon-balling into the deep end without a life preserver and diving head-long into the shallow end. Neither is a good choice for your attachment challenged, traumatized child. The middle way is the only way with hope for a better life. If you are having trouble figuring out what the middle way is, let me help. It’s for your child to have enough family time to learn how to swim.

So, what is that scary, non-controlling, love-based form of parenting that can support your child into the middle way of a productive life? It’s called non-traditional, therapeutic parenting that focuses on relationship over compliance, and love over fear.

Traditional parenting is full of cause and effect, logical consequences that make so much sense to attached people who were raised by biological parents. Therapeutic parenting puts logical parenting with imposing consequences away for another day when your traumatized child has a brain that can make sense of that kind of intervention. Traditional parenting registers one way with attachment challenged children–I am bad and my parents are bad. Therapeutic parenting registers a different way–I am safe and my parents are loving. Which model makes the most sense for a child who came into your life believing at the core that s/he is bad because s/he was abandoned and parents are not to be trusted or even worse, dangerous?

If nothing is working to guide your child toward the middle way, you might check your parenting, then jump into something new, something untried, something less power and control oriented. Are you putting compliance in front of everything else that matters–like love, relationship, safety? If so, you are the one who has the brain power to change, not your challenged child. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is, you know, insanity. If you are feeling more and more insane, try 100% therapeutic parenting. Over time, I promise the middle way will seem more and more possible for your child. Swimming happens.

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Read about therapeutic parenting in a number of books. Beyond Consequences by Heather Forbes and Bryan Post is a start. There are many others.
The Attach Place Logo The Attach Place provides a monthly, no fee 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.

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 online at http://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.

Brain-based Parenting, What?

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Brain-based parenting is one of the true keys to helping our complex, attachment challenged children become family kids.

Children with complex trauma and attachment breaches usually have reactive, stressed out brains.  They have very little access to their pre-frontal cortex, even when perfectly calm. That part of the brain is responsible for good judgment, organization, rational thought, language skills, cause and effect thinking, moral reasoning, and information recall.

Now toss some stress into the mix.  You know, surprise her with a sudden change of plans.  Tell him to quickly get ready for school.  Tell her do her homework with you or by herself without you.  Gently explain that his friend doesn’t want to play with him anymore because he doesn’t like being spat upon.  Challenge her to start that big project right now.  Shout, “Take the trash out!”  Give him an angry face.  Throw away a piece of trash/treasure from under the bed.  Confront her with a chore done poorly.  Hug him without his permission.  Tell her to change her too short skirt.  Hint about a surprise.  Remind him that Christmas is coming.  Nicely tell her to turn the TV off two minutes before the end of the show, and on and on.

If you were a brain-based parent, you would start all conversations with a request for a few deep breaths and a gentle reminder that nothing is wrong, that you are going to tell him something and he is not in trouble.  After that, you would say, “Ready?”  Wait for the all ready sign then slowly explain what comes next. “We are going over to Grandma’s house instead of to Uncle Tom’s house.”

I can hear your exasperation from here. Really? Are you kidding me? Do you realize that I have things to do, places to go, and no time for dilly-dallying?  I know. I know.

If you think slowing down to talk your child through the changes of every day life is like watching ice melt on a busy day, then consider the alternative. How much time does it take to get any kind of positive movement from your child once the stress hormone (cortisol) has kicked in, the pre-frontal cortex has gone off-line, and you have to resort to chasing him around the house, tackling him and making him put hisdarned shoes on now!  Fearful, raging, tantrums ensue.  Tick tock.  The clock did not stop and now you are an hour late (at least).

Two-minutes of proactive, brain-based parenting, can prevent hours of reactive, brain-based fall-out.

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 November 11that 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 areDecember 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.

Take time for explaining, training, and listening to complaining.

Toxic Stress Part 2

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The only way to change the toxic stress that may be poisoning your family life is to get on board a huge parent self-care regimen for yourself, that I wrote about yesterday, and a daily felt safety diet for your child.

