Tag Archives: www.attachplace.com

Energize Times Three

Wisdom For Adoptive Parents

Dear Parent,

Raising traumatized, attachment challenged children is stressful and you must take care of your energy systems in order not to fall prey to the ravages of depletion. When I am depleted, I eat too much, sleep too little, and snap at my children. I am even known to yell and be unreasonable. During these times, I am exhausted and I cry a lot, too. Imagine that.

There are three basic human energy systems:

Physical, body

Emotional, mood

Mental, problem-solving

When your body is depleted, you must nurture and rest it. Sleep is ever so important to all energy systems, especially your body. Go to bed early, sleep at least 8 hours, and get up early. Exercise moderately and eat clean foods (that means unprocessed and fresh.) This is all obvious and yet extremely hard to put first in your life when your child is screaming like a banshee. Yes, it is hard. Do it anyway.

You can lift your mood by shifting your posture, directing your eyes more upward than downward, getting sunlight first thing in the morning, and engaging in physical or intellectual activities to give your emotions a distracted relief. Check-out your thinking to make sure you aren’t telling yourself horror stories about the future of your child. Nothing sours a mood more than catastrophizing the “what ifs” for 10 years from now.

Thinking, pondering and obsessing about something over and over is like putting yourself in a hamster cage and running the wheel all day and all night. You are wearing your mental capacity out. Give your mind a break by putting on some music and get your jiggy on (okay I don’t know what that means either) or call a friend for a gabfest over tea. I read an article about Caffeinated Napping that touted drinking a cup of coffee just before a 20-minute nap; the theory being that the coffee would kick in just as you wake to make you feel truly energized. Who knew? I’ve been doing that for years, but I really don’t recommend it. A brisk walk with the dog is always a welcome mental refresher. Oxygen to the brain is a good thing.

If you aren’t taking care of your energy systems, you are not going to be taking good care of your child. Oh, one last thing: stay away from the blue light of screens for at least four hours before bedtime and you might find you sleep like a puppy all cozied up under the covers.

Love matters,

The next 8 hr. Trust Based Parent Training is scheduled for February 20th and 27th from 12noon to 4pm. $200 per couple. Childcare available for $30 each day. To sign up email Jen@attachplace.com and she will register you.

Monthly Adoptive Parent Support Group is every second Wednesday of the month from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Group and Childcare are Free.

Look for Ce Eshelman’s Upcoming Book

Drowning With My Hair On Fire

Insanity Relief For Adoptive Parents

Expected Publication Date: February 15, 2016

Drowning with My Hair On Fire is a compilation of over 175 daily support letters to parents of adoptive children and other children from difficult beginnings. With a forward by Dave Ziegler, Ph.D. and a brief personal memoir, this publication is a response to blog-reader requests for a book of letters that can be easily returned to day after day, when inspiration is hard to find.

Praise for Drowning with My Hair On Fire…

This woman saved our family. This book will save your sanity! After years (and many therapists) of getting it wrong, Ce Eshelman got our traumatized family on the right path to attachment, sanity, and big big love. Ce’s unique therapy is grounded in the latest brain research, her own struggles raising traumatized children, and work with hundreds of families like ours. Her stories, contained in this book, are our stories: full of pain, confusion, hope, faith, love and practical magic that really works.

Elaine Smith, Adoptive Mother

Ce’s daily blog has been a lifesaver, particularly when days are most dreary and hopeless. Not only have her words of empathy proven to be priceless to our family, but I have often forwarded them on to others. Such a comfort to feel understood, with no judgment.

Patty O’Hair, Adoptive Mother

In a real sense “Drowning with My Hair on Fire: Insanity Relief for Adoptive Parents” is a daily mediation of struggle, success, failure and getting up and trying again. If that sounds like too much to subject yourself to then don’t adopt a challenging child. And one more thing, shouldn’t we require prospective adoptive parents to read “Drowning with My Hair on Fire: Insanity Relief for Adoptive Parents” rather than another ‘All they need is love’ manual?

Dave Ziegler, Ph.D., founder of Jasper Mountain Center and author of many books on raising children from difficult beginnings.

Teenagers From The GitGo

Leave a reply

I feel like I have been raising teenagers for 19 years. Because traumatized children are on survival mode, they seem to have teenager-like behaviors from the gitgo. Yep, I said “Gitgo.” I looked it up. It is still a word to Webster.

Today, I woke my son for school and thought the same thing I have thought every day for all these years: He needs to clean this disgusting room. That is an hysterical repetitive thought process. How can I possibly care about his room for 16+ years? HE obviously doesn’t NEED a clean room. The good news is I didn’t say anything. If I said something every time I thought it my children would hate me.

Parents don’t have to parent everything. If we did, our children would be either passively resistant or aggressively resistant 24/7. By the actual teen years, we would be totally tuned out and without influence in our children’s lives.

Relationship is everything. Clean rooms, not so much.

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.

Cheers to maintaining your influence for your child’s lifetime.

Tax Day

Leave a reply

Be careful what you are ignoring when you follow advice from parent educators to “ignore” your child’s negative behavior. Sometimes we parents get confused what that means. It doesn’t mean ignore the child. It means ignore the behavior. Some attachment challenged children have a multitude of negative behaviors. You could end up ignoring your child at regular intervals all day every day.

If YOU had a bad habit of mumbling your words or talking a little too loud or too much or chewing vigorously at dinner and your beloved ignored you whenever it happened, how might you feel?

Ignored?

Hurt?

Rejected?

Shamed?

Angered?

Furious?

Reactive?

Rebellious?

Oppositional?

Bitter?

Unloved?

Disengaged?

Done!

Enough said, right?

Attachment challenged children are not usually capable of discerning exactly what you are ignoring. They often take it to mean YOU are “mean” and they are bad.

A better approach with soft loving eyes sounds like this:

“I love you and yelling when you are angry hurts my ears.

“I love you and chew with your mouth closed, Sweetie Pie.”

“I love you and I couldn’t hear what you said. Try again please.”

Yep, say those sentences 15 times a day instead of ignoring your child 15 times a day. Could be life changing.

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.

Dear Parents: I love YOU and I need you to

take better care of yourselves.

How Big Is the Problem?

Leave a reply

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.

Gratitude For YOU

Leave a reply

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

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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 4–Hope

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: