Tag Archives: parenting children with special needs

The Grief Within

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I was watching the 9/11 Memorial Museum dedication today and had a wave of deep sadness overtake me from that tragedy.  Then, without realizing it, I was consumed in old unrelated grief and simply cried it out until the tears stopped and I felt done.
 
angery griefHow this unfolded this morning in me made me think of YOU and your children. Grief often plays a big part in the background of our lives.  Our children have lost their sense of felt safety along with original attachments and sometimes many subsequent ones.  We parents have our personal grief from wounds past and re-worked dreams for the family life we hoped we were creating when we brought our children home. The grief is deeply stored as trauma in our brains, one painful event on top of another, that lends to inexplicable, triggered emotional experiences throughout our daily lives. 
How this unfolded this morning in me made me think of YOU and your children. Grief often plays a big part in the background of our lives.  Our children have lost their sense of felt safety along with original attachments and sometimes many subsequent ones.  We parents have our personal grief from wounds past and re-worked dreams for the family life we hoped we were creating when we brought our children home. The grief is deeply stored as trauma in our brains, one painful event on top of another, that lends to inexplicable, triggered emotional experiences throughout our daily lives.
 
Grief is sneaky.  It is like the background of a Jackson Pollack canvas.  We often cannot see it anymore due to the wild strokes of everyday life, but it is there, lying in wait for a scratch on the surface to reveal what hides beneath. 
 
Our kids have a complex reality and they rarely understand themselves, their emotions, or why the grief in the form of outbursts, negativity, and aggression overtake them at random intervals when they feel deprivation of any kind.
If YOU understood the grief beneath the outbursts, perhaps you would be more compassionate toward your child tragically tantruming over not getting a second cookie.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Day one of Trust-based Relational Parent Training.  Super great group of parents.  Wish YOU were 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.
  • Big HUG and APPRECIATION for the generous scholarship contributions–YOU know who YOU are.  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.

 

Long-Term Damage Is What It Is

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tripping 2My parents sent me to 9-years of ballet lessons because they said to each other often in front of me, “She is c-l-u-m-s-y.” YOU already know I fall a lot. Yesterday, I broke my toe by misjudging a step outside my kitchen, and this morning I nearly broke my face misjudging the same darned step.

I come from difficult beginnings of maltreatment and insecure attachment, and the scourge of c-l-u-m-s-y has been with me all my life. I also have to cut every tag out of my collars and buy shoes a half-size bigger than necessary (which might explain the tripping problem on a different level–ha) because tight shoes significantly lower my IQ.

While I embark on the task of launching my son into adulthood, I am pointedly reminded of the long-term damage from difficult beginnings. I lose sight of the effects on me because, after all, clumsy and itchy are all I have ever known. On my sweet boy, the damage is what it is–long-term and pervasive.

Sunday, I started on the process of chaperoning my son on weekly grocery shopping trips for himself. He was like a deer in headlights, and the truck hit him. The cortisol flooded him so completely that he couldn’t remember what he ate last week. Beyond what I cook, he eats the same 6 things every week of his life–milk, bread, chili, ravioli, fruit, cereal. He couldn’t remember even one of those things for 15 minutes.

Eventually, he recovered his memory, searched the aisles four or five times, and got it all in the cart. It took nearly an hour. When I asked him to sign his name on the electronic pad at checkout, I thought my computer geek son was going to hyperventilate. I can’t Mom. I haven’t ever done it before. I don’t know how. I can’t write that small. I can’t handwrite. I can’t. With soothing, persistence, and prompts to breathe, he did it just fine.

After putting the grocery bags into the car, I caught a glimpse of his smiling face. “That was easy,” he said proudly. That was easy just like walking and chewing gum at the same time is easy for me.

This is just a reminder about your children from difficult beginnings. They have long-term impairment that YOU and they need to understand in order to overcome with self-esteem intact.

Love Matters,

One Day Later

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breakfast in bedMoms, I am sure you are still reeling from all those pancakes in bed, bouquets of flowers, handmade gifts, and gobs of gratitude and love showered upon YOU yesterday for Mother’s Day.  YOU are probably still lounging in bed with a cappuccino dreaming about it all–right?  Dads, YOU will get your turn next month.
During the Trust-based Parenting course over the  weekend I spent a good bit of time helping parents see that their interpretation of their child’s motives for behavior are often misunderstandings.Here are a couple comments (paraphrased) I heard that you may think, too:
My child doesn’t value anything she has because she doesn’t care when I take her stuff away.
My child isn’t scared of anything so I have to be a drill sergeant.
My child doesn’t love me because she doesn’t even refer to me as her mother.It is an innate human drive to attach, love, and be loved.  Similarly, an innate human response to the fear following a loss of attachment (compounded when there is maltreatment) is elevated survival instincts–fight, flight or freeze.

If your child comes from difficult beginnings, most of the negative things YOU think about why your child is tantruming, not caring, not responding, or rejecting is a misinterpretation of a fight, flight or freeze survival/trauma reaction.

So here is the most accurate interpretation of nearly all persistent, negative, confusing behavior:  Our kids are stuck on surviving, which makes them seem uncaring about anything beyond themselves.  They care about everything, just not more than their own survival.


Love Matters,

Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Day one of Trust-based Relational Parent Training.   Super great group of parents.  Wish YOU were 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.
  • Big HUG and APPRECIATION for the generous scholarship contributions–YOU know who YOU are.  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.

Favorite Sentence

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One of my favorite parenting sentences (I think I stole from PCIT, but who can remember such details at my age?) to get the kids moving.  I don’t know why this works so frequently, but it does.  It’s sharing power, so it makes sense that it works, now that I think about it.

Okay, time to go to bed.
Noooooooo!!! I’m not done!
How much more time do you think you need? [That was the favorite sentence, though I see now that it is really a question, my favorite parenting question.]
10 minutes.
Let’s compromise–5 more minutes.
Awwwa, okay.
Two minutes later, he is done and down the hall to the bedroom.

I know you don’t believe me, so start small and build up to bedtime.

cartoon momMy son has been home “sick” in bed for two days.
I asked him, How much more time do you think you need?
Uhh, I’m pretty sick.  My stomach really has been hurting.  Uh, a week?
Let’s compromise–you’re getting your butt to school to-mor-row.
It was worth a try, Mom.
We giggled.  He’s going to school tomorrow.

Wow, crazy as it seems, I have raised a seriously reasonable kid.  I worried that would never happen.  I often had so little faith in the face of so much fear.

Good thing I kept putting one foot in front of the other.  Just like YOU.


Keep the faith. Keep walking forward.
The Attach Place Logo

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:

  • Count down to the next Trust-based Relational Parent Training—May 10th and 17th.  Very excited. Really enjoy being with parents for these extended time periods.  Love it.
  • 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.

Falling On My Nose

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trippingI fall a lot.  Just this week I fell right on my nose.  Didn’t break it, so all is well.  I fall so often that when I texted my husband about an accident outside the house between a bicyclist and a SUV, he texted back, What hospital are you going to?  Huh, wah?  It took three texts to clarify to him I wasn’t talking about myself, but rather about a stranger in the front yard (bicyclist hurt her foot, not too serious, for those of you with inquiring minds.)
Both of my kids had and still have proprioceptive and vestibular deficits.  They fall a lot, have trouble riding skate boards and bikes, slam into closed doors to seemingly stop, spill stuff, drop stuff, put things away with lids ajar, hug like jellyfish, and clean up like blind-folded raccoons.  Physical life is hard for them and my empathy was not always as high as it is now.

Frankly, I didn’t understand the constant physical mayhem running around me, but I wish I had. If so, I would have participated more fiercely in Occupational Therapy with them.  As it was, I sent them, but didn’t realize I could have contributed to making their lives easier by providing–Wilbarger Brushing Technique (as prescribed), Full Body Deep Pressure Touch, Joint Compression Activities, Interactive Brain Gym Play, Crash and Bump Play Space, Massage, Sensory Engagement, and Rough and Tumble Play.

What are YOU doing every day to help your child integrate and organize the sensory input of living?  It matters more than soccer practice.

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Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
The link code was wonky, if you had trouble clicking into the Love Matters Scholarship page this week. I think it is fixed now.
 
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.
 
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th.  
 
Check out our three blogs:
 
Feel free to invite your friends and family to receive Daily YOU Time emails, too. Click here to sign them up.  All you need is an email address and first name.

Accept and Love Grows

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Acceptance is like miracle salve for love wounds.  No kidding. Acceptance is the key to nearly all relationship conflicts–parent/child, spouse/spouse, boss/employee, extended family and friends.
 
My husband has a tiny bit of anxiety, which he quells by a tiny bit of what could be called NAGGING. I don’t see nagging.  I see him as loving and engaged in taking care of many things for our family.  I feel loved when he is attending, ever so minutely, to things I might forget to think about.
 
