Is Chimpanzee good for your child to see if they are adopted or have lost a parent?
See description on File:Chimpanzee mom and baby.jpg. I cropped it slightly to remove the original black frame. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Written by Kate Oliver, LCSW-C
Just from watching the commercials, we can easily see that the new Disney movie, Chimpanzee, is going to be all about adoption. While it is predictable that the movie will have warm fuzzy messages about adoption overall, if you have an adopted child, or any child who has lost a parent through divorce, abandonment, death, etc. it is a good idea to take a moment to consider whether this is a good movie for your child. Of course we know all children are different and only you can decide what is right for your child so please do not use my post as a replacement for your own judgment since obviously you know your child way better than I do. Also, spoiler alert, you will know all about the movie by the time I’m done with the post. My hope is to attempt to address the adoption related issues in the movie so you can make the best decision for you and your family and to be ready for any conversations or feelings it might bring up for your child (and you).
First, let me say, the movie was pretty entertaining for the children seven and up in our group, the youngest (5) got bored half way through and I saw several younger children leave during the movie. The parents were thoroughly entertained and there were quite a few “aww’s” and chuckles throughout.
The movie starts in an idealic world where little monkeys are taken care of by mommies (no mention of daddies). Little Oscar and his mom, Esha, are the focus. Children who were not taken care of by their first mommies or whose first mommies have left them in some way may have some feelings about the portrayal of moms in this part as the idea of mommies taking care of babies is presented as the only way things can go. I can see how a child who feels bad about having a mommy who did not take care of them might be triggered if they carry residual feelings of guilt or believe it was their fault their birth mother did not take care of them. Additionally, the mention of dads is not just downplayed, it is completely non-existant in this part of the movie.
Soon, the idealic world of the chimps is threatened by another group of chimpanzees who want to take over their territory. Esha keeps Oscar safe during a particularly scary time when this group attacks and the movie continues to highlight Oscar’s reliance on his mother and her role in keeping him safe, fed and protected. Sadly, the other group of monkeys attacks a second time and it is during this attack that Esha and Oscar are separated and Esha disappears forever with the assumption being that only death could keep her away. It continues to be quite heartbreaking as we see Oscar get harshly rejected by several other female chimpanzees who already have children (triggering for children who have been in multiple foster care placements). During this time, Oscar tries, and fails, to find his mother. Obviously, no one is able to explain to him where she is and he is left to fend for himself. Oscar is sad and lonely and experiences difficulty finding food and caretaking. Do I need to point out the many opportunities for adopted children and/or children who have a parent that is not in their lives will have to identify strongly with this section of the movie?
After suffering for an intense ten minutes or more during the movie, Oscar begins to follow the alpha male, Freddy. He begins gently befriending Freddy (there is a good conversation to be had about shadowing adults and learning from thier modeling behaviors here). Freddy, who it was earlier emphasized in the movie, had no interest in the younger chimps, slowly also begins turning toward Oscar and teaching him to get food. Over time, their friendship grows and, in a particularly heartwarming scene, Freddy grooms Oscar and lets him ride on his back.
During this portion of the movie, there is no mention of moms and, knowing that I see children with attachment disorder in my practice who work pretty hard to come between their parents and who often punish the mom and complian to the dad (because moms are scary for them since they represent the original abandoning mom), I can see this particular part of the movie reinforcing that behavior a bit. Additonally, I can see how children who have struggled to bond with an adoptive parent would be triggered to wonder what it is about them that caused them to be first rejected or abandoned by other parents if that is their emotional experience. Those children who struggled to bond with an adoptive parent may also wonder why it is so easy for Oscar (no internal loyalty struggle here, also no negative behaviors from Oscar) to bond with Freddy and just what must be wrong with them that they have difficulty bonding.
While Freddy and Oscar are bonding, however, trouble lurks nearby, the narrator, Tim Allen, says that while Freddy and Oscar have been building their relationship, Freddy has neglected to protect his area and the other chimpazee group is closing in for another attack. Freddy senses this and begins to do some team building again. Oscar feels ignored by his new dad and we see him again feeling lonely because he does not understand why Freddy is turning away from him to take care of other chimps. This made me think about moms or dads taking care of new babies or other siblings and the triggers that has for many of my adopted children, not to mention kids in step-parent families.
I can see this movie being especially nice for single and/or adoptive dads as it reinforces that dads always protect their children even if they didn’t always know how to parent at first. I can also see it being an issue for moms and other primary, nurturing caregivers (including dads) who, like I said before, have a child that uses them as a representation of all abandoning people in their lives, and for children who did not have a mother that took good enough care of them before entering an adoptive family. I would also recommend it for children who are able to articulate their feelings about adoption, parental loss, etc. over children who are still unable, or unwilling to discuss those issues. Ultimately, it is up to parents to decide what is right for their children. Either way, in the end, the movie has a happy ending where Freddy and Oscar get to be together and Freddy focuses on Oscar again.
I see multiple opportunities for parents to bring up good conversations for kids about: whether Esha’s disapperance was Oscar’s fault; how Oscar must have felt when the other mom’s rejected him; how Oscar befriended Freddy and whether they loved each other right away; how dads and other parents protect children even though sometimes it is hard to see how (like when they go to work or pay attention to other kids); and why Oscar had an easier time of bonding with Freddy (because his first mom was good at teaching him how to love other chimps).
