Ordinary Time

"Our society has an entrenched way of thinking about behavior. We almost always assume it derives from a person's will -- that people behave consciously and purposefully. When people misbehave, we likewise assume that they're doing it intentionally. As a result, whenever individuals in almost any social setting act out or misbehave, those in charge usually respond by punishing the bad behavior. When you were a kid, did your parents take away your TV time or allowance when you misbehaved? Most did. When you continued to misbehave, they probably just stepped up the intensity of the consequences and rewards. And they probably also bestowed privileges when you did the right thing. School discipline is similar. We assume when kids misbehave in school, they do it on purpose either to get stuff (special attention, for instance) or get out of stuff (like doing their work or coming inside after recess). In the early school years, teachers will punish kids with time-outs. They are t...

Over the weekend I did something to the muscles over my right hip and could barely move for several days. Monday was definitely the worse, with yesterday being a little bit better, but that was probably because I didn't really try to do all that much. Today there is still a little twinge, but I'm functional again. Yesterday, when I was doing all that much except sitting uncomfortably, I binge read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Yes, I'm a bit late to the party since it was published in 2017, but I rarely pick up super popular books at the time they were popular. I don't actually know why I put it on my library reserve list, but I think I came across a synopsis and it sounded interesting. I ended up really enjoying the book. I really liked the character of Eleanor, including her disdain for texting shortcuts. If you don't know the book, the character of Eleanor is the story of a person with significant past trauma including being in care for mu...

Today was a not spectacular day. This morning, before I had made it out to the horses, I noticed R. shuffling up the stairs, with one foot stepping up and the second foot joining the first before moving on. Alternating feet, one on a step, had been something we worked on from Day 1, and is also something R. mastered over eight years ago. Sometimes I do have to remind her, bug then she changes to alternating feet and life moves on.  Life didn't move on this morning. It stopped dead in its tracks and screamed as though something was trying to kill it. R. did make it up the stairs with me moving her feet one step at a time, but by the end neither of us was at our best. R. was so not her best I was suddenly very afraid we were heading into psychosis territory. So for the next two hours I sat with her on the stairs regulating myself so she had a chance of regulating herself. G. fed and turned out the horses, H. completely cleaned the kitchen. And I stuffed flashbacks to three years ago ...

I was listening to a Hidden Brain episode one day last week about how our brains become easily accustomed to something. It's why the fifth bite of chocolate cake is just a tiny bit less amazing than the first, why we become sensitized to smells, and why things that feel scary at first become less and less so the more we do them.  One of the really interesting bits of information was that the more a person lies, the easier lying becomes. (Don't worry, I'm not heading into political, let's rehash the debate territory. I just don't have the bandwidth. It's safe to keep reading if you feel the same.) I heard this on the heels of yet another discussion with a parent over their child's lying.  I've mentioned before that lying as a behavior related to past trauma is one of the very last behaviors to be mitigated by connective parenting. I knew that often lying was very much a trust and safety issue; children lie because it is a way to keep themselves safe in si...

I'll tell you up front that I am doing a bait and switch with this blog post. First I'll share a picture of Vienna. I'll even tell you that Vienna is doing extremely well. She even was a little spicy for the farrier yesterday. It shows how much back to normal Vienna is these days. The farrier was so happy that she wanted to cheer for the spicy pony who was giving her a bit of a hard time. I'm so happy to have my little brace pony back to herself. It's been a long 5+ months.  But that's not really what this post is about. I needed to open with a pony picture because I didn't want this to show up in the thumbnail and have someone assume my support of it as a result. I'll say it right out loud. This is wrong. This is child blaming writ large. A more accurate version would say, "Parenting a child with past trauma is constantly filling your child's cup with love, only to watch it bleed out of them and have them say, 'I don't feel loved.'...

There is a website that "helps" families who are struggling with their adopted child find a new home. I've written about my feelings (which are not positive) before, so won't go into that here. And as much as I try not to have anything to do with it, I occasionally come across a listing which inevitably has me gnashing my teeth.  Earlier this week I had that very thing happen, but what particularly bothered me was that the child had been in their new home less than a year. I am astounded that anyone would make such a drastic move in so little amount of time. It's unethical and potentially devasting for the child involved.  I was in the kitchen while expounding to J. on my feelings about this whole thing when Y. happened to pass through. She paused a moment to listen to what set her mother of this time (and possibly to judge the entertainment value). When I mentioned the less than a year piece, Y. was incensed right along with me.  I always find it interesting to t...

