Tag Archives: Attachment Therapy for Children

Hypervigilance

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If something scary happens to a baby (BABY of any age–1-day-old to 3-years-old) like being taken suddenly from the mother and given to another person who is definitely not the mother, the brain goes into survival mode and the baby becomeshypervigilant, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.  For most of these babies, thehypervigilance becomes the norm for life. “Felt safety” is the only cure, and getting that is extremely hard.  Eventually, getting safety in an adoptive home is possible, but “felt safety” is harder, like creating a sculpture out of water–extremely elusive.

Hypervigilance can look many different ways in our kids.  In my house both of my children had to know what was going on in our house at every moment.  They inserted themselves into everything. When they were very young, I couldn’t clean the toilet without an audience.  By the way, this did not make them excellent toilet cleaners either. I could barely pee alone.
Today, my son is 5″10″, 17.8-years-old, and still popping out of his room the minute he hears me move about the house.  He comes rushing in my direction to ask a question; to tell me something random; to get food; to check on the dog; to get a hug; sometimes he can’t think of a reason and just stands awkwardly right behind me.  Every day when I get home from work, the second he hears the garage door open in the basement, he runs down the stairs toward my car. He cannot help himself. His need to know persists.  Before I get home he looks out the window for me dozens of times.  He isn’t scared, per se, he is anxious and hypervigilant.
I feel sad for the level of anxiety he carries that makes him so alert, on edge, and intrusive with his presence.  I used to feel badgered to death by little nips, but that is long over.  Now I feel more for him, for his internal life, for his lack of “felt safety” despite how safe he has actually been for the past 15 years.
He takes medication and neurofeedback for his anxiety.  He copes by deep breathing and thinking skills. I sooth him with hugs when he finds himself near me for no apparent reason.  His brain has 10 or so more years to fully develop.  I am hopeful that continued support in this way will lead him, ultimately, to a “felt sense of safety” in his own mind and body. I am hopeful.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Believe that change can happen and it does.

Up And Down Whiplash

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Our kids are in survival mode much of the time.  Sometimes they seem so “normal” and even recovering nicely. Then, BOOM!  A bomb drops and we are reminded that our children’s brains are different.  Their stability is tentative.  Our job is to stay steady, stay the course.  It is our stability that saves the day and facilitates our children forward on the path to healing.

I call this the “UP and DOWN Whiplash.”  My emotions are in a perpetual “rear-ender.”  The whiplash is profound.  Put your neck brace on and steady on.

I am a grounded, loving person and my children struggle.  That is a fact.

I put my oxygen mask on before assisting others.  I have to.  How about YOU?

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Breathe.

Grieving Is A Process

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Our children grieve things they do not understand or know about.  They grieve the loss they feel in their cells for their birth mother and they grieve the loss of the imaginary perfect mother who gave them away.  They grieve getting YOU, because YOU are real and flawed and here every day. YOU don’t measure up to the fantasy, so there is the overwhelming grief that causes their rejection.
 
Your adopted child may tantrum in grief, rage in grief, cry in grief, reject in grief, defy in grief, withdraw in grief, or cling to strangers in grief.  They may do this for years.  It doesn’t mean they aren’t attaching to YOU.  It does mean they are fundamentally changed because they have this pain like dying in their guts now because they were abandoned (and some were both abandoned and abused.)  There is no worse pain on Earth for a human being than to lose connection with one’s mother forever.
 
In order to act as an attuned container of empathy for your child’s many permutations of grief, YOU will need to grieve your own idea of the perfectly loving child YOU thought you were adopting.  When that is done, YOU will be better able to “hold” the emotional depth and upheaval of your child’s grief and loss.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

When your child wants the birth mother say, “Oh my precious sweetheart, I know your heart hurts so, so much.  I will help you hold the pain. Come into my arms, my circle of love.  I am here for you, when you feel that terrible pain in your heart, in your whole being.” 

Oh Dear Parent

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It’s the middle of the week.  What are YOU doing for yourself today?
 
Some of YOU have this down pat.  Raise your hand if this is YOU.  To YOU, I give maximum applause.  YOU have figured out that the best way to care for your special needs child(ren) is to start with yourself. Bravissimo!
 
If your hand lifted a little, but not all the way:  Good for YOU! YOU are on your way to better parenting through self-care.
 
The rest of YOU, hands still on the keyboard: YOU are not alone.  Many of us have trouble making this paradigm shift. What can I do to encourage YOU?  
 
Okay, here goes.  One question:  Have you lost your patience, temper, sanity with your child in the past week?
 
Yes?
 
Then take a break and do something you haven’t done in a long time that would feel good.  
 
Need ideas?
 
Eat a slice of cake from that bakery you love (Ignore calories today.)
Go to the gym and work out; or don’t work out and soak in the hot tub or steam yourself in the sauna.
Mani/pedi?
New shoes?
Take a scented bath.
Chat with a friend over tea and biscuits.
Take a slow walk in a place without playgrounds.
Eat a PB&J sandwich on a park bench with good people watching opportunities.
Check out a new art or museum installation.
Make your bed, open the windows, and lay naked in the breeze (Am I the only person who loves doing that?)
Read a mindless romance novel or People Magazine will do.
Watch a R-rated movie in the middle of the day.
Make a beautiful, tasty salad for yourself, just the way YOU like it–add lots of kid-hated veggies with grown up dressing.
Clear off your messiest counter top.
Listen to music from the years you most loved music. Turn it up loud. Dance.
Make something, paint something, break something.
Nap.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

YOU Matter,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
 

The best parent is the one with the most rest.  Rest can look a bunch of different ways.  Pick one.

 

 

Tit For Tat Gets YOU Back

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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 challenge 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?

Because Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is
September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/9ba51af5e7/TEST/c0f94646cd .

Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their
own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here –
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheAttachPlaceCenter/9ba51af5e7/TEST/b816f9fd03 .

Tit for tat, gets YOU back.

Swimming In Shame

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If you are swimming in shame, YOU need some help finding your vulnerability and compassion for yourself.  Reclaim your childhood. Shame has a tendency to well up around parenting attachment challenged children. They have difficulty accepting parenting and we have difficulty accepting that it isn’t our fault. The shame doesn’t come directly from parenting. Likely it has been there all along, from childhood.  It just gets big and overwhelming when children are added to the mix.
 
If this sounds like YOU, check out a little reading.  Brene Brown is my favorite. She has a blog (doesn’t everyone have a blog?) YOU can watch her on TED (not everyone has a TED Talk.)  Read her book.  Go to a local workshop based on her work. Join a support group based on Daring Greatly (her book.)  She is all the rage.  YOU could be part of a movement.
 
Get a little inspiration here:
 
Brene Brown on empanty
 
YOU can go to therapy, buy a workbook, find a 12-step.  What YOU probably ought to avoid?  Avoidance.
 
Because Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is September 27, 2014 and October 4, 2014. Sign-up here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

YOU Still Matter.

Back to School Blues

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I had a nice long break.  Honestly, I missed writing to YOU every day, and I didn’t miss writing every day.  Since I last sent you a missive, it was the stress-free days of summer and now it is back to school.  Even if your attachment challenged child is excited about the school year, you can put money on a scourge of blow outs and meltdowns because, like school or not, dysregulation is afoot.

Here are a few tips to ease you through the back to school blues:

Up the empathy for your child’s stress.  (“Awe, it’s awful to have 6 teachers you hate.  Just awful.”)

Give hurdle help. (“I’ll help you find your binder, your homework, your pencil, your deodorant, your zipper, your brain, and your shoes.”)

Be a hero for a few weeks. (“Oh, you forgot your lunch again? Sure, I will take an hour out of my morning to swing it by school before lunchtime.”)

Listen to every story with eager ears and soft eyes. (“Oh, she did? Then what? Oh, that is HILLLL-arious.”)

Have fun and chill. (Eat ice cream after school at least once a week for the first month. Even YOU might like an excuse to blow your diet.”)

Okay, that’s it for me on my first day back to YOU.

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

It Gets In

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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“Does any of this ever get through to our attachment challenged children?”  I am asked this question daily by one parent or another…usually in exasperation and often in despair. 

Unequivocally, yes. Yes it does.  

One day, when you least expect it, you will be both surprised and delighted when you overhear your son or daughter giving sage advice to a sibling or peer.  The advice will sound as though it came right out of your own mouth.  

Have faith.  Trust the human brain to record every single thing, even while denying any memory of the past.  The brain records the bad (sadly) AND the good (thankfully.) That is the hidden paradox.

You child will eventually be able to call upon the years of repetitious neuro-pathways you created when you taught the same lessons, day in and day out, even as they appeared to “never” learn from their mistakes and your best teaching.  