Have you taken your child to see this movie? What did you think? Did I miss anything? I would love to hear how the experience was for your child.
Qualities of good programs to prevent child abuse
PEARL HARBOR (April 23, 2010) Mara MacDonald, from the Navy New Parent Support Home Visitation Program, leads a group of new mothers and their babies in an infant massage class. The program is administered by the Navy Region Hawaii Fleet & Family Support Center and assists new parents and expecting parents with home visits, information on parenting, referrals, support groups and nurturing skills. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jason Swink/Released) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In my final post (for now) about programs to prevent child abuse, I thought I would highlight some qualities of programs I have seen that effectively work to prevent child abuse. As a reminder, my original start to this series of posts was a question posed on another blog about how we can prevent child abuse and child deaths.
1. The first quality any program providing aid to people who could use parenting help is compassion/ empathy. I know this may seem like a no-brainer, but some programs I have seen seem to leave this element out. No one wants to go to a program to hear how awful they are, thus confirming their internal fear that they are, in fact, awful. A compassionate program understands that all parents experience fear, that we are all doing the best we can, and that none of us have children thinking we are looking forward to messing them up as much as possible. Acknowledging this over and over is an important part of any program seeking to help parents.
2. Normalizing getting help is an incredibly important part of any program seeing to end child abuse. Highlighting the diversity of parents, race, class, and gender, who seek help is also incredibly helpful. This is, in my opinion, best achieved by having mentors that have completed the same or a similar program and are a representation of the general client population of the program. For example, if this is a program aimed toward parents experiencing postpartum depression, you would want a parent mentor or group leader who has experienced this and is regularly available to participants.
3. Good programs focus on the importance of parents in a child’s life. For regular followers of my posts, you know I had to mention attachment :). But seriously, the cornerstone of a good program that prevents child abuse absolutely needs to highlight the impact parents have on their children. I think people sometimes think it is a given that parents know how important they are to their children, but for people struggling with parenting- perhaps people whose parents were not ideal either- I find that many of these parents feel disempowered to make change in their child’s life. A good program reminds a parent of just how important they are.
4. The final quality I would like to highlight is that a good program helps people to build a supportive community. Good programs build communities so that if the program is ever unavailable, the learning and growing continues among the members of the community.
Some good programs I know of in my area are:
The Healthy Families program where parents are met in the hospital by someone from the program and are given support if they request it. Support can include getting help with access to services or forming a group of other new parents in the community. While there are healthy families programs all over the country, you can find the one near me here: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/howard_county_general_hospital/services/mothers_and_babies/healthy_families/index.html
The National Family Resiliency Center (NFRC) is a center for families experiencing a family transition and for parents where there is any need for co-parenting agreements. NFRC has been a national leader in helping court systems to recognize that when parents separate it is important to keep in mind the best interests of the child. They provide individual, couples, group counseling for parents and children, reunification and collaborative divorce services as well as very good classes for parents and children who are experiencing the transition process. Additionally, NFRC helps parents who would like to have co-parent agreements and low-conflict divorce. One way they do this is with an on-line program, www.familyconnex.org to help parents make decisions that are in the best interests of the children. Here is the link to NFRC’s website: www.nfrchelp.org
The Infants and Toddlers program, which is part of the educational system but may go by different names in other states, identifies infants who may have developmental delays and helps parents by offering resources for children birth-5 years with the combination of services they might need to get them school ready. You can find them here: http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/earlyinterv/infant_toddlers/about/message.htm
There are many more, but these programs I mentioned in particular, although they target different populations, offer the combination of qualities important for a program aiming to prevent child abuse. While they might not even directly target child abuse, they are organizations that can recognize and report possible abuse, and that may help to prevent it in the first place though education and service.
What do you think? Do you know of any good programs that have been effective in your area in preventing abuse? I would love to hear about them. Also, did I miss any qualities of effective programs to help parents?
Laugh and your family laughs with you
Written by, Kate Oliver, LCSW-C
After a couple of days of heavy posts, it’s time to lighten the mood. I’ll post about good programs tomorrow like I said I would, but for now, let’s talk about bringing a little light and levity to our everyday life with our children. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh…or cry. I would encourage you to laugh. Sure, I could tell you about all the research that tells you that laughter is, indeed, the best medicine for many situations, but you can easily look that up, or you can just trust me on this one. Laugh more. Build humor into your family system. Make sure that your children understand your humor (even if they do not like it). Most importantly, teach your children to laugh at themselves by laughing at yourself. My younger daughter does an impression of my husband when he is telling her to clean up that is hilarious. We all laugh, then we clean up.
This morning, when I grumbled at my older daughter to rinse her mouth after brushing her teeth (who doesn’t rinse after you went to the trouble of brushing!?) because I’m tired of paying an extra car payments worth of money every time we go to the dentist, I went up to the bathroom after she went to school and found a post-it note she put up in the bathroom to remind herself to rinse:
In case you can’t read that, it said “RINSE OR DIE!”
