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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.

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.

Name the Shame

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When I was growing up, I am pretty sure my parents read some kind of
parenting book entitled, Shame Your Way to Perfect Children.  Or
maybe topping The New York Times best seller list for non-fiction
during those years was a blockbuster book called, Best Kept Secret
For Good Behavior: Shame Works.  Sorry Mom and Dad.  The secret is
out.

My parents weren’t bad people.  They were just doing what their
parents did. It did work pretty well. I didn’t do a whole lot of bad
stuff when I was a kid. I waited until I was away at college.  Ha.

So, shame can work with normally attached children.  However, there
is a side-effect even for attached children–lingering into adulthood
a negative core belief about self worth that often takes a lifetime
to repair. That’s me.

Shame doesn’t work at all to manage the behavior of  attachment
challenged children who have a primal wound from adoption, abuse and
neglect in the early years, or birth trauma in the early years that
gets confused with a poorly formed identity.

You know that blank look, those frozen wide-open doll eyes YOU get
from your children when you confront them on their negative
behavior–that look that implies no feeling, no care, no conscience?
You know that incredible head of steam, that incensed, indignant,
“How dare YOU” bluster they can muster to deny they had any part in
misdeeds. Those two responses are a sure fire indicator that shame is
at work just under the surface and your child is calling upon every
imaginable survival skill to push away the overwhelming experience of
shame, even if that means nonsensical lying, nonsensical denying, or
nonsensical self-silencing.

Here is the real secret.  Remove the blame, address the shame, and
attend to what lies beneath–your child’s fear of being bad, wrong,
unwanted and unlovable.  Shame of being.  How sad it that? Our
children very often feel shame about who they are–and they don’t
even know it.  Every day poor decision-making adds evidence to their
internal unconscious argument that they are rotten at the core.

As parents we can work to heal this “bad” feeling in our children.
We just have to be sure that shame is not used in a misguided attempt
to make our children feel something about their negative
behavior–remorse, sorry, sad, bad, anything except nothing.

They already feel bad enough about who they are; extra is not
required.

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/993b85483b/TEST/8d3e730b6f .

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/993b85483b/TEST/c7ac59da35 .

Commit to withholding shame and in the face of negative behavior
affirm your child’s goodness at the core.

Attachment and Trauma Series

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I am pretty excited about this upcoming free series on Attachment and Trauma in the Classroom.  I can’t listen to the the whole series myself, but you might be able to or you might be able to convince your child’s school to purchase the recorded series for teachers, classroom aides, counselors, school psychologists and school staff.  I am not attesting to how great the material will be because I haven’t heard it yet; however, I know the point of view of this organization and it is right on the dime about how to heal attachment and traumatized children.
 
Very often parents invite me to Student Study Team meetings, IEPs, and school brainstorming sessions to help inform well-meaning school personnel about ways of educating our children.  I have written more letters to help support my child clients in the classroom than I care to count.  I hate to admit it. This material may be even better than a school visit from moi.
 
Here you go.  If YOU have school aged children from difficult beginnings, I hope you can make it.  It’s FREEEEEEE.  How great is that?

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.

Our children are learning challenged.  
Let’s help teachers give them a chance.

Shake It Off

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Good Morning Fellow Parent,

Got up this morning to the usual:  Teeth, Deodorant, Zipper?  Close, but no trifecta.
 
Just have to Shake It Off with Audrey and Dad:
 
Shake It Off
 

Honestly, it has been one of those kid weeks. It’s definitely my house, because the same things happen every day, every day, every day.  Shaking it off is the only answer.  

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.

 When nothing else makes sense, DANCE.

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:
If you would like to receive daily “YOU Time” parent support emails and you have not yet signed up,  click here.
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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.

 

It Gets In

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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“Does any of this ever get through to our attachment challenged children?”  I am asked this question daily by one parent or another…usually in exasperation and often in despair. 

Unequivocally, yes. Yes it does.  

One day, when you least expect it, you will be both surprised and delighted when you overhear your son or daughter giving sage advice to a sibling or peer.  The advice will sound as though it came right out of your own mouth.  

Have faith.  Trust the human brain to record every single thing, even while denying any memory of the past.  The brain records the bad (sadly) AND the good (thankfully.) That is the hidden paradox.

You child will eventually be able to call upon the years of repetitious neuro-pathways you created when you taught the same lessons, day in and day out, even as they appeared to “never” learn from their mistakes and your best teaching.  

 
Love Matters, 
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
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We all learn through repetition.  Think about something you are trying to change.  How may times have you started and stopped, started and stopped…?   Repetition creates new neuro-pathways for everyone.  It takes a lot of effort to change, right?

 

Things Get Broken

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Daily YOU Time
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Love Matters
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Good Morning Fellow Parent,

Our kids break things.  They break things to test the limits of everything because they cannot intuit when to stop, where the breaking point really is.  That is an attachment issue.  A lack of good enough parenting in the first 33 months of life (starting at conception) creates in a child’s brain the inability to intuit when to put the brakes on: when to stop.   So, SNAP, it’s broken.  Have you noticed that your child seems surprised every time something is broken?  It broke. 

Along with the inability to put brakes on is the inability to extrapolate.  Extrapolation is an executive function of the pre-frontal cortex.  Our attachment challenged children cannot extrapolate one broken thing to another broken thing.  Attachment challenged children have a higher level of cortisol (stress hormone) flooding their pre-frontal cortices, thus delaying the development of the executive function.  The executive function in the brain is what makes it possible for our children to put two and two together.  You probably noticed already that our kids don’t put two and two together very well, thus the need for repetition, repetition, repetition on our parts.

They are developmentally delayed.  It is important for us parents  to understand this.  They may look “normal,” but they are not really.  Their brains are different. How can we continue to expect age appropriate behavior from a child whose brain is delayed by many, many years?

The 65,000 dollar question is:  Will their brains ever change?  With help–your safe love, corrective parenting, attachment therapies, neurofeedback, Trauma Therapies, and time–mostly they will…much later than we parents usually expect and desire. Hang in there.

Up your empathy for how in the world it must feel to make the same mistakes over and over and over again and to be in trouble over and over and over again?  For me, horrible to the core and angry as hell at those who appeared to be constantly picking on me.  I think our kids feel something like that.  When I feel empathy, I handle things more gently and lovingly.  So will you.  That is what our kids need–gentle, consistent parenting. Over and over and over.

Love Matters, Ce Eshelman, LMFT
The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships
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When YOU get upset today, take one deep breath before speaking. Maybe three.