Can you believe that Parenting in SPACE 2012 is only a few months away? I have been thinking about the event and the powerful moments we shared just eight short months ago – how time flies!!

And as I was reading over what some of last year’s participants said were some the highlights for them, I thought, “wow, this makes a good story.”  So I wove together what you all said into this little “tale” about the experience:

In the two days of the conference, “I felt for the first time that there were people who understood what our family deals with from day to day. My stories were not odd or shocking.”  When I think about what made it special, to be honest, I think, “what didn’t make it special?”  “[We] laughed till [we] cried and [we] cried till [we] laughed.” “I didn’t want it to end.”

“I realized, [from the conference] how [my children’s] experiences have truly shaped them and that healing takes time.”  I was reminded of “how our children process things, how very much they need understanding and empathy,” that I need to “…have more patience for them when they are speaking in behaviors” and to be more “accepting and compassionate towards our kids feelings.”

And though I “still get frustrated with them,” “I [now] have a greater degree of empathy for what they have experienced in their short lives and how damaging this has been for them. I don’t feel hopeless about their future and their ability to heal.” Because of this, “I am calmer, more patient, more willing to explore looking at things from different angles.” In the end, “the sense of community and connectedness that arose out of it was landmark to me… transformational and totally unexpected.”

If you are going to be joining us this year, we SO look forward to seeing you there.  If you haven’t yet decided, we hope this “tale” encourages you.

Finally, we also ask a favor: please think of the other parents you know, and their kids, who may benefit from attending this year’s conference, and forward this “tale” to them.  Please: pass along the healing of Parenting in SPACE to those who needs it most!

While spending time with my dear ones over the holidays, I came across a lovely book by Nancy Tillman called Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You. It’s a wonderful little meditation on the greatest gift we wish to give our children – our unyielding love.

Sadly, we all know that there are members of our families, those who have experienced trauma in their early childhood, who have the greatest difficulty hearing our message of love, affection, and admiration. They just cannot believe it, they fight receiving it and resist it at every turn, despite our most persistent efforts to express our deep love.  That’s why I love this book: because we can read it over and over and over again, until maybe, just maybe, one little, tiny shred of our love of them will sink in.

One particular passage from the book strikes me about the message of love we wish to give to our children, “…if someday you’re lonely, or someday you’re sad, or you strike out at baseball, or think you’ve been bad… just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair. That’s me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.” I know we mean it, and we all pray they’ll learn to hear and receive it.

That’s why at the Parenting in SPACE conference 2012 we will be working hard to help parents learn every method of communication possible to send the message of love so well articulated in the book.  To learn and practice the art of therapeutic parenting at Parenting in SPACE, we will learn how to establish and create Safety, Support, Supervision, Structure, Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy as our guiding light with our hurt children. With this foundation we can create an environment in our families that allows us to continuously communicate our deep message of love that – with time and an abundance of patience – may allow our children to blossom as loving and loved humans.

And what better way could you start Parenting in SPACE then by enjoying a relaxed and informal discussion with Christine Moers, therapeutic parent extraordinaire and author of the blog WelcomeToMyBrain.net? Be part of a small and very personal group as part of the Relax and Connect pre-conference, where you can ask any and every question you may have for Christine, mother of five children via both adoption and birth. Pick her brain for everything you can because it is a glorious treasure chest of experience and trial and error! 

During the last week of October, Chicago was graced with the presence of Dan Hughes, the creator of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy.  He spent an entire Sunday with parents, giving them a more in-depth look at his model, and how to use it every day with their children.  His expression of using the PACE model really brought the concepts alive and helped parents understand their children’s inner world so that they could respond in a way to further promote healing.