Parenting does not have to be a series of serious teaching lessons all put together. It can be easy to forget this. You can teach, love, learn and grow with fun and laughter. Have a child that asks obvious questions all the time? Find a code word, like “marshmallows” that tells them they are asking a question they already know the answer to and use it whenever they ask nonsense questions.
Kid: “What’s for dinner (while they are staring at you cooking a hamburger)”
Parent: “Marshmallows.”
Kid: “When are we going to get there?” (on a trip they have been on 100 times).
Parent: “When we pass the sign with the marshmallows on it.”
Kid: “Do I have to do my homework?”
Parent: “Just do it until you get to the part about the marshmallows.”
Marshmallow Nightmares!! (Photo credit: katerha)
It might drive them crazy, but it keeps you a little more sane while you focus on a fun way to fit more marshmallows into your life.
Laugh together over silly jokes or silly things they say. Make sure you are laughing with not at. No one like to feel like people are laughing at them but laughing together as a family brings your family closer and reminds us why we brought these “no-rent paying, mess making little people,” as my husband likes to say, into your home in the first place.
How do you laugh with your family? Please fell free to share a funny story that makes you smile 🙂
The Problem with Social Services- part II
Mother holds Child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In my post yesterday, I outlined some of the problems with the implementation of Social Services. Today, I will be discussing support for CPS and social workers in general. You can see from what you read already that in many ways workers are bound to the law of their area for decision-making purposes. I am certain that every CPS worker you will ever speak to has a child, or several children, that they wish they could have removed because they could see the train wreck coming. Similarly, they will also have a child they were sad to remove, and parents that surprise them with their resiliency, cruelty, etc. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, they have seen more. Yet, how much do we hear about CPS workers, or any social workers, for that matter getting recognition for the difficult work they do? In many ways CPS workers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t in most situations. The cases that get highlighted are the extremes where children were taken from the home with little apparent reason or children that were not removed from the home who died. There are almost always people who are upset with the decisions of the workers- people who feel neglect or abuse is occurring get angry because they want CPS workers to be more proactive, and people who feel the parents are doing the best they can, or have a right to parent however they see fit even if it borders on abuse want CPS workers to mind their own business. I do not mean to make any excuses over children improperly removed or children who are left in the home who suffer further abuse or fatality but I do want to say that with the high caseloads expected of caseworkers, the low-level of support and the high burnout rate of workers, mistakes are bound to happen. While I’m mentioning this, another potential area for legal changes could be mandating a particular number of children on a workers caseload just like school districts have a student; teacher ratio.
In addition to having incredibly difficult jobs and little public understanding of their role, CPS workers do this with very little financial support. While I was not working as a CPS worker, after earning my master’s degree and going to work in a treatment facility for abused children, I got very little compensation. By comparison, my sister, who was getting her undergraduate degree in computer science, made more at her internship than I was making at my job. I left that job five years later, with many tears on my part because I did love my work and I was in a supportive atmosphere. The final straw for me was after I had two children and my husband and I were in a Home Depot one day where two employees happened to be comparing paychecks while we were checking out. One of them mentioned how much money he was making an hour and I realized I was making only a dollar an hour more than he was. Even though my husband works hard, we do need my paycheck and I realized I needed to earn more money to justify being away from my babies. The average income of a full-time CPS worker is about 30-35,000 which is in the high range for social workers outside of private practice. If you compare what social workers and teachers do, we can make many of the same arguments about being expected to purchase materials in excess of what is provided and work hours outside of paid time, etc. Yet teachers have the support of the public. When’s the last time you saw a discount for social workers to get into a museum or social worker night at the pizza place? I’m guessing never.
My point is not to whine, my point is to say that one thing we could really use is some marketing. Right now the cons of getting involved in child welfare in general outweigh the pros for anyone who relies on their paycheck to put food on the table. If I had a dollar for every time in my master’s program I was told we were not in social work for the money, I would be rich. Bottom line, we need to support the intent of social services- to protect children and prevent child abuse, to advertise the opportunities that social services can help struggling parents with, and to better compensate and support our workers so we attract the best of the best. As part of a larger marketing campaign, we need to educate people about the current role of social services (while taking responsibility for past mistakes), focusing on people of color, immigrants and the very poor as in the past the United States has improperly targeted these groups and there is, in my opinion understandably, a generation of people who carry the fear that their children will be taken should they seek assistance or raise a question to anyone about how to be a better parent.
While you may believe that focusing on CPS is missing the point of supporting child abuse prevention, I believe it is very pertinent to the discussion. According to PBS’s Frontline website, only about 60% of the cases referred to CPS are actually found to need further investigation, however, even without finding a child has been abused, often the local Department of Social Services can offer families help in signing up for programs that include child care, food and medical assistance, and parenting classes. A 2002 report for the Urban Institute says that about $20 million was spent that year on child welfare services. Compare this to the Humane Society’s $160 million budget to protect animals. I have nothing against animals (I’m actually a vegetarian) but seriously? This is shameful! People will give money all day long to protect animals, but when it comes to children, for the most part, people do not want to hear about it, talk about it or think about it. I think too, we assume services are out there and available when really, they are not as available as we would like to think. De-stigmatizing aid and increasing wages to hire the best workers would dramatically change the impact of Social Services in preventing child abuse.
