Tag Archives: parenting attachment challenged children

Gratitude For YOU

A group of about 12 parents attended our Trust-based Parent Support Group tonight and by the end of the night I felt my heart swell with love. Honestly, big, big LOVE.

I am not sure many would adopt children if they knew beforehand the actual truth: the truth about the crap shoot they were undertaking and the incredible sacrifice they would be making. Frankly, I am pretty sure I would have taken a pass had I known. (Shhhhh…my children don’t know and they never will.) My parenting journey was…well…challenging for me, the woman who wanted to be “Mom” all of her life and tried so hard but couldn’t be one without adoption.

Tonight, I was thanked by a parent for whatever difficulty I went through to get to the place where my experience could be helpful to adoptive parents. She truly meant that. It may not seem like it in this blog, but I am rather shy about receiving such praise. I made a joke to shake it off, but while I was doing that I felt a wave of loving gratitude wash over me. And this is what unfolded: I really love YOU parents. I really do. I hope YOU can feel it in these emails and in every contact you have with me. I am humbled before YOU.

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.

YOU are loved and AWESOME.

Still Face

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Back when attachment was not considered “a thing,” there was a pocket of researchers studying the parent/infant bond. Their work spawned the attachment revolution in parenting, brain science, relationship building, and treatment of mental health problems. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that one of the most salient experiments conducted was called the “Still Face.” To me, the experiment has a painfully cruel aspect to it; that said, we learned a lot about how a child is affected by the facial expression of the mother. It holds for fathers, too, but those experiments (to my knowledge) have not been done. I truly wonder why.

When YOU are stressed out, angry, tired, or loving too long from your mind (rather than the part of your mind we call heart), your face betrays you to your attachment challenged child. Your face becomes incongruent, your eyes lose their twinkle, and your voice lacks the warmth that the glow of love gives it. YOU may be going through the motions of parenting, but a “Still Face” can be detected just below the surface.

Your child can feel via the conduit of your facial expressions and eyes that YOU are not emotionally present, which immediately sends a signal to that child that you are unsafe, unloving, cold–hateful even. Attachment panic will likely spring up and emotionally dysregulated behavior will not be far behind.

YOU cannot fake it for very long before your attachment challenged child takes it in as something bad about him/her and something bad about YOU.

If YOU are chronically faking, get help for yourself. Find a confidante, a church member, another adoptive parent, support group or a therapist for support. YOU are doing one of the hardest things on earth–parenting a traumatized child. Island, rock, martyr are not synonyms for mother or father.

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.

Empathy is truly the answer.

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 5–Empathy and Blaming

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Love Matters Bootcamp Day 5–Empathy. I have sent this out to YOU before, but do yourself a favor and take 2 minutes and 53 seconds to watch it again.

And now, the very thing that blocks Empathy–Blaming. Come on, just 3 minutes and 14 seconds more.

These are my two favorite things to watch. I do it over and over. They are short and on-point. I wonder what the world would be like if everyone ate-up these two videos every morning for breakfast.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

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.

Empathy supports connection. Play more. Blame less.

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.

Coercive Therapy

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I read an article this morning about a psychologist in Oregon who primarily treated Reactive Attachment Disorder diagnosed children who lost her license and is being held accountable for wrongful doing after an 11-year-old child committed suicide. I don’t know the intimate details of the case, so I am not writing this to you to say shame on anyone, her or the system. I am writing this to you to say that treatment of children with attachment challenges is tricky and needs to be very thoroughly thought through.

Be careful what advice you take. There are coercive therapies still being readily practiced that have been deemed harmful to children. In the early years of having my own children I sought advice from many experts and the prevailing treatment for RAD was coercive. I subjected my own children to recommended interventions, such as strong sitting for too long, forced calisthenics for punishment, therapies that demanded my children scream that they hated me, and lots of pointless hard labor. I did this for about two years before my heart just couldn’t keep going.

I made my children afraid of me through this coercive treatment. I honestly had no idea what else to do and I followed the prevailing wisdom of the therapist I was seeing. Actually, I sought many therapists who did this form of therapy and I did some myself. There is one popular book I still see parents come to me with that I have to dissuade them from using. Every time I ask them not to use the interventions, they say…”But they work.” Coercion works in the short run, but it causes long term-negative effects. Trust me on this.

Over the years, I learned other ways of intervening with love and structure, empathy and understanding. It is both harder and easier in the long run. I had to repair much of the damage my early interventions caused, like fear and hatred in my children toward me. I did that to them, and I will be forever remorseful about it. YOU can know I have made my amends, but it doesn’t undo the damage to our relationships.

Sometimes good therapies are used punitively. Beware of your own desire to punish with perfectly fine interventions. For example, it is okay to ask your children to sit by you until they calm. It is okay to keep them safe by holding them until they can regulate. What isn’t okay is using these things when you are angry and when you want to scare and control your children just because they are naughty and willful. This is the tricky part. It is not healthy for children to be able to hold all the power in a family, so a fine line is necessary.

Here is a link to what is called The White Paper on Coercion in Treatment that sets forth the standards for treatment of attachment challenged children. It is long, about 12 pages, but an essential read in order to protect your children from misguided harm by therapists and by yourself.

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.

The truth is hard to bear sometimes.

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

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Today was a sick day for me–migraine from jackhammer.com. I don’t know about you, but my sick days have silver linings. Both of my children are angelic when I am sick. They are helpful, loving, concerned, and attentive. It is down right weird. Makes me think I don’t ask for help often enough. Apparently, I am too capable. Only under the anvil of a migraine (and cancer treatment) do I become a bed-bound-blob. I think it scares the heck out of my kids, but it shapes them up in a heartbeat and they were trained by the best on how to care for people–me.

I think I did a pretty good job of modeling caregiving, because they are good at it. Makes me think about staying in bed all day just for fun once in a while–not really. It sure is nice to see their soft eyes looking in on me, their sweet tones of voice asking me if I need anything, and their persistent checking back. I love that. I love that they both have this wired into them.

Modeling love (even when you don’t feel terribly inspired in the moment) matters–we reap what we sow.

I read that somewhere. wink

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.

Look for the silver linings.

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Support For Parents of Traumatized, Attachment Challenged Children

Tag Archives: parenting attachment challenged children

Gratitude For YOU

Still Face

Flipping Your Lid

Love Matters Bootcamp Day 5–Empathy and Blaming

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

Coercive Therapy

Sick Days Have Silver Linings

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