Letting Go

by:  Jane Samuel

She calls me from the spa-sleep-over-birthday-party and I am not surprised.  There is a catch in her voice and she is asking me to bring money. I don’t question. I just get in the car and drive to her.

When I had pulled up in front of her classmate’s house two hours ago to drop her off, she looked unsure. There were girls on the front lawn that were not her close friends. But she turned to me and with her words and conviction climbed aboard that fine line she is now trying to straddle between the small world of a child with learning disabilities and emotions too hard to predict at times and the world of cool tweens. “Mom, I have to go. This is the first girls’ sleep-over party I have been invited to by the kids from my school.”

Abandoned

By:  Jane Samuel

I knew the minute my husband pulled out of the lot and darted across the street to drop me at the pharmacy that it was a bad idea. Our youngest had run back into the retirement home where my father lived to retrieve a forgotten item and my husband thought it would be quicker to pull across, drop me, and run back and get her while I shopped. Problem is he didn’t tell her. He just figured he could get back before she noticed. Wrong.

Resilience – Inborn or Learned – Part 2

by:  Julie Beem

The listing of factors that make children resilient from Resilience Theory: A Literature Review by Adrian DePlessis VanBreda  made total sense to me.  But the paragraph of conclusion supposedly based on these factors did not:

Clearly, children are not defenceless against stressful life conditions. There are many factors which can assist to ‘buffer’ (Rutter, 1985) children against stress, and which assist them in growing up to be well-adjusted and happy adults, who work well, play well, love well and expect well (Werner in Dahlin et al., 1990, p.228).These resilience studies stand in contrast to “the overwhelming bulk of developmental research[which] has been devoted to exploring the pathogenic hypothesis, ie that risk factors in the perinatal period, infancy and early childhood are predictive of disturbances in later childhood and adulthood” (ibid.). Resilience Theory: A Literature Review at page 11.

Wait a minute!  Children are not defenseless against stress because they have resiliency factors.  But those factors are primarily good nurturing, healthy bonds with primary caregivers and others early in their lives that help give them that positive self-image and world view, the coping skills, the internal locus of control.  As the parent of a child who did NOT receive this in early childhood/infancy, I can attest to the fact that those are the stuff of which resiliency is made of.  So to say that the developmental research, and things like the ACE Study stand in contrast to resiliency theory is still confusing to me.  Children who do not have opportunity to build healthy attachments, who do not have adults in their lives to serve as stable caregivers, who are separated from their primary caregiver during that first year are at risk, just like developmental research shows time and again.

Resiliency is made/learned, not inborn.  It just is.  And the push toward building resiliency in traumatized children and adults is a noble one.  BUT, we really need to understand how much at risk each person who lacks these healthy beginnings is, and how challenging it is to build the capacity for being resilient is, when those early attachment underpinnings are not there.  It is not as simple as just decrying all the research that shows that children are at great risk when they have adverse early childhoods (ones with abuse, neglect, poverty, maltreatment, lack of food, lack of healthy attachment).  Apparently Resiliency Theory’s own research shows that healthy attachment, attention by caring adults, and positive treatment by caregivers and teachers are major factors in building a child’s capacity for resilience. So, shouldn’t the focus really be on what can be done to build healthy attachments?

If I were defining resilience it would be the ability to “bounce back” from or cope with major life stressors due to the capacity that was built in a person’s infancy and early childhood through healthy attachments and nurturing care that helped that person to view themselves as competent, the world as a basically good place and to hone their positive and flexible coping skills.

What do you think?

Resilience – Inborn or Learned – Part 1

by:  Julie Beem

There’s a lot of talk about resilience being the antidote to trauma.  Lots of workshops, books, and training programs talk about building resilience in kids as a way to counteract the impact of trauma in their lives.  On the surface all this seems to make sense, but it’s always puzzled me.  What did people mean by resilience, and why does it appear that my child has none, even after years of parenting her?

Go Big: Self Care to the Tenth Degree

By:  Gari Lister

What is a good mom?  Here’s how I would answer a questionnaire on how I was a good mom today:  I drove my ten year old an hour and twenty minutes each way to skating camp; I tried really really hard to talk to my twelve year old about sensitive pre-teen things I cannot share here; I fed my kids mostly healthy gluten free meals; my house is reasonably clean; I taught my middle daughter how to complete a job successfully; I gave the girls all kinds of brain-strengthening vitamins; and I went to yoga.  Ok, maybe I wouldn’t include the last item.  But maybe I should. 

What's in a Name? Part 4 - Is Keeping a Wrong Label OK?

By:  Julie Beem

Many of the parents who contact ATN have children with multiple diagnoses and we're frequently puzzled about which ones are the "right" ones.  I'm included in that group.  My child has an alphabet soup of diagnoses, including autism spectrum and ADHD/OCD/Tourettes (aggravated by her trauma.)  Fortunately for us, we had professionals who also recognized the RAD, PTSD, DTD components and pointed us in the right directions for treatment of those.  Yet, her developmental and processing struggles continue.

Getting a completely accurate diagnosis in today's climate (where trauma-based disorders are underdiagnosed) is very difficult.  So when I put on my "Mom" hat I will tell you that advocacy toward the most accurate diagnosis only takes you so far.   Advocating for and pushing professionals to diagnose our children accurately with RAD, PTSD, Developmental Trauma (or the new diagnosis in the DSM: Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder) can be exhausting, and maybe not that beneficial.   If all my child had ever been diagnosed with was Developmental Trauma Disorder (the diagnosis I believe to be the most accurate), I would have been up a treatment creek without a proverbial paddle.  Who in my city would have known how to treat her?  What therapies and parenting strategies would have been recommended to us?  And would the school have even bothered giving her an IEP for something they've never heard of?

So, Mom to Mom, I will say that I have come to embrace other diagnoses that can help get my daughter the help she needs.  Autism spectrum has been a huge one for us.  My daughter has developmental and processing issues that are usually associated with Autism.  Yet, every evaluation she's ever been given yields the results of "borderline" on the autism scales.  But those evaluations have led to an Autism eligibility on her IEP and to speech, social skills, and OT (sensory-based) services through our school district.  Could I have pushed for these services without that Autism label?  Yes.  Would it have been harder?  Infinitely!

My point is this:  diagnoses are important for getting services and making decisions on treatment.  If you recognize that your child's school district, doctors or other service providers will provide what your child needs with a diagnosis that may not be 100% accurate, then maybe it's not such a bad thing to let that one stand.

When I put on my Executive Director hat, what I said above makes me cringe.  I long for the day that RAD, PTSD and Developmental Trauma will be widely recognized disorders, and those diagnoses will bring with them the needed services and interventions to put our children quickly on the path to healing.  And that day will come...as our movement builds and our collective voice gets stronger.  But in the meantime, innovative Moms will do what it takes to get their precious children what they need!

What’s in a Name? Part 2 – To Label or Not to Label

By: Julie Beem

“You don’t want her labeled for life.”  This sentence is usually spoken by your child’s grandparent (out of sheer concern for you and your family) or by a school official (who may be trying to block access to special education services).  Either way, crossing the threshold into “labeling” your child is a difficult thing for many.

This Ain't My Mama's Broken Heart

By: Gari Lister

Four years ago today -- May 17, 2009 – my 17 year old daughter broke my heart and changed my life forever.  She packed a bag, told her little sister not to tell us, and ran away from home with a boy she’d met a handful of times – a boy who murdered two people within a few months (literally).  I didn’t realize what a pivotal moment it was right away; I thought it was just another episode in a series of Katya crises.  

We responded as we always do to crises – efficiently and intensively.  Within 24 hours, we rallied the troops: her friends, contacts in DC and in law enforcement, not only locally but also nationally.  And in addition to the official channels, we got the local press to run an article, wrote an ad for the papers we thought she might see, and made a flyer.  I’m a litigator and strategist and my husband is a press hack who loves networking; when faced with a family crisis, we do not mess around.  When the police told us they had tracked the boy’s phone to North Carolina, we put the “littles” (our two younger kids) in the car and drove there with hundreds of flyers.  We charmed the local police into giving us local addresses, and we papered the town – each flyer with a hand-written note asking Katya to come home.  She came back the following Saturday.

We learned lots of devastating things that week, but one of the hardest for us to understand given our action mentality was the fact that she had told the boy’s family that we wouldn’t look for her or come after her.  She thought we had gone through too much for her, and that we would be glad to have her gone. 

But we moved on from our inability to understand, and we pretty much went through the next several months in crisis mode: we sent Katya to Outward Bound, which helped for a short time.  She fell for another messed up boy, started skipping school, and after three truancy cases dropped out of school and moved out.

And about that time, crisis over, I collapsed, physically devastated from the stress and heartbreak.  I spent all winter in bed, too tired to do much of anything.  I couldn’t carry luggage for two years, and I couldn’t go for long walks, let alone run.  It’s taken me three years and lots of yoga to recover.

So why write this?  Because I have recovered, and I am stronger than I ever was.  And I have learned two lessons.  First, our traumatized kids need us to be strong – not only emotionally, but also physically.  We can’t help them if they can kill us.  And Katya almost killed me.  If she had, where would my other kids have been?  So sometimes, the best thing you can do for your traumatized child is go to yoga.  Or go run.  Or go riding.  Anything to keep your body strong enough to handle the stress.  Don’t make the mistake I made in all my action – don’t overlook your own oxygen when you’re focused on landing the plane.

And the second lesson is that Katya ultimately ran away – and is still running away – not because of me, not because of the boy, but because she does not believe she is “worth it.”  That’s not new – any expert will tell you that – but I think it is a concept that gets lost in all the therapy.  My kids know they’re messed up – and if they didn’t, how many times do we remind them (with the best of intentions)?  Katya taught me that we have to not only help them heal; we have to also help them believe.  And to believe, they need to be fabulous at something -- anything.  So now my top priorities aren't only therapeutic -- they're also volleyball and ice skating because those seem to be my girls’ “things.” 

My Life May Not Be Perfect, But I’m Not Going to Complain About it Any More

By Gari Lister

Too many mornings this spring I have found myself waking up and saying, “My back hurts, I have a headache, I’m tired.”  And I can’t even count how often I have picked up the phone and vented about something big . . . or something small.  My kids refuse to eat their supplements, my youngest throws a fit (she’s 10), my husband eats the last strawberries . . .  you name it, I vent, I complain, I whine.  Or let me correct that: I vented, I complained, I whined.