Tomorrow, I will highlight what I believe to be the cornerstones of a good child abuse prevention program.
Here is the blog I was referring to in my post earlier today.
Figure 1 The doll was one of a few ragged items sent with my daughter from the foster home in 2001
I am “Danielle’s” adoptive mother, I was at the doctor’s office one morning while my mother in law was babysitting her; at the time, she was only eleven years old. In the waiting room, I picked up the newspaper and read the headlines: “Woman Admits to Killing Her Son”. It was an article about the confession– there were intimate details about Wendy’s life and the murder of her two-year old son. Initially, I thought it was an article about some stranger in a faraway place. As I read on, it became evident that this was MY daughter’s birth mom! This was how I discovered the details about Danielle’s previous family. I was shocked and saddened by the information!
December 20, 2010 President Obama signs the S.3817 the “CAPTA Reauthorization…
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The Problem with Social Services- from a Social Worker’s Perspective- part I
Length of stay in U.S. foster care (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
I am writing this post in response to another post by Daniellesstory (I will repost so you can see it if you missed it) asking how it is that we might mobilize to make our children safer. Part of her concern was their safety when they have been entrusted to the care of social services. I would highly recommend you read her post about her experiences with her adopted daughter and social services and her questions about how to enact meaningful legislation that would really help children rather than serve as “nice words” saying we support a safe and healthy childhood for every child. I realize that her blog is not asking solely about Social Services but since most of the children that I see in my practice have had some interaction with social services, this is actually an issue that comes up a lot and I will focus on them for this post. If you are interested in finding out more about my own work history that informs my thoughts here, you can read my longer professional biography on the website www.attachmentdisordermaryland.com- you will find me in the “about us” section. While there are many aspects of Social Services we could talk about, in this post, I am going to stick with ways to change the ability of Social Services to protect children.
The issues, as I see them, are three-fold, implementation, support and funding. I will speak to implementation first. Right now, the individual states are in charge of the Departments of Social Services (they are not even all called that- but they all serve the same function) and within the states, sometimes Social Services are run by the counties and cities within the state. Each area decides for example, the level of education required to call someone a social worker and that can very within a state. In my state, Maryland, the county I live in has Child Protective Service (CPS) workers that are all Master’s level educated, while in Baltimore City, the Master’s level educated people are not in the field, they are supervising the workers in the field who may have an AA or undergraduate degree. It’s easy to see how a CPS worker with an AA would have a different skill set for helping, coping with burnout etc. from a Master’s level worker.
Additionally, different states have different laws about the implementation of protective services. In Maryland we have a law that states that Social Services must respond to an abuse report where a child may be in danger within 24 hours. That law and a law requiring workers to see any child who is a ward of the state routinely was the result of a child death while the child was in care and a subsequent re-haul of the system (via the Maryland state legislature). We also have a “mandatory reporter” law where people that routinely work with children, such as people in the school system, health care workers, social workers, etc. are required to report any suspicion of abuse. Other states have other laws governing (or not governing) social services. Consequently, when we talk about protecting children, we really must look to the laws of the state. In the daniellesstory post, the author suggested a lawsuit. I would suggest laws are easier changed by speaking to politicians about actual measures they can take. It is not my intent at all to minimize or excuse the awful things that happened to that author’s daughter or her daughter’s biological brother, only to better explain where the gaps and disservice comes from.
The question I think I get most often from people first bringing in their traumatized children to me has to do with why social workers do or do not remove children from a home. Here’s the deal… when we have a legal system that presumes innocence until guilt is proven, we create a reactive rather than proactive society. This means that social workers cannot just waltz into a home and remove children unless they have concerns that the child is in iminate harm of abuse. Each state has different laws about what constitutes abuse or neglect. In my state abuse means that a person left a physical mark on a child, used a child in a sexually exploitative manner, neglected to meet a child’s basic needs for health and welfare by not dressing them appropriately for the weather, neglecting to follow through on medical recommendations involving health issues, etc. Also included in my state’s laws related to abuse is mental harm- wherein a child has been emotionally abused by a parent, however, I do not know of a single case where a child has been removed for this alone. To break this down into the parts people seem most interested in, no, you cannot remove a child solely because they have drug addicted or alcoholic parent, or their house is messy all the time (unless the mess creates certain harm to the child), or because you think they are overly punative and mean. Children can be removed if the parents are drug abusers who have taken the child in the car while they were driving drunk or high, the mess in the house constitutes danger to a child, or the punative, mean nature of the parent translates into actual physical harm to the child. Because of the reactive nature of our system, children cannot be removed before harm is done. Child Protective Service (CPS) workers are trained to work to keep children in the home since we do not have a large pool of willing foster parents who are excited to take children into their home. Kinship care (where a child is placed with a relative) is the next step, and foster care is the last resort a worker looks for. Again, implementation of these decisions over whether a child stays or does not stay will have a lot to do with the training and support given to people in local departments and can vary widely.