My son has very serious ADHD, amongst other things.  No matter what I ask him to do, he complies with a buckshot approach, rarely doing all of anything requested.  This could be seen as defiance, laziness, lack of care, and after 15 years it is certainly annoying.  I do get annoyed, but I see the desire he has to please me and accept that as a job well done.  
 
Personally, I have lost a good deal of my memory capacity since cancer treatment and getting older.  I make a lot of minor mistakes now. When this first started, I felt awful and experienced a drop in my self-confidence.  My husband, children, and colleagues accepted my mistakes and stepped right in to help me.  Their love and acceptance are helping me accept myself and adjust to this life change.  
We can struggle every day against things we cannot change, or we can embrace life with acceptance and love.  The choice is ours to make.
 
What do YOU need to accept in your child, your partner, others in your life to change conflict into love?
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Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
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.
 
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th.  It is close to full already, so go towww.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.  
Check out our three blogs:
 
Feel free to invite your friends and family to receive Daily YOU Time emails, too. Click here to sign them up.  All you need is an email address and first name.

Attachment Panic

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Attachment panic in our children is painful and scary. It occurs when insecurely attached children are triggered by some kind of deprivation–major or minor, real or perceived–to experience abandonment at the core of their being. When the child feels that core abandonment, s/he goes into survival mode–fight, flight or freeze–because at least once, and often many times in the past, s/he endured the bone chilling fear of eminent death by abandonment.  
What you need to know is that YOU cannot always prevent this kind of triggered panic.  Over time YOU can build in your child a felt sense of safety by creating a safe, sensory-rich environment, being a safe and attuned parent, and helping your child understand that manipulation, excessive control and violence are misguided ways to get connection. It takes a long time to turn this around and heal the wounds. Keep the faith. Healing happens with consistent therapeutic parenting.
Attachment Help

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
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.
 
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th.  It is close to full already, so go to www.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.  
Check out our three blogs:
 
Feel free to invite your friends and family to receive Daily YOU Time emails, too. Click here to sign them up.  All you need is an email address and first name.

Loving Restraint

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This weekend The Attach Place held a small and wonderful Hold Me Tight Workshop for parents like YOU.  A good time was had by all, except one little guy who I ended up restraining.  Yep, you heard it here.  I had to restrain one of the children in child-care who was harming his siblings and himself.  It had been a long time since I held a child “against his will,” which is a terrible feeling.  Sometimes holding is the only way to keep everyone safe.  
 
In that moment I was hurled back in time when restraining my children was a daily event. While I was stroking the forehead of this little boy to soothe him, I was filled with love for him and his parents. Simultaneously, I felt a kind of forgiveness wash over me for the mother I had to be 10 years ago.  
 
We do what we have to do.  Shame is not required.
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Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Next Trust-based Relational Parent Training is scheduled for May 10th and 17th.  It is close to full already, so go to www.attachplace.com to register soon to reserve your space.  
Check out our three blogs:

 

Start Your Planning

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Parents Really Need Naps

Parents Really Need Naps

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Start your planning.  Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are coming up soon. I challenge YOU to make arrangements for some delicious respite to celebrate being the fabulous parents that you are to the fabulous children that YOU love.
 
Yes, I know you savor those sweet homemade cards, thoughtful though obligatory pink carnations, breakfasts in bed that stay forever stained on the comforter, and gift cards from Sharper Image, but what about some serious alone time at a Day Spa or with your partner somewhere secluded or adventurous, sans children.
 
If Hallmark is going to give us parents two whole days, by all means, let’s take advantage of them. 
Yes you can make it happen, with a lot of planning and a bit of saving.  It just might be worth it.
This year we are sending the darlings away for an adventure with friends while we stay home for adult activities.  That is not costing us a cent. I love that.
 
Will YOU accept the challenge? I hope so.
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Love and Respite Matter,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT 

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Our children have a story they tell themselves.  Do you know what your child’s internal story is?  You might hear it leaking out in times of emotional upheaval:  Nobody likes me.  I never get what I want. It’s too hard.  I can’t. You don’t love me.  I don’t love anybody.  I hate myself.  I hate everyone.  I can do it without anyone’s help. I don’t need you.  I don’t need love.  I hate love.
 
Having a coherent narrative is one of the keys to mental health. Whenever you can, tell your child the story you want them to tell themselves inside. YOU don’t need to make anything up.  Your child is precious, loved, planned, wanted, adored, valued, appreciated, and special.  Make sure you say these things all the time–10,000 times to make a new neuro-pathway.  
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Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT