Tag Archives: parenting children with special needs

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.

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?

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.

Too Conservative For My Own Good

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Back in the saddle.  I am on East Coast time, so came into the office this morning at 3am.  That is crazy, right?  I just woke up.
I don’t think I mentioned to YOU that my son asked me to bleach his hair a few weeks ago and heretofore I had always said no.  Afterall, I thought, Doesn’t he have enough things to overcome in relationships?  Does he have to have bleached hair on top of it–LITERALLY!
This time I said okay, and the next weekend I bleached him yellow.  I meant to get him to white, which is what I thought he wanted, but having never bleached anyone’s hair before I might have left it on too long or not long enough.  All I know is that he was screaming that his head was burning off, so I decided “right now” was the perfect time.  Anyway, yellow it was.  I saw it first and had a horrible panic feeling.  Then he looked in the mirror, “Mom! It looks so great!”  It’s kind of yellow, isn’t it? “That’s just how I wanted it.”  Snap. I knew that.
I say all of this by way of underlining that I wish I had been less conservative with my daughter when she was in her early teen years.  I really do. She always wanted to look cool, and be different, and do things to her appearance her way.  I thought similarly, Don’t you have enough things to overcome in relationships?  Do you have to dye your hair, pierce your nose (lips, cheeks, chest, etc.), wear those clothes, too?   So, I said no a lot.
 
If I could do it again, I would say YES more, so that the lines I drew could have more meaning. I would be less conservative about how the kids looked and more conservative about their feelings and our relationship, so the little meaningless things didn’t become barriers to connection and love.
My son looks pretty good in yellow hair. Who would have imagined that?
He did.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Lessons learned too late.
 

 

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.

Did YOU Come From Difficult Beginnings?

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There is a bit of an ironic truth in the therapist community that many therapists came from “difficult beginnings” and end up becoming therapists on the way to fixing themselves.  
 
Similarly, I think, many adoptive parents came from “difficult beginnings,” too. Along the way of self repair, providing a better life to an adopted child from “difficult beginnings” makes sense. Nothing wrong with that.  Actually, it is quite lovely.
 
The problem with both of these realities is that unhealed therapists and parents from difficult beginnings can find themselves in emotional disrepair as they try to be healing forces in the lives of those they care for–client or child.
 
Heal thyself.  
 
I wish I had been given, heal thyself, advice prior to adopting children so I could have done my own deep recovery before I mixed my difficult beginning with that of my children.  The result was a compounded mess of entangled traumatic material bouncing off the walls.  In my house, especially in the beginning, it was hard to say who was the most emotionally dysregulated–me or them.
 
Individuals with early trauma experience symptoms on a continuum  If you answer many of the following questions with a YES, YOU might need support for your own healing.  Plain and simple.  Heal thyself.
 
Y or N  Do you prefer to recharge your batteries by being alone rather than with other people?
Y or N  Did you need glasses at an early age?
Y or N  Do you suffer from environmental sensitivities or multiple allergies?
Y or N  Do you have migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, or fibromyalgia?
Y or N  Did you experience prenatal trauma such as intrauterine surgeries, prematurity with incubation, or traumatic events during gestation?
Y or N  Were there complications at your birth?
Y or N  Were you adopted?
Y or N  Have you had problems maintaining relationships?
Y or N  Do you have difficulty knowing what you are feeling?
Y or N  Would others describe you as more intellectual than emotional?
Y or N  Do you have disdain for people who are emotional?
Y or N  Are you particularly sensitive to cold?
Y or N  Do you often have the feeling that life is overwhelming and you don’t have the energy to deal with it?
Y or N  Do you prefer working in situations that require theoretical skills rather than people skills?
Y or N  Are you troubled by the persistent feeling that you don’t belong?
Y or N  Are you always looking for the “why” of things?
Y or N  Are you uncomfortable in groups or social situations?
Y or N  Does the world seem like a dangerous place to you?
          (Recognizing the Symptoms of Early Trauma by Laurence Heller, Ph.D.)
 
Heal thyself.  No shame.  Only love.
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 Matter.

Fre-Frontal Lobe Damage

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I am fond of saying things about the Pre-Frontal Cortex.  YOU might have noticed that if you are a long time Daily YOU Time reader.  I just like the way it rolls off my tongue. Uh, fingers?  
Anyway, our attachment challenged children, as well as any child who comes from difficult beginnings of distressed pregnancy, prematurity, and birth trauma are going to experience frontal lobe (i.e. Pre-Frontal Cortex) damage or delay (if that is easier to think about.)  
That part of the brain is responsible for executive functions of memory, theory of mind (e.g. knowing that one’s mind is not the only mind), extrapolation, cause and effect thinking, reason, and ultimately complex judgement and morality.
Dr. James Chandler nicely describes some of the functions this way:
  1. Working memory and recall (holding facts in mind while manipulating information; accessing facts stored in long-term memory.)
  2. Activation, arousal, and effort (getting started; paying attention; finishing work)
  3. Controlling emotions (ability to tolerate frustration; thinking before acting or speaking)
  4. Internalizing language (using “self-talk” to control one’s behavior and direct future actions)
  5. Taking an issue apart, analyzing the pieces, reconstituting and organizing it into new ideas (complex problem solving).