In 1997, Congress enacted a law making a timeline where social services are required to work toward reunification of the child with their parent, except for some extreme cases, for 15 months. After those months are completed, they are to switch to permanency planning where they work toward the termination of parental rights so a child is free to be adopted. This law is in effect to avoid having children lingering in care for years and years while the system waits for a child’s parent to get it together. The belief behind the law is that children are best served by being in a family. Because this is a federal law- it is the same in every state.
As I mentioned before, not all states have the same laws and you definitely want to look up the laws in your individual state. The laws directly impact the way services are implemented so if you are looking for a different implementation of services, I would suggest you look at the wording of the laws about what constitutes abuse, who is a mandatory reporter and what they would be required to report, and look at the timeline for services for a child outside of the federal timeline like how quickly a child needs to be seen etc. I would not try to change the law to be pro-active (removing children before harm is done), not only is it asking to change a fundamental principle of our legal system, it is a slippery slope. Take, for example, when people say you should need a license to be a parent. Who would implement that law? Who would decide who gets to be a parent? What would the requirements be? When you look at it that way, you can see this is not a road we want to go down. We can’t even agree if a grown woman should be allowed to have birth control covered by her insurance for goodness sake- how in the world would anyone begin to decide who would get the parenting license, etc? I would also point out that I have met many parents who are “licensed”- they are foster parents and while they are required to take classes and pass basic requirements, they continue to have the same spectrum of parenting ability as the general population- anywhere from abhorrent to fantastic. To conclude this portion, I would say that the laws generally protect parents to raise children in the ways we see fit with limits set for the minimum standard of care and the maximum amount of physical force and exploitation. Within those parameters, we are all free to “mess up” our children as much as we would like and the system does not get to take them.
Tomorrow, I am going to post about two other issues, support for Social Workers and others who aid in protecting children and barriers to prevention.
What do you think would be a good law to implement to protect children?
Finding a therapist for a traumatized and/or attachment disordered child
Some elementary school counselors use books and other media to help their counseling (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As therapist who specializes in both trauma and attachment disorders, I can tell you it is important if you are searching for a therapist for one or both of these issues, that you find the right therapist for your child. Doing so will save you a lot of money and aggravation and is more likely to speed the healing time for your child. To start, look at my post on finding the right therapist for you or your child (you can find the link at the bottom of this post). With these particular children, and probably people with other specialized issues as well, there are further steps you would want to take to ensure that you have the right person. I see the steps for this particular issue as follows:
1. Figure out if your child has “only” trauma, or has trauma with attachment related issues. Here is the distinction, a child with trauma without attachment disturbance usually experienced a one time occurence, or something that happened over a relatively short period of time and was quickly identified. Trauma with attachment related issues is trauma that also impacts a child’s ability to bond with their caregivers in a healthy way, for example abuse or neglect by a primary caregiver or ongoing abuse or neglect that a child did not disclose. If you feel as though your child’s trust in adults to provide care for them has been altered significantly, you will want to see someone with knowledge of attachment related issues. To clarify this distinction, a teenager carrying on a short-term, secret relationship with a much older adult that they thought was younger or who was tricked into a situation where they kept a secret because they were breaking the rules when they were traumatized does not fall into this category of attachment disturbance. It is within reason to anticipate that teenagers will try to stretch or break the rules and it does not signify a break in a child’s core ability to trust that their parents will care for them. A teenager whose step sibling was abusing them for an extended period of time whenever their sibling came to stay at the home does fall under the category of possible attachment disturbance. The difference is the primary caregivers were around at the time of the trauma and did not know to stop it, while in the first example, the teen was doing an activity it would be reasonable to assume is developmentally expected but someone took advantage of them inappropriately. When in doubt, I would see someone who specializes in both trauma and attachment. If you find that there is an attachment related issue for your child’s situation, I would always make sure to take the child to a therapist that understands attachment because in order to work on attachment disorders or disturbance, you must know about trauma since the two go hand in hand.
2. Once you have determined whether you are looking for a therapist with trauma training or whether you need someone with an attachment and trauma focus, follow the steps from my first post on finding a therapist and ask these additional questions.
- What is your training in attachment and trauma?
- What recent trainings have you attended or conducted that relate to attachment and/or trauma?
- How do you conduct your sessions?
The answers to these questions, if you are talking to the correct therapist, should indicate that the person stays actively engaged in seeking training for attachment and trauma related issues. Additionally, an attachment specialist will indicate to you that you will be in the room for most, if not all, of the time that your child is in therapy with them. Attachment oriented therapy is significantly different in that a therapist focuses much more on your relationship with your child rather than their relationship with your child. In traditional therapy including therapy for singular trauma, you would take your child to see the therapist, you might check in with the therapist at the beginning or the end, then your child would see the therapist alone for the majority of the session.
While traditional therapy is effective with many children, for children with attachment disturbance, it can actually damage a child’s relationship with their parent. I have seen this happen, since a child with attachment disturbance has a tendency to reject caregivers, and, while they are alone with a therapist they may talk to their therapist about how terrible and difficult their parents are. The therapist and child will bond over this and the therapist shakes their head in disbelief, meanwhile they may be overlooking a parent who is really trying their hardest to meet the child’s needs while reinforcing for the child that the caregivers in their lives are, in fact, inadequate. Remember, children with attachment disturbance see adults as unsafe on some level and tend to fit them into these categories. A skilled attachment therapist will spot when a child is doing this and help them to retrain their system of trust by teaching them how to find trustworthy adults and by training the adults in their lives to be trustworthy in the way the child needs them to be. To learn more about attachment disturbance you can see my post linked below “What is attachment disorder?”
**A note to providers- I understand that you have seen parents who are, in fact, inadequate. For this post, I am assuming that a parent who cares enough to read this post is adequate because they are involved and caring enough to research this issue.
Stay tuned for my post on getting specialized treatment for your child- the things insurance companies won’t tell you that can help you get your child’s treatment paid for.
Related articles
- What is attachment disorder? (help4yourfamily.com)
- Finding the right counselor/therapist for you and your family (help4yourfamily.com)
- How to know when you or your child need a therapist (help4yourfamily.com)
The Perils of Perfectionism in Parenting
Photo taken by me as an example of a stay at home dad and kids. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
Quite a few recent books have alluded to just how fed up parents are with people expecting them to be the perfect parent. Scary Mommy, by Jill Smokler, was just released this week and details confessions of real parents who feel all the feelings that go along with parenting that we often do not talk about such as, anger, isolation, depression, fear, and embarrassment. In this age where so much of what we do is recorded and we see so many recorded images of parents on reality television, it also seems like everyone is judging everyone else’s performance all the time. When we do this, we can wind up in a seemingly endless cycle of judging others and ourselves constantly without any relief in sight. In fact, there are several studies that have come out in the past few years stating that parents are significantly less happy than non-parents. I believe part of this is our unrealistic, perfectionistic tendencies during which the thought patterns can begin to get quite vicious.
My profession has not been much help in making parents feel much better either, I’m sorry to say. Not only do most of our books focus on what you can do for your children, rather than how to help you feel better so that you can be a better parent, we are constantly telling you how to improve communication with your child, have educationally enriching activities, spend quality time with your children and encouraging you to take constant care of their emotional needs. While all that stuff is nice and worthwhile in many ways, I think too much of it also takes away the important quality of being genuine with our children, you know, like the genuine feelings expressed in the popular picture book for adults “Go the F@$k to Sleep,” by Adam Mansbach. If you don’t know that book, take a moment to look it up on youtube and you can listen to Lawrence Fishburne read it to you- when your kids are not in the room. Really, isn’t that how most of us feel when our children are coming down six and seven times to say goodnight and asking to be tucked in even though we already tucked them in?
Here is what I think many parents are wanting and it is something we hear all the time about everything but being perfect parents… everything in moderation! Yes, even lovey, touchy stuff. It’s actually good for the kids to understand that their parents feel- gasp!- genuine emotions. If you are fakey, fakey all the time and pretend things are nice, they know it’s BS anyway and later they call you on it- I’ve seen it too many times to have any doubt about this. And you know, many times when our kids call us on stuff they are right. Has your child ever said anything to you like my daughter when she said, “Mom, that’s what you say when you’re not really listening?” She was right. I had no idea what she just said. That’s the daughter my husband and I joke that someone must have told her in the end she will get paid per spoken word because she sure does act like it. You bet I zone out the chatter sometimes and maybe even miss important things. As one of my favorite professors in my Master’s program said, one of the great thing about people is that if you miss something important they said the first time around, they are pretty certain to repeat it. I know this is true for my daughter too. Now, don’t get me wrong, remember- everything in moderation, so it is also important to take time to turn on our listening ears for our children every day, but I also want to be realistic that it feels quite impossible to be in the moment and listening to one child while the other is asking you to make them a peanut butter sandwich.
Another reason genuine = good with our children is that they, like us, are humans too! They are often not perfect and they need a good example of how to recover from imperfection. I give my kids lots of opportunities to witness imperfection without even trying that hard. I’m a real natural 🙂 I burn things, forget stuff, and plan poorly sometimes. Most parents do. It’s the ones that admit it and give children an example of how to recover via apology, forgiveness of self and others, humor, etc. that have happy, not entitled (another by-product of over-perfect parenting), healthy children with a good sense of who they are and who their parents are.
Dare to be perfectly imperfect! Your kids will thank you for it.
Related articles
- Parental Reframes When Things Don’t Look So Good (help4yourfamily.com)
- Two things your kids tell their therapists about you (help4yourfamily.com)
Parenting with affirmations
what are word for? (Photo credit: Darwin Bell)
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
My children are learning new and wonderful things every day.
I am loving and supportive to my children.
My children are loving toward me.
As a huge fan of Louise Hay, the mother of the self-help movement, I have come to find the wonderful healing work that can be done via the use of affirmations. Ms. Hay would tell you that every statement is an affirmation. Typically we think of affirmations being statements we say to help us to feel better. I am loving and loveable is a common affirmation people try to say over and over to help change internal beliefs. But people can also say other, unhealthy or damaging affirmations, without even realizing they are doing so. I hear affirmations all the time like this, for example: everything I do turns out wrong, and it seems like everyone I love leaves me. I know it may seem simplistic to say that affirmations can change things but take a moment to see if you can remember words that may have changed your life. Hurtful words, loving words, thoughtful words, all may have played a part in helping you to form who you are.
I remember overhearing my mother say once that my sister was a smart as I was pretty. These words carried a lot of meaning for my twelve year old self. From them I deduced that my mother thought I was pretty (nice), but not that smart (ouch). While I know she would never have wanted me to feel like I was not smart and she has told me many times since that I am smart, I know that those words were powerful and impacted how I felt about myself. As parents our words are formative for our children. In the same way we can use affirmations to help us feel better about ourselves and to retrain our brains and our internal belief systems, we can use them to help our children form their own internal beliefs and set of understandings about how to feel better when life is hard.
One good introduction to affirmations for children is Louise Hay’s children’s book, I Think, I Am. In it, Hay uses child friendly language to teach children the power of affirmations. I have been using affirmations in my parenting for well over a year now, and can tell you it has made a huge difference in my children’s day to day happiness (mine as well). One thing that I think keeps people away from using affirmations is that they believe all affirmations have to be said in this nicey, nicey tone that feels syrupy and sweet. In my time using affirmations with my children, I can tell you this is absolutely not so!
My then six year old daughter, used to have reactions ranging from grumpy and reluctant to downright nasty upon waking up each morning. I actually got pretty irritated with going in to her room each morning to wake her up with a nice song only to be greeted with a moan that I needed to stop singing and demands for me to help her get dressed. However, I was determined to stay positive toward her and to try to set limits. One day, I got fed up with it and said quite firmly something along the lines of, “You know, the things you say right when you get up set the tone for your day. Do you want to wake up saying how rotten things are all the time or would you like to start your day showing love for all you have?” Here comes the affirmation, which I then stated out loud. “I am chosing to start my day happy and to be around people who are being kind to me.” Then I walked out of her room. I can assure you that I did not sound remotely close to sweet and syrupy. I also stated that I was going to take care of myself by leaving the room because I did not want to start my day feeling angry and sour. I believe my tone and questions are what caused my daughter to sit up and took notice. Within a few minutes she had dressed herself and come downstairs to tell me she did want to start her day right. Since then she has mentioned this desire several times. Sometimes in the morning when I wake her up now she still mentions that today she is going to have a happy day and I can tell you that morning wake ups have completely changed for her making our entire morning smoother for everyone.
Perhaps this sounds too simplistic. I know it’s not always so easy because I know you might tell me how your child would follow you out of the room and around the house demanding that you do such and such or this or that. Affirmations are not magical. They do not immediately change the people around you just by you saying them, however, they do help you to change your inner world and your outer world is forced to change as well. Be what I call a “broken record” with your affirmations. As your child follows you around giving you a hard time, continue to state them out loud. It can be the same one over and over again- you know, the same way you have to say “no” twenty times before they get it.
Now that you have read this, I would strongly encourage you to take a moment now to think about the affirmations you are saying to and about your own children. Would you like to change them? If so, write down what you would like to change them to. Need help finding an affirmation? Give me a try. I’ve gotten pretty good at this 🙂
For more information about affirmations, I would strongly recommend you read Louise Hay’s classic book, You Can Heal Your Life. It has been around for a while but it is actually a timeless work. No time to read? I bought it off itunes and listened to it while walking and I highly recommend this way as well. You can easily find this book by clicking on the Amazon widget link at the top right of this page. Please read my disclaimer page first.
Cover of YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
Parental Reframes When Things Don’t Look So Good
through the frame (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
written by Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
Alright, so you did something you are not so proud of. Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about major screw ups- like anything that meets criteria for abuse or neglect- we’re talking the overly harsh words or failure to understand the depths of need of our child if they have been trying to tell us about a problem. You know, the things we routinely beat ourselves up for as parents. First of all, I want to say (I may have said this before and I will probably say it again because it is such a wonderful statistic) that being “good enough” to support a securely attached child means we meet their needs a mere 30-40% of the time. This is not meant to give permission not to meet your child’s needs, but serves more to allow us to forgive ourselves when we miss something or respond differently than we would have liked and to see some of the positives in otherwise difficult situations such as divorce, death of a loved one, illness, trouble at school or with friends. Parental reframes work in all kinds of situations.
What do I mean by parental reframe? Well, you know how you can take the same picture and put it in different frames to make it look different? Depending on the frame a picture is in, you may notice more of one thing or another. Life can be the same way. A large part of parenting, as I see it, is to help children (and ourselves) find the most appropriate, helpful frame to put our issues in. Notice, I did not say it was to shield children from all difficult situations. First of all, that is impossible and we would only be setting ourselves up for failure. Secondly, you would not want to do that since childhood is precisely the time we need to learn to handle difficulties while we have our parents to protect and guide us. We are there to help children frame the pain they will inevitably have- not to keep them from any pain. So, what is a parental reframe? It is taking a step back to look at the frame we have put around a situation, then asking ourselves if there may be another frame that we might like to use instead. There really are so few absolutes in life and really our reality can be framed in many different ways.
Take a look at the picture below.
