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.”
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Friday, August 30, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
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?
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?
Monday, April 29, 2013
April 29, 2013 -- Fourteen Years
By: Kathleen Benckendorf
ATN is delighted to welcome Kathleen Benckendorf as a guest voice on Touching Trauma at its Heart. Kathleen, a parent member of ATN's Board of Directors, is a relentless researcher and seeker of answers. An engineer by education and experience, Kathleen has also trained as a bodyworker and in as many other therapeutic approaches and interventions as she has been able to convince the providers to let her attend. Her website, www.attachmentandintegrationmethods.com , describes these approaches and others.
Fourteen years ago, a sibling group of four was placed in our home in an adoptive placement. They were 11, 9, 8, and 4. They joined our biological children, aged 9 and 4.
With our first child, we thought we were great parents. Our friends told us so. Our firstborn told us so by her behaviors – she was compassionate, compliant, charming, responsible, and fun – everything a parent could wish for. With our second child, we realized it really wasn’t us – he was obstinate, ornery, stubborn, and strong-willed, and considerably more challenging to raise. Our adopted children dispelled any remaining thoughts we had about our stellar parenting abilities. At first, we thought the challenges just came from blending two families, and the logistics of raising a large family. But there were other things… things that our bio children would never have considered doing… and we realized that the children our parents had told us not to play with, the children from whom we sheltered our children – were the children we had brought into our home. And all the standard parenting tools we’d ever learned were powerless to change their behavior.
In the first months, there was foul language written on our driveway with the chalk we had given them to play with – language not used in our home. There were fights between the two youngest, both formerly the babies of their respective families – behavior that continued, and escalated, until their early teens, to the point we couldn’t leave them at home together without someone there to keep an eye on them. On more than one occasion, they ended up on the floor with hands around each other’s throats. There were sexual acting out and promiscuity, fights at school, truancy, and failed classes. Two dropped out of high school and have had children out of wedlock. Some are living on welfare; some have spent time homeless. One spent time in multiple residential facilities before age 18. At one point, the three adult adopted children were forbidden to live in our home, and we were seriously considering an out of home placement for the youngest, then still a minor.
It has been HARD. Nothing has strained our marriage like differing opinions on how to handle parenting our challenging children – or how much support to provide adult children when we didn’t approve of the way they were living. We have to live with knowing that our bio children sacrificed a relatively carefree childhood because we adopted.
On the other hand, at least in some ways, I know that like in the song from the musical Wicked, “I have been changed for good.” I’m not sure I’d be able to hold that perspective if some things hadn’t improved, but I know that I have grown and changed. I no longer automatically think awful thoughts about parents whose children are misbehaving in public. I have learned much about dealing with difficult people – because the same methods that work with my kids work with other people too. My own learning has put me in a position to help others.
For those of you still deep in the trenches, I want to tell you there is hope. I don’t have enough space here to tell you all our journey, but we’ve come farther than I would have believed a few years ago. All but my youngest have graduated high school or earned a GED, and we expect the last one to graduate soon. All four of our adopted children are attached to us and enjoy spending time with all the family. They keep in touch. They even call or text appropriate messages on Mother’s Day! One that I never expected to be able to trust, I trust completely. One is successfully raising her own children, working, and going to college. Some are still making some bad choices, but that is their life and we no longer own their choices or their consequences, and we are able to love them in spite of. We are reclaiming our own lives. May you also find healing for your children and yourselves.
ATN is delighted to welcome Kathleen Benckendorf as a guest voice on Touching Trauma at its Heart. Kathleen, a parent member of ATN's Board of Directors, is a relentless researcher and seeker of answers. An engineer by education and experience, Kathleen has also trained as a bodyworker and in as many other therapeutic approaches and interventions as she has been able to convince the providers to let her attend. Her website, www.attachmentandintegrationmethods.com , describes these approaches and others.
Fourteen years ago, a sibling group of four was placed in our home in an adoptive placement. They were 11, 9, 8, and 4. They joined our biological children, aged 9 and 4.
With our first child, we thought we were great parents. Our friends told us so. Our firstborn told us so by her behaviors – she was compassionate, compliant, charming, responsible, and fun – everything a parent could wish for. With our second child, we realized it really wasn’t us – he was obstinate, ornery, stubborn, and strong-willed, and considerably more challenging to raise. Our adopted children dispelled any remaining thoughts we had about our stellar parenting abilities. At first, we thought the challenges just came from blending two families, and the logistics of raising a large family. But there were other things… things that our bio children would never have considered doing… and we realized that the children our parents had told us not to play with, the children from whom we sheltered our children – were the children we had brought into our home. And all the standard parenting tools we’d ever learned were powerless to change their behavior.
In the first months, there was foul language written on our driveway with the chalk we had given them to play with – language not used in our home. There were fights between the two youngest, both formerly the babies of their respective families – behavior that continued, and escalated, until their early teens, to the point we couldn’t leave them at home together without someone there to keep an eye on them. On more than one occasion, they ended up on the floor with hands around each other’s throats. There were sexual acting out and promiscuity, fights at school, truancy, and failed classes. Two dropped out of high school and have had children out of wedlock. Some are living on welfare; some have spent time homeless. One spent time in multiple residential facilities before age 18. At one point, the three adult adopted children were forbidden to live in our home, and we were seriously considering an out of home placement for the youngest, then still a minor.
It has been HARD. Nothing has strained our marriage like differing opinions on how to handle parenting our challenging children – or how much support to provide adult children when we didn’t approve of the way they were living. We have to live with knowing that our bio children sacrificed a relatively carefree childhood because we adopted.
On the other hand, at least in some ways, I know that like in the song from the musical Wicked, “I have been changed for good.” I’m not sure I’d be able to hold that perspective if some things hadn’t improved, but I know that I have grown and changed. I no longer automatically think awful thoughts about parents whose children are misbehaving in public. I have learned much about dealing with difficult people – because the same methods that work with my kids work with other people too. My own learning has put me in a position to help others.
For those of you still deep in the trenches, I want to tell you there is hope. I don’t have enough space here to tell you all our journey, but we’ve come farther than I would have believed a few years ago. All but my youngest have graduated high school or earned a GED, and we expect the last one to graduate soon. All four of our adopted children are attached to us and enjoy spending time with all the family. They keep in touch. They even call or text appropriate messages on Mother’s Day! One that I never expected to be able to trust, I trust completely. One is successfully raising her own children, working, and going to college. Some are still making some bad choices, but that is their life and we no longer own their choices or their consequences, and we are able to love them in spite of. We are reclaiming our own lives. May you also find healing for your children and yourselves.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Shake Off the Bad Mood
By Gari Lister
This morning I started off my day with a cascade of nastiness from my usually reasonably-fun-to-be-around fifth grader. “I’m not going to eat those pills. Are you serious? Is that what we’re having for breakfast? Well, of course, we’re going to be late because of her [the sweeter younger sister].” First, I spent a moment thanking my yoga teacher for helping me to understand equanimity.
This morning I started off my day with a cascade of nastiness from my usually reasonably-fun-to-be-around fifth grader. “I’m not going to eat those pills. Are you serious? Is that what we’re having for breakfast? Well, of course, we’re going to be late because of her [the sweeter younger sister].” First, I spent a moment thanking my yoga teacher for helping me to understand equanimity.
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