Tag Archives: Complex Developmental Trauma

Parent P.I.

I always wanted to be a private eye, not because I particularly wanted to sit around watching people through binoculars all day but more because I am keenly interested in human nature and on TV P.I.’s always had cool cars. I settled and became a therapist instead. Same job really, but my car isn’t as flashy.

Turns out being a parent of children who are difficult to raise requires a similar skill set. Before you can intervene in a problem behavior you have to understand the meaning of it. That requires investigation.

The best way to start is to ask the question: Why does s/he do that?

Once you know the motivation, it will be easier to design a successful intervention. When answering the question, take into consideration some of the following ideas.

1. The opposite of whatever the child answers because our children do not like their motives to be discovered.

2. To control.

3. For attention.

4. Throw in some outlandish reason only a kid would think makes sense.

5. Make a couple of studied guesses.

Choose the two motivations that you think are the most likely to be right and address your intervention to that motivation. If the problem behavior doesn’t change once you address what you think is the correct motivation, move down your list. You may have it wrong. Keep going. Eventually you will begin to understand your child the way a detective understands the subject.

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.

Attention is not the only reason for behavior.

Bam Bam Bam

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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

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.

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.

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.

Let the Negativity Begin

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Traumatized children bathe in negativity and think the worst. That is a worldview shaped by trauma and hardwired into their forming emotional brain systems in the early years. Then, in order to make sense of things, they believe they are protecting themselves from the worst, by thinking the worst, before the worst happens. It makes perfect sense, even if misguided.

If you understand this, YOU can be prepared for the negativity when it shows up, so you can avoid being dismissive, discounting and disparaging. Those reactions on your part to their predictable negativity will prove to your child that their thinking is correct–the world is mean and unsafe. See how that works?

I know it seems like your child at some point SHOULD be developing a sense of gratitude for what YOU have done. You might think it will eventually dawn on them that they are living a fabulous, abundant life. And then it doesn’t.

Take heart. It will, but YOU have to provide safety and positive experiences to develop your child’s brain forward. In the face of negativity, show acceptance of the fear of the worst and with empathy encourage practice, accept missteps, and assure your child that you will be there to support them no matter what. Do this a zillion times and one day you will see joy and gratitude creep right in.

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.

Accept your child’s point of view

while supporting brave, bold movement forward.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Tag Archives: Complex Developmental Trauma

Parent P.I.

Bam Bam Bam

4:20 Day

How Big Is the Problem?

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

Let the Negativity Begin

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