Do you see the baby? If you are like me, it will take a minute for you to find it but once you do, you will see the baby was there all along. The toes are in the branches on the right, the head is made where the trees come together on the left. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it, even though it was there all along. That’s how a reframe is. We get stuck on a story: divorce ruins children for example, or maybe even a worry more universal to parents like the feeling that our child never helps around the house. These times are precisely the times when we need a reframe.
How in the world are you supposed to reframe issues, especially beliefs or worries about your child that feel deeply entrenched? Let’s start the easy way first. When you have a few minutes, stop and take a few breaths while you pause to see if you can think about this issue in another way. It can be easier to do this if you ask yourself what your most loving friend might say about this issue to you. Ask yourself if it is possible that there may be alternative possibilities from what you have come up with so far. If you think it would be helpful, take a moment to brainstorm other possibilities for the belief you are clinging to. After all, this is only a belief and there are very few absolute truths out there. Let’s take our example of kids that don’t help around the house. Is it possible they try to help in some ways, just not the ways you wish they would? Is it possible they need more instruction to help? Is it possible you are asking (or demanding) for help in ways that are not effective for your children? Do they have something going on that prevents them from focusing on helping you like their age, ability level, extra-curricular activities, schoolwork, etc?
Next, take a moment to consider what you would like to believe about your child. Create an affirmation about what you would like to believe. My child is helpful around the house in many ways. Think of ways this affirmation is true. Say the affirmation many times over the next few days. Point out when you child does helpful things and begin stating ways they can help you as if you expect them to do those things. Be surprised when they haven’t picked up their items off the dining room table!
Just changing our attitude about a situation can help our children to change theirs. I have seen this work too many times to think otherwise. I have many clients with attachment disorders. Many times when they first come to see me their parents lament about how they are constantly in trouble. Their parents, who usually adopted them at an older age, often adopted them with the desire to show them how wonderful life can be! These parents want their children to have new and exciting life opportunities and they come in so frustrated that their children continue to get into trouble that requires the parents to keep them home more over and over. We reframe the statement of “my child is constantly getting into trouble and can’t ever make good decisions” to “my child gets easily overwhelmed by new experiences and transitions.” When we re-frame the child’s acting out behaviors from “bad” to “overwhelmed” the feeling as a parent changes significantly as well from a hopeless stance, to protective. While the child may still not be allowed out to do much, the intent and feelings behind the parents decisions feel more loving and come across that way to the children.
I know this may all sound a bit Pollyannaish to people. Additionally, I do not want to say that a reframe on cleaning is the same as a reframe on divorce. However, there are helpful aspects to all experiences in life. If the technique of thinking it through is not working for you, please take a moment to read my previous blog “How to know if you or your child need a counselor” (link below). Reframes are a lot of what we therapists help people to do.
Having trouble with a reframe? Let me invite you to post the belief you need reframed, or a belief you have reframed and tell me how it worked. While I can not diagnose or treat via a blog, I would love to have feedback on this topic (or any others).
Related articles
- How to know when you or your child need a therapist (help4yourfamily.com)
- 4 Rules parents can live by (help4yourfamily.com)
- Two things your kids tell their therapists about you (help4yourfamily.com)
About me
Kate Oliver, LCSW-C (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) has been a clinician working with traumatized and attachment-disturbed children for almost two decades. She is co-owner of A Healing Place, a private practice in Columbia, Maryland, since 2007.
At the beginning of her career, Kate found that while some children responded to traditional child therapy practices, there were a significant number of children who showed little or no improvement in their overall emotional well-being. This led her to seek out specialized training to learn more about attachment, the bond between parents and children, and found that by using attachment-based strategies in addition to treating trauma, even the most challenging children and their parents, saw major, life-changing shifts, not only for the children she was working with, but the parents as well.
Early in her career, Kate was privileged to work as the clinical director for Tamar’s Children, a program that took pregnant, incarcerated women from prison to a treatment facility that worked on teaching the women to bond with and attach to their babies, while also helping the women to heal their own broken attachments, and history of trauma and addiction. This program was internationally recognized for having a successful, evidence-based practice using an attachment-based model. From working with some of the most severely disenfranchised parents, Kate received important information about how to help all parents maintain a happy, healthy relationship with their children.
In 2007, Kate co-founded A Healing Place, a mental health private group practice in Columbia, Maryland, where she focuses on working with families with children who have a history of trauma and/or attachment disturbances. A board certified supervisor, Kate has been an invited presenter to teach continuing education courses for other social workers and psychologists. In her courses, Kate teaches attachment-building techniques and presents about her sub-specialty, working with families headed by gay and lesbian parents. Kate has also worked as a trainer for Building Families for Children, a therapeutic foster care agency.
Kate is a former board member for the organization COLAGE, a non-profit group that works toward community building for people with gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender parents. She is currently a member of Attachment Disorders Maryland, a group that works to educate parents and professionals about working with children with attachment related issues. She is a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner and Educator.
Kate lives in Columbia, Maryland is the mother of two amazing daughters, the partner to a fantastic husband, and the daughter of one mother and two gay dads. She loves to read any book that crosses her path, write (of course), and she recently started dancing again, a passion she has had since her youth.
Kate can be reached by email: helpforyourfamily@gmail.com for questions or you can find her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/Help4yourfamily.
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