He then spent four days at the Theraplay Institute in Evanston to share his knowledge with therapists looking for a new way to reach the children they serve.  He gave a detailed explanation of Intersubjectivity, which is the core process of attachment formation in infancy.  He described the ways in which an infant responds to their mother, and vice-versa.  The consistent modeling of each other through facial expression and voice tone help to create the infant’s view of himself in the eyes of their mother, or primary attachment figure.  The infant comes to experience himself as loved and lovable, and thus creates a sense of self that displays confidence in self and empathy for others.

In some instances, this pattern does not occur, particularly when children experience orphanages, abuse, or neglect.  Multiple caregivers for infants in orphanages disrupt the consistency of experience, and leads to confusion about when or if the infant will have his needs met.  Abuse and neglect give the child an inner self of being unlovable or unwanted.  In all instances, the child creates a sense of shame about herself causing a retreat from the world or other caregivers.  Alternately, the child may be very clingy with caregivers, out of fear the child will not survive if the caregiver is out of site.  Often, children will vacillate between pushing their caregiver away and pulling them close, depending on the level of shame and fear they may be experiencing in the moment.

The issue of shame for many children who have experienced trauma in early childhood runs deep to the core of the child’s experience of himself as a human being.  This is his central frame of reference for who is he and how he acts.  Therefore, we experience children who act impulsively, are not concerned with external consequences, and have difficulty understanding and feeling how their behavior affects others.  This really drives home the purpose of Empathy in the PACE model.  During the four days of training with therapists, Dan Hughes really emphasized the role of empathy.  In fact, it seems that when empathy is active, the other pieces of the model seem to emerge more naturally.  When parents truly understand the child’s experience, they have a greater ability to offer acceptance.  And when parents are trying to express empathy for the experience and understand how the child feels, they will find that curiosity shows up, without judgment.  Playfulness becomes much easier with a child that parents do not experience as being manipulative.

To watch Dan Hughes use the model in therapy is absolutely enlightening.  He displays empathy and curiosity continually, and helps the child and parent feel as if they are finally understood.  He goes back to the initial attachment behavior that would be expected as an infant. He focuses on matching the tone of voice and the emotional charge of the child’s experience, as a mother does with an infant. If the child expresses anger, he raises his voice and mimics their behavior. If the child shows sadness and tears, Dan will lower his voice and join the child in that moment of sadness.  Meanwhile, he gives them words for their experience, so that they can start to have a verbal expression for their feelings and their sense of shame.  The child is then able to realize that they are feeling sadness because they were hurt, but that sadness is not the core of their person.  At times, Dan Hughes will also incorporate touch, as appropriate, to help create a deeper bond between the child and their attachment figure. In many of his videos showed to therapists, he had the family embracing the child in a nest of love, while the child cried about their story and their shame.

There is a clear distinction, however, between empathy and validation.  Many parents and therapists fear that if they express empathy for the child’s perspective, then the child may not understand that their behavior was wrong.  A common question is: “How can I portray empathy for her feelings, without letting her feel that the behavior was okay?”  Dan Hughes expressed empathy with key phrases that help put the focus on the feelings of the child and the experience of the child, rather than the outcome or the behaviors.  He said things such as, “Wow, that must have been hard for you.  It would be so hard to be teased by someone you thought was a friend.  You just wanted the teasing to stop, and hitting seemed to be the most effective method, because you’ve seen it work in the past.  I’m so sorry that you had to experience that.”  In this way, the parent has validated the feelings and the experience of the child, but has not condoned hitting.  As a consequence for the behavior, the parent will reinforce safety with the child, by suggesting that the child needs to stay close to them.  This also helps reinforce the attachment relationship with the parent, and lets the child know that the parent will keep them safe.  When the child is able to experience the parent as empathetic and still wanting to be around them, even after an unsafe behavior, they begin to recreate their sense of inner self, to believe that they are a lovable child.