Felt Safety Diet:

  1. First and foremost: Well regulated parents who have an establishedSelf-care Regimen.
  2. A slow pace.  Pretend you live in a small sleepy town where no one feels the need to speed.  Then, don’t speed, rush, hustle, bustle, race, multi-task, or try to live three lives at once.
  3. Attune to your child’s needs for connection, engagement, attention, playfulness.  Play with your children.  Watching them play is not the same thing.
  4. Lose the concept of punishment and consequences.  Use structure and gentle correction instead.  If you use punishment and consequences, your child will fear you while continuing to do the things you don’t want them to do.
  5. Set the behavior bar low, so your child is successful.  Praise like crazy for achieving it. Setting the bar too high will cause behavior like giving up, throwing in the towel, defiance, opposition, or not even trying.
  6. Accept your child for who they actually are, rather than for who you wish they were.  This is a big one.  Stop working so hard to make them different.  Imagine someone doing that to you every day, all day.
  7. Never forget that your child probably has some kind of sensory integration issue because children from difficult beginnings usually do.  Give them a steady schedule (every two hours) of physicality, healthy food/snacks and big hydration.
  8. Finally, work very hard to be sure your child’s school is trauma informed, so your child isn’t inadvertently emotionally harmed.

And there you have it: a healing Felt Safety Diet.

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 November 11that 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 areDecember 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.

Take a look at your calendar.  If the word respite does not appear there, get to it.

Toxic Stress

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Even when you have all the information about your child’s traumatized brain, every bit of therapeutic parenting advice, tons of therapy, and book piles to stop every door in your house, something may still have a stranglehold on your entire family. When it gets right down to it, toxic stress is the real culprit.  Your traumatized child has it and you have it, too.

The only way to change the toxic stress that is poisoning your family life is to get on board a huge parent self-care regimen for yourself and a daily felt safety diet for your child.  Sounds easy, but you know it isn’t.  Also, this regimen and diet will be for life, so you have to embrace it every day in order to live an emotionally, toxin-free life.

Today’s post is about the most important thing in the world–your self-care. Tomorrow, felt safety.

Self-care Regimen

  1. First and foremost: get out of denial.  Your child has special needs.  You need to pay attention to your needs first.  Put your oxygen mask on before assisting your child.  
  2. Respite needs to be your priority after the basics–food, water, air, shelter, hugs.
  3. A trained childcare provider is a must and a miracle.  Get two or three; train them; and pay those folks as well as you can because they matter a lot.
  4. Schedule respite breaks for yourself every day on your calendar, in your phone, on your To Do list. Schedule respite like it is a hard to get dental appointment that you will be charged for if you miss it.
  5. Care about yourself.  Care for your body.  Care about what you eat. Care about your sleep. Care about your love life.  Care about your friendships.  Care about your garden, animals, hobbies, creativity, passions, missions. Yes, you can fit everything into your life.  If you cannot, then you do not have a healthy life.  Think about that.
  6. Think about this while you are at it.  Attachment challenged, traumatized children do not need a full schedule of organized sports, dance lessons, piano recitals, playdates, extravagantvacations, and the latest kid stuff.  They need at least one (and two would be better) well cared for, emotionally present parent.

If that is all they ever have, they will be rich beyond their wildest dreams.

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 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.

Take a look at your calendar.  If the word respite does not appear there, get to it.

Magic Question

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Sharing power is one of the best ways to get your challenging child to be a bit less, well, challenging.  When your child resists shifting from one thing to another, try this magic question:

Okay Sweetie Pie, time to go to bed.
“Noooooooo!!! I’m not done!”
How much more time do you think you need? This is the magic question.
“Ten minutes.”
Let’s compromise–five more minutes. 
“Awwwa, okay.”
Two minutes later, he is done and down the hall to the bedroom.

I know you don’t believe me, so start small and build up to bedtime.

Once my son had been sick in bed for two days.  I asked him, How much more time do you think you need?
“Uhh, I’m pretty sick.  My stomach really has been hurting.  Uh, a week?”
Let’s compromise–you’re getting your butt to school to-mor-row.
“It was worth a try, Mom.”
We giggled.  He went to school the next day.

Wow, crazy as it seems, I have raised a seriously reasonable kid.  I worried that would never happen.  I often had pathetically low faith, coupled with monumental fear. Good thing I kept putting one foot in front of the other.  Just like you.
Keep the faith. Keep walking forward.

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 November 11that 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 areDecember 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.

Sometimes having faith in our challenged kids is like taking cough syrup when your cough has kept you up for three nights straight.  You know you have to do it to sleep, and you also know you seriously have to gag it down.  Well, that is a pleasant comparison.

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.

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.