Ordinary Time

Tonight H. and I are going to a benefit gala for the organization that runs her Friday gardening program. I was going to just post a picture and leave it at that, but I've been reading a book and absolutely needed to share a quote from it. Maybe you'll get the picture later. The book is The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton. Now, I have to warn you if two things if you're going to read it (and at over halfway through I do recommend it). The first is to ignore the cover. It gives off a really sketchy New Age-y vibe and I'm sorely tempted to wrap the book in brown paper. The second is that because brains are weird, it ventures into territory that might not be comfortable for you. Except for brain science books that maintain a hard mechanistic line (an example is Behave by Robert Sapolsky which is interesting, a bit of a slog, and vaguely depressing), most brain books end up there. There is a lot of hard science in this one.  I have another blog post also related to thi...

Let's talk about what is normal in parenting children with a trauma history. And just to remind you, all adoption involves trauma. Yes, even infant adoption. Ready?  It is normal for the child to have an immature regulatory system. Things that children with stable backgrounds weather easily are difficult.  It is normal for this regulatory system to be dysregulated much of the time. It is normal for a perpetually dysregulated child to melt down or rage over what seem to be trivial things. It is normal for the child to be non-compliant. It is normal for the child to lie and steal.  It is normal for the child to be functional in settings which don't involve the parents. It is normal for children to be more dysregulated after being functional in the non-home setting.  It is normal for the child to act both younger than their chronological age and also more sophisticated.  Please note that I did not say all children who have experienced trauma will behave like this. ...

I think it must be a very tough season for families right now based on the number of conversations I've had with quite a few parents. Some families are really struggling right now. When I communicate with them, I can tell they're struggling and feeling scared and probably more than a little hopeless as well. I've been in that spot more than once and it is not a comfortable place to be. I get it. But having been in that spot, I've learned a few things. I learned them the extremely hard way, but I learned them all the same. This is about one of those hard lessons that can be difficult to communicate with parents.  Desperate parents are desperate for a reason. Their child (or children) is struggling, and that struggle often comes out as less than desirable behaviors. Constantly navigating hard or scary behaviors can throw the entire family into chaos. Everyone is on edge, probably fatigued, grumpy, angry, and usually scared out of their wits, though that emotion isn't ...

I'm two-thirds of the way finished with reading, Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food that isn't Food by Chris van Tulleken. It is a fascinating book and so much more than just about ultra-processed food. It has history, human biology, brain science, and sociology. While I will probably write more about the ultra-processed food bit once I finish it, I came across something this afternoon that I wanted to share with you in terms of adoption. "Flavour signatures of particular smells and tastes also allow us to identify food from our cultures -- historically food we would know to be safe. This learning starts before birth. Julie Mennella at Monell Chemical Senses Centre did an experiment examining how food choices during pregnancy influence future flavour choice. During the last trimester of their pregnancies, participants drank a big glass of either carrot juice or water for four days per week for three weeks. They did the same thing while lactating. Then, as the ...

I was co-leading a training session about providing Equine Assisted Services to young people for Athena this afternoon. This is something my co-leader and I do somewhat regularly. This was the second session and part of the homework from the first was to watch a short video by Bryan Post. It made me realize that I have probably never talked much about Bryan Post and how pivotal he was for me while I was in the process of rethinking everything I thought I knew about parenting. If you work with children in any capacity and haven't yet met Dr. Post, then I strongly urge you to watch this video. Six minutes that can change your child's life (and yours)

Early on, when I finally bit the bullet and could admit to myself our family needed outside help, I wrote many times that I realized something. And that something was: The more you find yourself saying things such as, "I think things are getting better," there is a direct correlation to how not better things are. I reminded people of this often because if I had been willing to seek help sooner, we could have avoided some extremely unpleasant seasons; that by waiting, the issues at root grew exponentially.  I feel this needs to be said again because in the past couple of months I have worked with and spoken to many families that are trying to hold it together, but the age of their children and the issues now at hand are pretty significant. I find myself wishing I could go back in time to help them and their now older children find a different path earlier in the process. So much hurt could have been avoided if I could do that.  Instead, I will issue this plea again. If you fin...

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...