Clearly, this process does not occur overnight.  Since a child’s brain is wired for attachment early in life, it may require a lot of reworking before the brain starts to rewire.  During this process, empathy seems to have such an important impact on the child to reduce his sense of shame and begin to experience himself in a new way.  This model can be very difficult at times, and it’s natural for a parent to feel as if they have screwed up or ‘lost it.’  In this case, Dan Hughes emphasizes the importance of repair.  Parents are only human, and dealing with a child with an attachment disturbance may be the hardest job on the planet.  No one can be expected to be on target all the time.  In fact, having these instances, and effectively repairing, teaches the child a very important lesson: it’s okay to screw up.  For children with intense shame, they will often feel as if they are screwing up, and they will lie about it, hide it, and try to get away with it at all costs.  This is most infuriating for parents, and seems to go against all logic.  Try to use PACE to really understand the child’s experience, rather than focusing on the behavior. And when that fails, as it will sometimes, be sure to follow up with an effective repair.

The Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy model created by Dan Hughes seems to be one of the best available tools to help children with any sort of attachment disturbances.  After four days with him, the therapists walked out feeling as if empathy could save the world!  Truly, we could all use a little more empathy in our lives, so it makes perfect sense that our children would need it consistently and constantly.

“Dear your Honor,

I really want to meet with you! My mom said you are so so nice!  I am 9 years old! I have been living with my dad and mom for over 4 years! I am so so so ready for this big situation! I think it is big and I regret that I am nervis! But I LOVE my family very very much! I am scared about being adopted! I know that you have gotten a lot of people adopted befor!  So I know you are ready for me. 

Love, Me”

Need I say more?

After years of uncertainty, permanency will arrive for this young girl, her sister, and her parents after they soon stand before the judge and say, “We do.”  They’ve been through the storms of child-protection-decision-making, birth-parent-ambiguity, tug-of-war-between-foster-homes, and trauma-behavioral-emotional-solar-flares – and yet, they live not only to tell the tale, but to have engaged in tremendous healing thanks to the tireless, ceaseless, exhausting efforts of their soon-to-be adoptive parents, who make me feel like a slug.

What an honor, and a pleasure, to witness this “official” becoming of a family.  It’s only “official”, of course – this family has been a family for over four years now.  I REJOICE because, finally, the state will come recognize the status that anyone with open eyes could see: a warm, loving, complex association of adults and children: just another family.

And this kid, this amazing kid; I had simply asked what she wanted to tell the judge and… voila, shear eloquence which so well expresses the vagueness in our children of their adoption.  Of COURSE they’re not sure: they love their adoptive family, and worry about (anticipate) losing that love, and agonize about being disloyal to their birth parents because they love their adoptive parents, and are angry with their birth parents for abandoning them, and love their birth parents because they’re their birth parents, and are angry with their adoptive parents for loving them and making them feel unfaithful to their birth parents and…. Adoption is SO complex.

Thank you, dear one, for reminding us what it’s like to be adopted.

I am particularly pleased that registration is now open for Parenting in SPACE 2012!!!!  It will be held April 21 & 22, 2012 at the Morton Arboretum near Chicago, Illinois, and Christine Moers will hold a preconference Friday April 20, 2012.

As we have been planning for Parenting in SPACE 2012, we have specifically planned to promote parent communities and to offer more workshop options.  We’re planning on reviewing the basics (an Introduction to SPACE, the Foundations of Attachment, the Impact of Trauma on the Brain), as well as offering a wide variety of topics including an exploration of the many methods for treating traumatized children and youth, providing structure with behavioral management techniques, looking at the culture of adoption/family-of-origin issues, and workshops that are really designed to take care of you parents – yoga/relaxation and meditation (“meditate, don’t medicate” I like to say!).

Oh yeah, and did I mention that we’re planning on ending the conference with an open session we’re calling, “10,000 questions with Christine and Billy,” where you all just get to ask Christine Moers and me any questions you want to about therapeutic parenting, trauma, kids, etc.!!!

So… register today. Honestly, Christine Moer’s Pre-Conference is nearly sold out, and the main conference is almost 20% sold out – and registration has just opened!!!!