Give your child a break when it comes to statements they make like:

I forgot.

I don’t remember how to do it.

I don’t remember what you said.

I got distracted.

I can’t focus.

I can’t think.

I can’t start.

I can’t manage.

I don’t know.

I don’t know how.

I can’t remember how.

I didn’t hear you.

I can’t control it.

I just took it.

I just wanted it.

I just hit him.

I got confused.

I can’t do my homework.

I can’t organize it.

I am trying to organize it.

I can’t figure it out.

I can’t.

I can’t.

I can’t.

Your child probably can’t. This is not bad, lazy, unmotivated, defiant, passive aggressive, attachment disordered, stubborn, stupid, resistant, avoidant, or hateful.  Your child needs hurdle-help, brain training, tools, repetition, hands-on experience, skill-building, and your patience.

Pre-Frontal Cortex frontal lobe damage is the problem, not your child.

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.

Patience and understanding will save your relationship with a child who comes from difficult beginnings. Relationship is love in action. 
Love Matters.

Veracity Test

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I have the cure for lying.  Yep, I have it.  You are probably wondering why I am not seriously rich then, because all parents want the cure for lying. 
 
Here it is:  Discipline Yourself.  Wha?
 
99% of all child lies are caused by parenting strategies.  I know you don’t want to believe that.  It actually might even take a paradigm shift for you to see it.
 
Through my son’s door at 6:15am I ask, “Are you up?”  
Rustling himself to his feet, he lies, “Yes.”
 
“What happened to the ten dollar bill that was on my dresser?”
My son lies, “I was getting my phone and it accidentally flew off over the back.”
 
“Have you been smoking?”
My son lies, “No.”
 
“Where have you been?”
My daughter lies, “I was just taking a walk around the block.”
 
“Did you do your chores?”
My children both lie, “Yes.”
 
There is a pattern to my parenting strategy above–the veracity test.  I almost always ask questions I know the answer to.  It is an habituated veracity test that my children fail every time.  I am like a moth to the flame. Will I be burned this time? This time? This time.  Eventually, the moth is consumed by the flame and the fire burns on.  Time after time, I am burned. “See I cannot trust you.”  I set the whole thing up.
 
Want to know something?  No child can be trusted 100%.  The part of the brain that governs truthful behavior doesn’t finish developing until the late 20’s.  Our parenting job is to shape the learning of that part of the brain. Unfortunately most parenting strategies inadvertently activate the survival part of the brain that ultimately creates a delay in the maturity of the reason part of the brain.
 
My kids come from difficult beginnings.  Underneath all their bravado, entitlement, and insatiable demands is deprivation, fear, and a felt sense that no one anywhere is safe.  They don’t consciously know this about themselves, but I do.  
 
That’s why the cure for lying is mine to take, not theirs.  I need to discipline myself to skip the veracity tests.  Why ask a fear-based, habitual liar whether they are lying or not?  Why?  The answer will always be a lie.  It has to be. They fear being rejected, in-trouble, unlovable, wrong, deprived, or caught. 
 
Tip:  Start your investigation into problem behavior with adjusted expectations. Expect fear-based lying. Give assurance. 
 
It would sound something like this: “I don’t want to scare you. You are deeply loved and special no matter what.” Give a hug. “You must really have wanted something badly to use money from my purse.  After you think about it for awhile, I would like to brainstorm with you ways to get what you want in a more honest way.”
Do we want to punish or do we want to facilitate learning?  That is the question.

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 

Brains Are Impacted By Adoption

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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Hello Fellow Parent,

If your child is adopted, his/her brain is NOT the same as a healthy, attached, birth child.  When we ascribe negative intention to our children’s behavior, we are sadly mistaken. Our children have special needs.  They need special dispensation regarding every day activities.  

For example:

When they take forever to get dressed…

When they will not accept your clothing choices…

When screaming is their response to “no…”

When they are charming when other’s say “no…”

When they are withdrawn and negative…

When they are outspoken and attention seeking…

When they are good at getting their way…

When they seem helpless and inadequate at every turn…

When they are controlling…

When they don’t take responsibility…

When they are irrational…

When they are black and white…

When they are clumsy…

When they insist on doing things their own way…

When they are clueless about the needs of others…

When they are self-centered…

When they hoard…

When they break everything they touch…

When they do not share…

When they share everything…

When they would go home with anyone…

When they will not let go of your hand, ever…

When they seem perpetually 2 years old…

When they act 27 years old…

…they need our understanding, compassion, and patience for their brain related specialness.

Love Matters, Ce

8/28/14 Our website is under construction right now, so you cannot get there from anywhere.  In a couple days, you can do the following if you like:
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Give your child compassion in the form of patience and understanding.  You will need to have YOU time to be able to do that.  Get it! You deserve it!  If your child has special needs, so do you.