While I was gone, R. had a couple of bad moments, often involving screaming at five am. While she was able to be calmed, J. did not get the most restful weekend. This surprised me because in the days leading up to my leaving, she would have a litany of things she would tell me. "Mommy go see Grammy. Mommy come back. Daddy take care of me." This was far better processing about an impending departure than we had seen, so I was hopeful we had turned another corner.  While there was interrupted sleep, it could have been (and had been) much, much worse. Of course, I also wasn't one of the people being awakened in the wee hours of the morning. I'm still going with progress, even if very incremental, has been made. What was interesting to me, though, was what happened this morning. First, she slept in. This is not a child who normally sleeps late, but her sleep had been interrupted, too, so she must have been tired. I was glad she could ratchet down enough that she could act...

There was a brief moment of sun this afternoon, so I was able to read outside for a bit. Here was my view. It also meant I was able to finish Terror, Love & Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. (A little light reading for a weekend away.)  What drew me to this book was the juxtaposition of attachment theory and totalist groups or belief systems.  Attachment theory is really a descriptive way to describe how people interact with each other and relate to the world. Usually attachment styles are determined in early childhood by relationships with intimate caregivers.  In a way, the book was not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a discussion of which attachment styles are most likely to be susceptible to cults or totalist thinking. It turned out to be far more complicated and interesting that that simple premise. The short version is that any person with any attachment style can be drawn into totalist groups, even those with healthy attachments. What type aut...

Evidently my new hobby has become arguing discussing things with people I know on social media. I don't want it to be and I know very well that it is not the venue for reasonable discussion. But sometimes I come across a statement that someone makes that I just can't scroll by because it is so wrong and there are other people reading who could be hurt by it. Not pushing back on outrageous and erroneous statements gives tacit approval. There are just some things that I cannot approve of tacitly or otherwise. This is also a case of knowing your audience. Sometimes the comment comes from a source that I know without a doubt won't be open to discussion, so I do keep scrolling. It's a fine line.  This particular instance happened to do with a post sharing the listing of a child on a re-adoption site. I don't even want to share the name of this particular one because I am so adamantly opposed to them. The listings made me want to weep with grief for the child and a combi...

If that title doesn't make you want to click on the post, I can't imagine what would. Let's start with the hedgehogs. Y. has taken on the task of making them both crocheted hats to match the season. Since it is now March, they needed spring hats. But since some of my children just can't seem to completely shake whatever cold is going around, L. has been putting their hats over their noses as masks. To keep them safe, you know. This annoys Y. So in an effort to keep the hedgehogs' hats on their heads and to keep them from getting sick, not only do they have new spring hats, but they have new spring masks as well.  Now on to the brainwashing. A friend recommended a book to me and it arrived at the library yesterday. It is Terror, Love, & Brainwashing: attachment in cults and totalitarian systems by Alexandra Stein. Nothing like a little light reading, huh? I'm actually really excited about it. As I understand it, the author takes the different attachment style...

[This is a post where I might alienate some people. Just a heads-up.] I've been stewing over this post for several days now. Sometimes I come across things in relation to helping struggling parents, particularly those with adopted children, that have some surface things that sound okay, but there are some real problems underneath. In this one instance in particular, I even took it to my fellow parenting experts who help with the large Parenting With Connection FB group because I wanted to be sure it wasn't sour grapes on my part. I don't feel in competition with other parenting coaches, but I am also a flawed human. They all confirmed my own concerns.  What concerns me the most is that I firmly believe that there are some things that may seem to help a family in the short term, but could do untold damage in the long term. Creating connection and felt safety take time. Healing from past hurt takes time. There aren't really quick and easy fixes here, especially if the hur...

I was having a discussion with a woman I am mentoring and realized a small piece of what I had written might be useful to a wider audience. While I was writing in reference to children with a hard past, this is actually true for all children. «The keys to working with ... children are:  1. To keep yourself regulated no matter what they say or do. They need to know you can handle their mess and are not upset by it.  [Have you ever been so worried or upset about something that you are sure your world is going to end? And then you tell your spouse or a friend and they don't lose their mind with you, but remain calm and you can begin to ratchet down because their calmness helps you realize the world is not actually ending? Tell me it's not just me. Our children really, truly need adults who will not freak out and thereby confirm the world is truly ending. This is why it is so vital to learn self-regulation. We need to be the calm and stable center for our children.] 2. Accept who ...

I've worked with struggling parents for a while now... as in over a decade... and I've come to some conclusions. The first is that a parent who has reached out for help is well over halfway to making the changes needed to feel more fulfilled and effective as a parent. I truly think that deciding to ask for help is the single most difficult step of the process. I know it was for me. I spent far too many years trying to convince myself that things were getting better, that we were making progress. But it wasn't true. We weren't getting better, things were actually getting worse. To admit I couldn't figure out how to fix things felt like failure. I'm sure that was what stopped me from looking for help sooner. If I had, I could have saved all of us an immense amount of struggle and heartache. Hindsight and all that.  I get why it's hard, but being on this side of things I also know that reaching out for help is not failure but showing you are very much a good an...