-Go early so the restaurant is not too crowded, and the staff is not frazzled, but not too early when there might be a single server for the whole place.  You can call ahead to a restaurant to find out how many servers are working.  Never go anywhere that requires a wait for a table!

-Avoid eateries that cater to families with children.  The food is awful and there are lots of kids whose behavior is not a good model for your children.

-Avoid places that are so quiet you can hear glasses and silver wear clink, and avoid restaurants with loud or piped-in music.  It’s unpleasant and over-stimulating for children who can’t tune it out.

-Order ahead.  Restaurants love quick turnover for their tables.  Call your order in, sit down, eat, and leave.

-Request a booth off the main traffic route.  Sitting too close to senior citizens, in the main area, or close to the entrance can make you the entertainment for everyone.

-Bring engaging activities.  Play a game while you wait like “I spy with my little eye.”

-Have the server bring the check as soon as the food is ordered so that a quick exit is possible, if necessary.

-Remind children about expected behavior and family or social rules before leaving home and again before entering the restaurant.  If you have to give more than one warning for each, leave!

-Let other adults at the table know to decide immediately what they want, so they can order the first time the server approaches.

-Tip well.

-Keep your sense of humor!

As the new school year approaches, many parents ask the same questions… including how can I get help for my child?  What are my rights as a parent?  How much information should I share?  Is the school supposed to help me with this?  And, what am I supposed to do next?

If you have asked these questions, you are not alone!  But it probably means that you have not attended an Educational Surrogate Parent Training Program training session.  This program is designed to provide children who don’t have parents with educational advocates who will follow them through the foster care or Department of Corrections systems.  Even if you are not interested in volunteering to advocate for other children, this training program outlines all special education systems from birth to 21 years of age, child and parent rights, and the school’s responsibilities to the child and family.  It is the only comprehensive and free way to get all of this information handed to you!  If you want to better understand the special education system, and how to best advocate for your child or other children, please consider attending the training!!

Training sessions are run by the Illinois State Board of Education, and are held around the state beginning in January and running through May.  The calendar can be found at: http://www.isbe.state.il.us/spec-ed/pdfs/surrogate_training.pdf.  Dates include February (in Lombard, Chicago, and Streamwood), March (Chicago), April (Loves Park, Des Plaines), and May (Lake Villa, Addison).  The registration form can be found at: http://www.isbe.state.il.us/spec-ed/pdfs/surrogate_training_form.pdf.

The challenge: how to hang on to the moment once it has passed.  And perhaps more importantly, how to recognize the moment when it is there.

Because the truth is, when these moments occur we are too occupied to see them as they are. For instance, when this moment occurred, I was walking in the opposite direction, getting ready to do “the next thing.”  I easily could have kept walking.  And yet, I found a way to be…just “be.”

How did I find it?

Well, I realized that “the next thing” would still be there, though a few minutes later; and I wouldn’t lose anything by taking the moment – and I’d gain something precious.

The way the light existed in that space at that moment, I realized if I didn’t stop to SEE it, then and there, the sun would continue to rise, the fog would dissipate and that image would never be the same again.  So I paused, turned and took it in.  I took out my camera.  I shot half a dozen pictures.  The image I included with this blog, my favorite, was the last one I shot.  Now it’s yours.

And part of my secret to hanging on to the moment is the simple trick of this writing – by sharing it with someone else, you, I’ve highlighted the moment for me, drawn out the rich complexity of it and enriched the details to make them even more intense.  Thanks for letting me “use” you this way.

I know, as the summer winds down and we get our kids back to school, that things get pretty intense and time seems to fly away from us.  And I know that with the (too) often-times intense-nature of our children, it seems that these moments (like I’ve described) never exist.

They do.

And that’s the challenge: to find one thing as often as possible (each day/week?), SEE it and “be” with it.