 
Love Matters, 
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
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We all learn through repetition.  Think about something you are trying to change.  How may times have you started and stopped, started and stopped…?   Repetition creates new neuro-pathways for everyone.  It takes a lot of effort to change, right?

 

Things Get Broken

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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Good Morning Fellow Parent,

Our kids break things.  They break things to test the limits of everything because they cannot intuit when to stop, where the breaking point really is.  That is an attachment issue.  A lack of good enough parenting in the first 33 months of life (starting at conception) creates in a child’s brain the inability to intuit when to put the brakes on: when to stop.   So, SNAP, it’s broken.  Have you noticed that your child seems surprised every time something is broken?  It broke. 

Along with the inability to put brakes on is the inability to extrapolate.  Extrapolation is an executive function of the pre-frontal cortex.  Our attachment challenged children cannot extrapolate one broken thing to another broken thing.  Attachment challenged children have a higher level of cortisol (stress hormone) flooding their pre-frontal cortices, thus delaying the development of the executive function.  The executive function in the brain is what makes it possible for our children to put two and two together.  You probably noticed already that our kids don’t put two and two together very well, thus the need for repetition, repetition, repetition on our parts.

They are developmentally delayed.  It is important for us parents  to understand this.  They may look “normal,” but they are not really.  Their brains are different. How can we continue to expect age appropriate behavior from a child whose brain is delayed by many, many years?

The 65,000 dollar question is:  Will their brains ever change?  With help–your safe love, corrective parenting, attachment therapies, neurofeedback, Trauma Therapies, and time–mostly they will…much later than we parents usually expect and desire. Hang in there.

Up your empathy for how in the world it must feel to make the same mistakes over and over and over again and to be in trouble over and over and over again?  For me, horrible to the core and angry as hell at those who appeared to be constantly picking on me.  I think our kids feel something like that.  When I feel empathy, I handle things more gently and lovingly.  So will you.  That is what our kids need–gentle, consistent parenting. Over and over and over.

Love Matters, Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships
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When YOU get upset today, take one deep breath before speaking. Maybe three.

 

Jinxed Myself

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I am so often guilty of thinking “my children never learn.”
In the middle of the night (oh, around 1:30am) a couple days ago, while I was writing to YOU about how “mostly” my family is on the other side of insanity these days, I discovered my son in bed playing away on his computer.  With very little fanfare or emotion I said, “You need to go to sleep now and you have lost your computer privilege… goodnight honey,” and I trotted off to bed like a little carefree pony.
When 6:30am rolled around and it was time to go to school, he refused to speak to me, take his meds, or get up at all–spent the whole day in bed and wouldn’t speak to me when I got home (though he did manage to do all his chores–win/lose sorta.)  Here it is three days later and he still isn’t speaking or going to school. He doesn’t have a computer, so doesn’t have a life-force apparently.
My punishing him in the night the way I did, albeit calmly with an obvious natural consequence, sent him into a cortisol cascade impeding his prefrontal cortex and launching days of poor decision making.  So, thinking “my children never learn” is hysterical.  The truth is:  I never learn.
I know some of YOU are thinking:  Okay, but what did you really do wrong Ce?  He knew he shouldn’t be doing that.  He knew he would get into some kind of trouble.  He was wrong. He was breaking the rule.  He needed a consequence (punishment) to learn not to do it again. How else will he ever learn?
 
I truly wish I had a child with a brain that could manage that kind of thinking and that kind of parenting.  I don’t.  I have a child with extremely poor cause and effect thinking under pressure. Period.  He does not learn from natural or logical consequences dropped on him even by a quiet and gentle little pony.  He dysregulates, blows up or in, and makes one poor decision after another.  He can’t learn under those circumstances. His brain is offline.
Frankly, I am the only one in this equation with the capacity to actually think during times of stress and yet I often don’t.  Funny how I want him to do something that I can’t.  Isn’t that the parent way?  That was my parents’ way.  How about YOU?
When will I learn to parent the brain of the child I actual live with instead of the one I wish I had? When will I ever learn?
By the way, this could have been handled the next day with a simple conversation.  He likely would have consequenced himself without the drama, but I just couldn’t wait to parent power-bomb him.  I think it is a little meanness in me.  I really do.  Oh, the shame of being naked in the mirror of my baser nature.  If I look at it, I can set myself free. This is how I will one day learn.
Love Matters,
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Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
  • Save the Date: Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend is September 19, 20 and 21, 2014.  Email for more information:  jennifer@attachplace.com.