I've been reading quite a bit, so of course I have books to share. This is the last one for a while, so I'm sure there will be something different tomorrow. The book I want to tell you about tonight is  Re-Regulated: Set Your Life Free from Childhood PTSD and the Trauma-Driven Behaviors That Keep You Stuck by Anna Runkle. This book was recommended to me by a friend who is a therapist and knows my interest in childhood trauma.  If you have read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and found it helpful to explain what was going on with you due to past trauma, I highly recommend you now read Re-Regulated. This is a much lighter read than van der Kolk's book. His gives you the why you experience your life as you do, this book gives you the what now piece of the puzzle. I think it contains a really accessible game plan for moving forward. The author is someone who has experienced childhood trauma and has overcome it, so she is a very good companion to have along the w...

There is an event coming up that H. would very much like to attend, but it just isn't going to work this year. As you can imagine, this is very disappointing to her. There was a lot of processing going on today.  The fact that H. could express a desire and then express genuine emotions when that desire couldn't be met is no small thing. It's even a bigger deal when these things happened without any prompting, coaching, or disassociation. While I'm sorry H. has to experience disappointment, I would be pretty thrilled about the expression of need and disappointment if it stopped there.  There was more to this process, though. H. wrote three "stories" (her term) that she brought down and read to us to help her express her needs and disappointment. This is so huge I need to say it again.  She wrote a story. She was able to read the story to us long after she had written it. The story expressed need and feelings.  I was totally floored by this. I didn't expect ...

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 ...

A friend of mine sent me a message with a podcast recommendation. Since I tend to listen to podcasts the most while I'm doing barn chores, I can plow through them at a pretty rapid clip and am always happy for suggestions.  The recommended podcast in question? The Good Whale about Keiko, the orca who starred in the movie, Free Willy. This has everything I love about a good podcast (and good non-fiction in general)... It is very well written, has high production values, and tells a story that has implications far beyond the subject at hand. I highly recommend it.  I have now listened to the five episodes that have been released and am eagerly waiting for the sixth and final installment. I need to know how it turns out, this project of rewilding Keiko. I vaguely remember hearing about the whale on the news in the 90's, but that also coincided with having only little children, so I admit to not following the story very carefully.  While the story centers on the orca, I find ...

Ah, nothing says the holidays have arrived like a total meltdown on the part of a child. In my younger parenting years, this would have sent me spiraling as well. The thoughts running through my head would include: Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? What if it continues through the actual holiday? How will we navigate a ruined holiday if this continues? What if the child never stops melting down?  What will others think?  There's probably more, but you get the gist. A meltdown was seen as total failure and a ruined holiday. I can sympathize with my younger self a bit, because I didn't have the skills and perspective I do now, but also I just want to say stop it with the catastrophic thinking and get a grip. It's just a meltdown, not the end of the world.  Because it wasn't the end of the world, then or now. And it certainly wasn't a harbinger of a ruined holiday... then or now. The only person who can ruin a holiday is themselves. If I allowed the child in ...

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...

"This was Dr. Ham's [Dr. Jacob Ham, psychologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC] whole theory: that because of its repetitive nature, complex trauma is fundamentally relational trauma. In other words, this is trauma caused by bad relationships with other people -- people who were supposed to be caring and trustworthy and instead were hurtful. That meant future relationships with anybody would be harder for people with complex trauma because they were wired to believe that other people could not be trusted. The only way you could heal from relational trauma, he figured, was through practicing that relational dance with other people. Not just reading self-help books or meditating alone. We had to go out and practice maintaining relationships in order to reinforce our shattered belief that the world could be a safe place." - What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, p. 270 "It's not the fights that matter. It's the repairs ." p. 279 I finished reading this book ...

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...

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...

[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...

R. has been doing a lot of drawing recently. I haven't paid too much attention because her drawing consists of little circular squiggles with which she covers pages and pages of paper. She will often show them too me saying what they are supposed to be, but I'll be honest that while I'm encouraging of her effort, they all pretty much look exactly the same and not very like the thing she says it is.  This evening while we were fixing dinner, R. was showing J. her drawings. Instead of the usual script, J. says, "E., have you looked at these?" I admitted I hadn't really looked at her three pages of drawing from today. So J. shows them to me and I actually gasped in astonishment. A few of her drawings were completely unexpected.  Here, I'll show you. First, we have some ducks. They actually look like ducks. If you were forced to guess, you could have a chance of guessing correctly. But here is the one that made me gasp. Completely on her own, she drew a person...