Maybe you can find the moment by seeing the pile of dirty dishes… and walking away to step outside and feel the sun’s warmth on your arm and face; really FEELING it.  Then try remembering the delight of a summer day from your childhood.

Maybe it’s searching for, and finding the one tiny, positive thing your kid or spouse does today that is normally so hard to observe.  Because if we search for it, the odds are we’ll find it and SEE it.

Then, capture the moment in your mind, or with your phone, in a drawing or verse.  Describe it in great detail.  Emphasize the memory with all five senses so it sinks in. Break it down into its complex details.

Then share it with a friend.

A few weeks ago, Wendy asked me to write an article about preparing to take a vacation with my 4 kids, 2 with serious RAD.

It is about half way through our vacation, I have the worst headache ever, my 14 year old is cleaning out the bathroom of all harmful products so that he can sleep in there – his choice, so that he can drink water at 10:30 – seeing as how we are not at home, I don’t want to take the chance that he will pee somewhere random in his grandmother’s house.

Traveling 20 hours with 4 kids is crazy enough but doing it with 2 kids that have attachment issues is even more difficult. My husband and I try to talk about the trip with our children before we leave; we also try to communicate clearly with all the people that we visit so that our odd ways of parenting are better understood. We take these steps to ensure a fun time for the kids by building memories with immediate and extended family and maintaining some routine so that the kids don’t completely fall apart.

Before our trip, we had our kiddos talk with our therapist about any concerns they had about the trip. Our therapist also discussed issues of trust and building trust with all of our family members. She also mentioned how some things we do, that seem constricting are actually done to protect our kids from embarrassment (like peeing somewhere other than the toilet, pulling out hair, or having temper tantrums).

It is extremely important to us that others understand what our kids are going through. In the past, we have sent info to our relatives from Dan Hughes, RAD, Housecalls Counseling or other resources so that family has some information on what our kids are experiencing, and why we ask for such unusual support from everyone we are visiting. IF they read the info, there is at least the beginning of an education, but I still get weird looks and judgmental words. I simply refer them to the publications.

With all the difficulties and rough days, it is still fun to go on vacation and highly important that our children learn to have fun times with more family and enlarge their circle of people they can trust – not to mention people who truly love them. We planned fun things to do along our trip. We planned lots of swimming – physical activity – to keep them regulated. We also had downtime with movies so they could tune everybody else out. Then back to more playing with family: cards, board games, conversations with grandma instead of timeout. It was a great opportunity to allow others to do some of the difficult work without realizing they were making my kids work (being interested and learning about others).

From previous years, we learned it was difficult to stay with lots of different people and move locations a bunch, so this year we planned on spending the night in fewer locations with no other people (or only one, my mom). We stayed in hotels instead of homes which made it easier and gave us alone time if we needed it. We also asked people to visit us at my mom’s which allowed our children to settle into some structure and routine. One night, on a whim, I allowed 3 kids to go to their Great aunt’s for two days thinking that it would be a great memory building time, and it was. However, my attachment challenged daughter spent a couple of days treating me quite badly since I was not as laid back as my aunt! Sometimes you have to try things to realize your kids aren’t ready for that experience.

Vacation should be fun, I’m not sure it ever is for anyone. For us, it definitely has its challenges. However, it is important to see extended family and to have fun summer vacation memories. It is even important to have disastrous times with family; that’s normal and our kids have to learn to work through these life lessons. We just tried to stay the course, parent therapeutically with love and logic. It was also important to have the support of my husband and to keep myself energized (more people draining the life out of me than normal…with the looks and words from extended family). What’s most important is that we are doing what we need to for these kids; helping them heal and learn to live their life in various arenas.

P.S. No matter how hard you try to communicate, people don’t get it. Communicate more! I learned the hard way with a very dear, beloved, favorite aunt of mine after we had a breakdown. She was trying to help, I was trying not to be “controlling” and it commenced in tears. All was resolved, but it took more talking, explaining, and listening. Never stop trying, family is worth it!