My mother was quick to anger. She had very little patience with me and I was all thumbs and left feet. I have a salient memory of needing to make an apron from a paper pattern (which was child abuse, if you ask me) at home for Home Ec. My mother was an excellent seamstress and while I struggled with something bunchy under the tines of the sewing machine foot, she snapped, “Let me do it.” In two seconds I was standing aside watching while she silently and effortlessly finished the whole thing. I will never forget that. The things I learned were this:
I was too stupid to live.
My mother was all powerful, all knowing, bigger than life, and scary.
I was useless, inadequate and not worth teaching.
I disgusted her and she didn’t like me very much.
I was afraid of her and I didn’t like her that much either.
Of-course, I never learned to sew because I never tried to do it again.
Children from difficult beginnings often have cognitive delays in their executive function: working memory, attention, self-checking, cause and effect thinking and planning and time concepts.
Be thoughtful about what you are teaching your child, when you are quick to anger when they cannot easily do a task YOU think should be a piece of cake. Children, teens, adults from hard places are managing their brain functions all the time and they sometimes cannot easily access parts of the brain that would help them make good decisions, listen to an entire sentence, remember how to do something that they do all the time, check for their own mistakes, know that breaking the rules will beget some kind of consequence, and figure out when it is time to stop playing and start their chores.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
UPCOMING EVENTS:
- Next Trust-based Parenting Course is scheduled for July 19th and 26th. Sign up here.
- Next Hold Me Tight Couples Weekend Workshop for Therapists and Their Partners presented by Jennifer Olden, LMFT and Ce Eshelman, LMFT is scheduled for June 20, 21, 22, 2014. If you are a therapist and interested in attending, sign up here.
- The Attach Place is embarking on our second round of scholarships for families with adopted children who need services but have no funding to get them. We used up the last of our scholarship money last summer and are ready to start fundraising again. This time we have a pie-in-the-sky, big, hairy, audacious goal of $25,000. If you have a dollar you can afford to contribute, that is how we will pave the way–one dollar at a time. Go to: Love Matters Scholarship Fund. We are working on non-profit status, so these donations can be tax deductible. Yay!
If YOU feel abundant shame, YOU may inadvertently be abundantly shaming. Many of us were parented with a strong nod to shame to keep us following the golden rules. Sadly, shame IS an effective deterrent to misbehavior for some children–it leaves scares, however.
the sidewalk, being complemented, making a mistake, winning awards, being seen, not being seen, laughing too much, being too much, being TOO much. My little children’s attachment challenged behavior caused me to spin in terrible shame spirals–“bad parent” shame. Thankfully, it was my children’s behavior that helped me get over it, too.
Wisdom For Adoptive Parents 