Tag Archives: Attachment Therapy for Children

Parent the Brain of Your Child Before the Mind

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When your complex traumatized child is what you interpret as “disrespectful” or “defiant,” take a breath to soothe yourself before you say another word.  What comes next depends on it.
 
Most of our children have an “implicit” memory of devastation hardwired into their brains from neglect, abuse, abandonment, and/or institutional living in the early years. They usually have no “explicit” memory of the events.
 
When I was 17, my mother was killed in a car accident.  At first I didn’t feel much but the chaos all around me.  Over time though, I started to feel a violent grief in the depths of my being that couldn’t be satisfied by anything except releasing a wolf-like howl for hours into the cold night of my empty room. I thought I would die of it.  
 
Because of this experience, I am keenly aware of attachment panic that feels like going crazy or like dying from despair. It was explicit to me. I knew the cause of the pain. Our children have this kind of violent despair implicitly.  They have no idea why they feel the way they do. 
 
Children from difficult beginnings are often triggered into that place when they feel the smallest slight, such as YOU saying “no,” them being pressured, or from fear of change, loss of control, or being thwarted in any small way.  To fend off the inevitable feeling of overwhelming despair, they fight, flee or freeze without awareness.  Our children are actually dissociated, operating on implicit memory, and from every cell in their being struggling desperately to survive.  If YOU happen to be the one triggering the event, YOU are in danger of being acted-out upon in very negative ways.
 
So, soothe yourself before your next sentence in the face of your child’s small misbehaviors, because a hint of rejection is all it takes to trigger the implicit memory of impending death that they happened to live through.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Be soothing to your child when YOU get disrespect or defiance.  Something deeper is afoot.
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.

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.

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?

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.

School Refusal

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This is day two of school refusal for my son.  He usually is a school lover, but he has a new teacher that treats him like a Kindergartener (he says) so now he hates it. On top of that, yesterday he sprang onto my bed around 6:30am with his new phone excited to show me the new apps he had just downloaded on it.  
 
Drolly (I think that is a real word) I asked, “Are you going to show me the apps I told you not to download on your phone (because the old phone this new phone is replacing was corrupted by your downloading APPS!!!!!!)?  Bingo, cortisol spike–reason to refuse school for two days. Okay, I might have revised history right there. The parentheses implied I didn’t say that last part, but really, I DID!  Couldn’t help myself.
 
This morning I sat down on the side of his bed and asked him to open an eye, which he did.
 
“Are you going to school today?”  The eye closed.  
 
“It is beginning to smell like something dead is in this bed. May I suggest a shower sometime today?”  The eye opened. Then closed.
 
“I’ll take that as a yes eye.” 
 
Parenting is fun.  I am enjoying it immensely.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 I am not kidding.  Parenting has become fun.  I just don’t take it personally anymore–that was the epiphany that took me from parenting crazy town to parenting clown house.

I prefer the latter. It’s simply more fun.

Winged Love Whisperers

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Today, I woke up feeling a well of gratitude for mothers and fathers everywhere who are raising challenged and challenging children.  Woohoo! YOU rock. YOU are awesome. YOU are probably tired.  
 
When I adopted kids, I did it for myself and my own desire to have children I couldn’t conceive otherwise.  I am not particularly a selfish person, but I had purely selfish motives in this case.  I was not thinking about the kids at the time.  I assumed they would be “happy” to have a loving home with loving parents.  I was truly ignorant to the realities of adoption and had no idea of the pain in the hearts of the children, nor the mountains ahead that would need hooks and chisels and ropes and pulleys to scale. Some of the chasms required wings.
 
My eyes were opened pretty darned fast, as I am sure happened in many of your homes, too.  Then what?  For me, and likely for YOU, an incredibly fierce journey of healing hearts without losing my sanity ensued.  I joke around the office that I am earning wings. For some reason that helps me keep my patience, hold on to love, and take the higher road, when everything else is going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that is.)
 
Take your inspiration from anywhere you can.  YOU have my gratitude, love, and appreciation for all that you do, Winged Love Whisperer.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Winged Love Whisperer has a nice ring to it, yes?

True Story

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Picture this: I’m trying to find a little peace while taking my morning constitutional (don’t look it up as it is TMI) in my old-style bathroom built for about .5 people, when my daughter starts blowing up my phone with serial texts begging me to take her trick-or-treating. She’s 19. 
 
Simultaneously, my son starts calling “Mom” from down the hall while marble-mouth-mumbling something earth-shattering about his computer. Three dogs–Chihuahua, Beagle, Black Lab–sit in a stair-step row wagging and staring me down for their morning pupperonis (which, by the way, are not stored in the bathroom) while the cat flops around otter-style in the tub. 
 
Really? It’s 6am on a Tuesday.
 
True story.  Nothing like a life full of attachment challenged creatures–dogs, cats, kids. I am starting to think something is seriously wrong with me.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Everyone deserves a rescue.

The Quirks of Human Brains

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The whole Ebola situation in the U.S. tells a cautionary tale, but maybe not the one you are thinking. If you connect with the greater world via TV, Internet, newspapers, and magazines, you may have found yourself feeling a little worried about when Ebola is going to break out in your town.  Of course, it could happen (and did for those in Texas), but you are far more likely to get into a deadly car accident today, than you are to catching Ebola–and that isn’t very likely either. Just to be on the safe side, go knock on some wood (if you can find something still made out of wood.)
 
The human brain is quirky.  Much of how we think is based on pre-historic conditioning.  Yep, our brains still function as though something big and scary (maybe even hairy) is plotting to eat us at any moment. So, hearing something repeated over and over–Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola–our brains start being hyper-alert and a bit fearful to the point where someone coughing in public sends us running for our pocket-sized hazmat suits.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I am not making fun of Ebola.  It is a terrible, deadly virus. When unchecked, like in West Africa, it is one of the worst public health crises since the Bubonic Plague.  I am, however, making a point about our human brains.
 
If YOU are telling yourself over and over again that your attachment challenged child is going to grow up to be a criminal (because your child’s brain is pre-historically conditioned so s/he lies, steals and breaks rules), then YOU are scaring your own pre-historic brain to death, causing yourself hypervigilance and over-the-top parenting, and making the situation worse.
 
Pre-historic fear or love?  
 
Fear or love?
 
Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.
And nerves of steel.