Every so often I come across something in my reading that states something I intuitively understood but had never put into words. Once again, in my reading about horses, I found something extremely pertinent to parenting children, especially those that are struggling for whatever reason. I'm going to share a fairly long quote with you and then discuss it a bit, but first my usual disclaimer. No, I'm not comparing children to animals. You all know that right? But very often we can learn from listening to animals something about communicating with our children who are too scared to so anything but react, often in fairly unpleasant ways, to their circumstances. While the author talks about training horses, he is really doing more listening to horses. To avoid comments I'd rather not have to deal with, I am in no way suggesting we train behavior into children. Actually, I'm suggesting the exact opposite. And if you are not a horse person, just go ahead and slog through any ...

I know how extremely difficult waiting can be, especially when your heart longs to bring your child home and there seems to be no end in sight. I know what's it's like to see milestones and birthdays pass while you miss them; of losing days and years you won't get back. It can be very difficult to have perspective. It can be very difficult to think about anything else.  No one seems to understand exactly how difficult it is to wait for a child you've only seen in photos... your beloved child, but not. I remember those years. I was not at my best. The wait felt so horrendous that I couldn't imagine anything being worse than what I was going through, missing my son I loved but didn't know. This type of waiting is its own special form of insanity.  When you are in this type of limbo it is very easy to lose perspective. Words that are offered with the intent to help are taken poorly. Reactions and emotions are high. You are sure that no one can truly understand your...

I am reading Lost Connections: Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope by Johann Hart, not because I am depressed but because I am fascinated by the current brain research behind depression and anxiety (they are nearly the same as far as the brain is concerned.) It is fascinating. Probably one of the most interesting brain books I have read in a while.  Setting aside the incredibly bizarre and infuriating section on SSRI's and how pharmaceutical companies bring drugs to market (which personally, I think every single person should read), I want to focus instead on my favorite topics of felt safety and connection.  "In just a decade ... [between 1984 and 1994] ... across the Western world, we stopped banding together at a massive rate, and found ourselves shut away in our own homes instead. We dropped out of community and turned inward, Robert [Putnam, author of Bowling Alone] explained when I [the author] spoke with him. These trends have been happening since the 1930...

When a reader asks for the list of brain books I have read, how can I say no? This is not a complete list because I only started to keep a list of what I read in 2016. It was at that point I grew tired of forgetting titles or rereading a book because I had forgotten I had read it. I have added some pre-2016 books on at the end that I know I have read, but I started reading on this topic around 2012, so that's four years' worth of books that I don't have titles for. This is a long list. If I remember a book and found it particularly interesting, I'll put an '*' next to it. If a book needs some sort of comment, I'll add that. It was also difficult to look at my list and decide what kind of book it was. You'll notice that there are books that venture a bit outside of the strict 'brain' category, but I think still fit. 1. The Body Knows its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel - Sian Beilock * 2. ...

When I look at my blog stats, it shows me which posts have been viewed. Usually it's the most recent ones by a week or so, but every so often some older ones get thrown in the mix. There are some posts that show up a lot for one reason or another, but there is a whole lot that don't. That's not surprising when I have over 4000 posts published here. Once in a while I'll see an old post listed and click on it to see what it was. I truly do not remember a lot of what I have written and I'm curious. Often it is just a nice walk down memory lane of what we were doing ten to fifteen years ago. Other times it is not so nice. This isn't because the memory is bad; I do tend to remember very clearly the hard stuff I have written about. It is not so nice because I am brought up short with my old self.  I will say I consider my Old Self to be the writer of posts any time previous to March 2012. That's very specific, isn't it? That is because it was in March of 2012 ...

Other possible titles for this post include:     ... My children are rock stars     ... Anatomy of a meltdown (mine)     ... Christmas may happen after all     ... Riding lessons after sitting for two weeks are no fun I could keep going, but I think you get the idea. We are doing better. I won't say we are out of the woods yet, but things are better. I feel as though I have a new lease on life in general. (Actual title)  One of the things which significantly contributed to this is the fact that I got out all day yesterday at a weaving class. I had signed up for this class months ago. (So long ago that I suddenly couldn't remember if I had actually signed up for it or just thought about it. I called to make sure.) I really wanted to take this class and really didn't want to eat the money. R. was seeming just enough better that we decided I should try it with instructions to the masses at home that they should call if things got dicey and I wou...