We know that attachment is crucial for adopted and foster kids for their mental and physical health. What are some fun and simple ways to help you and your child attach? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit, interviews Deborah Gray, adoption therapist, “attachment guru”, and author of Attaching through Love, Hugs, and Play: Simple Strategies to Help Build Connections with Your Child and Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents.
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We know that attachment is crucial for adopted and foster kids for their mental and physical health. What are some fun and simple ways to help you and your child attach? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & foster care education and support nonprofit, interviews Deborah Gray, adoption therapist, “attachment guru”, and author of Attaching through Love, Hugs, and Play: Simple Strategies to Help Build Connections with Your Child and Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents.
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Okay.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:welcome to creating a family talk about adoption and foster care. Today we're going to be talking about simple techniques that you can use to attach to your child. Before we get started, I'm going to throw out a request. Please go to iTunes and give us a rating. It is a big darn deal to us. It's a big darn deal to iTunes. We could really use your ratings, so pop over to iTunes and you can just do a star rating if you want. If you're feeling particularly generous, you can give us a written response or written comment. That would be great as well. This show is brought to you by creating a family. We are the national adoption and foster care, education and support nonprofit.
Speaker 2:I'm dawn Davenport.
Speaker 1:I am your host and the director of creating a family. You can find us and all of our resources online@creatingafamily.org this show is underwritten by the jockey being family foundation. Their mission is to strengthen adoptive families through postadoption services. One way they do that is through their free backpack program, which provides newly adopted children with their own backpack, which is personalized with their initials and it is filled with, well the cute little bear and a blanket for the child. But most important, or at least from my standpoint most important is a tote bag with parenting resources for their parents. So if you are a newly adoptive family or you know of one, please ask your agency to join the backpack program@jockeybeingfamily.com. It is free for the agency, so it's really a win win. They just need to know about it. So that's your job. You tell them about it. Today we're going to be talking about attachment and specifically we're going to be talking about simple techniques, tips, whatever that parents can use to help to attach to their child. Our guest today to talk about that is Deborah Gray. She is a clinical social worker specializing in attachment trauma in foster care. She is also the author of numerous books and, and we've talked about a number of them on, on the other courses that we've done. But the one that I particularly love is attaching through love, hugs and play simple strategies to help build connections with your child. Welcome Debra, to creating a family. It's always a pleasure to be invited to be part of your program done. You're a gracious and welcoming forum post, so thank you. Oh, well thank you. You know, um, I, I particularly like the, the title of this course because I think so often we as parents, and to be perfectly honest, I think professionals are, uh, are guilty of this as well of overly complicating what attachment is. And I'm not trying to undermine the fact that that children who have attachment issues are a real challenge for two parent. And, and it's, it's crucial that we as parents help our children attach. So I'm not trying to undermine the importance of attachment or the difficulty, but I think we've have a tendency to overcomplicate the, so I am thankful that, uh, we're gonna have that we're focusing today on things that, uh, will hopefully uncomplicate rather than keep it complicated. So, but I, but having said that, I do want to start by, uh, talking a little bit about how attachment affects the brain because fundamentally the lack of attachment impacts, uh, that, that are really the basic core of how the brain develops. And I think that's important to know from a parent's standpoint.
Speaker 4:Yes. Um, for many of our parents, when they're thinking of attachment, they think of connection and they're absolutely correct to do that. But it's not just the emotional connection that you're after, although that's very important. But what we've come to understand is that attachment is the means through which we develop our emotionality is human beings in terms of how we tolerate stress. Um, you, a lot of what you learn about stress management comes from the attachment relationship with one of your parents or hopefully both of your parents. If you have to 10 of parents, but in a brain to brain connection, which is what attachment creates, we actually download our brain a pattern into the developing brain of a child. And this brain pattern allows you to tolerate stress, quick time, recognize the feelings of the other, begin to name the feelings, uh, off the other. And we learn to watch the face of the person to whom were attached. And they signaled to us many, many meanings of what circumstances, um, mean emotionally. And these meanings include, pay attention to this. Don't pay attention to that or you look at it and it feels like a really big deal to you right now. Bring it down. It's not that big of a deal or this is an important big deal. Come to me, come close to me or constantly signaling through our attachment relationship. And that built basically our foundation who are emotional, um, what we call the emotional regulation. But it really means emotional balance. Now of course, we want to be building on that for the rest of our lives. I don't want to have the emotional balance, her lack of it that I had as a two year old or three year old or a five year old or a seven year old. I want to keep improving on it, but it forms a foundation.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask, so it seems to me that we certainly know that when a child comes to us in infancy, whether the child is born to us, are adopted to us in infancy, we know how that attachment or most of us do anyway, how that attachment is supposed to play out. The child has a need. The only way they can communicate that need is sue crying. A parent attends to the child at that point takes care of that child's need or at least attempts to ours present with the child in their suffering, whatever that might be, be at college or whatever. And the child then learns to trust that their needs will be met by their caregiver, by their parent. But when a child comes to us at an older age, let's say even at, let's say it, any, any age, toddler, preschooler, school aged child tween or a teen, they may not have had that. Well certainly if they've had that attachment, it was to a, another person. Um, so let's talk about if the, what is the prognosis for a child who was attached and did have a caretaker who's met their needs. And then let's talk about a child who was in a situation where their needs were not met and they did not fully attached to their caretaker. So we'll start with the first one.
Speaker 4:Sure. And, um, John, in many cases, our kids have been in places before where they learned not to attach if they were in an orphanage situation. Many of our kids come in from international orphanages and, and those sorts of footage situations because every time they tried to attach, the caregiver was very busy or their shift was over and another person took their place. What they've learned about attachment is these people go away. I'm trying to attach to them, but they keep going away or they're busy. And when I look in their eyes, instead of seeing welcome, we're so glad you're here. A little one. We instead see, I'm so busy, I've got to get to the next Kiddo. You know, I've got 10 kids, babies to feed here. And so they're learning not to connect or they're learning to connect anxiously. What we find is that for many of the who have been in situations where they were frightened of their care giver at times but still had to go to them for care, maybe they were emotionally abused and um, a family that had drug alcohol problems or physically neglected. They've also learned to be a pretty avoidant of the caregiver. And so there are the types of attachments that we expected create with our children with call those secure attachments. And those are relationships marked by Mitt needs, sensitivity to the child's needs, um, by tolerable stress on the part of the caregiver support system. Backing them up. Maybe not optimally, but certainly to some degree in the child can go to their knee, the caregiver without fear that something is going to harm them. But for many of our kids, they've been through neglect or trauma in the background and emotional abuse, uh, is certainly is harmful to children is physical abuse. We find that they want to avoid you. And so we have parents whose arms are just in leaning out, was love ready to embrace the trout and the child has fear of the parents are a lot of control of the parent or the child, um, is avoidance of the parents. They kind of scampering and get a little bit of what they need and then scamper out again. And so it's very tempting on the parents' part thing that they've got something wrong with them instead of, Oh, this is going to take a lot longer than we thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well. Uh, so, uh, let's talk about something that we're kind of move into some of the, the, the simple strategies that, that families can use if they have fostered, they're fostering a child are they are adopting a child who either has or has not had a firm, a attachment with a caregiver before, but the parents realize how important it is that they establish this connection, this attachment with their child. Now, um, can you explain that? The term we hear a emotional looping, the um, and how that plays into creating attachment?
Speaker 4:Yes. Well, in, in typical childhood w and emotional looping, what we find is the parent basically sends a signal, the child receives the signal and responds back to the parent. Either that or the child sends a signal, the parent receives the signal and response. In a way, this kind of closes that what we find for many of the kids who have been through our carers that are through a alternate care before ours, isn't that the children may have sent signals, but that signal wasn't responded to in a sensitive way or one that really made sense to the child. Like, or maybe maybe the parent send signals, but the child's learned to be frightened. You're avoidant of the parent and so that the child responds in an unusual way. And so there's, there you have to create the ability to have emotional connections. Your emotional looping, again, Harvard now is calling that serve and return. You want to see how many volleys you can go back and forth. Um, Greenspan had the concept of emotional looping, but what we're trying to do with kids is to cue them that is, give them some kind of emotional, um, the signal and then have them respond to that instead of ignoring us, pushing away or asking repetitively for something that isn't anything that we, um, that has anything to do with the initial Q[inaudible]
Speaker 1:let me interrupt now. Can you give us a specific example? Uh, let's say for a five year old of a serve and return or emotional looping, they mean the same thing. So can you give us an example of something that parents would do?
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right. So a serve and return would be if your little guy had a red plastic bat. And, um, a wiffle ball and was trying to hit the ball. Um, he, if he picked up the ball and the, and um, the parents said, let me get your bat. And the child said, play with me. And the parents said, you bet I've got some time. And then they go, do you want to just play in the front yard or backyard? That's a series of serving returns. And usually that Stan was some eye contact, some excitement and some choices. You've got this sense we're connected. Um, that that's the type of thing you can do with serve in return. Or if you have a child who wants to play babies, you're eating breakfast. And the child said, let me bring my doll. And the parents says, sit your dog here beside us. She's walking. We did your doll like oatmeal or would your doll like Cheerio's? And she'd say, Cheerio's and she, and she puts the Cheerio opto the dolls lips and the parents has the she like it and the child says, yes, there's a series of serving return, serve and return in your changing information about their worlds. All right. So now give us an example with let's say a 12 year old, 12 year old, come see into a waiting room. Um, he's got his hat on. The mom says it's pretty warm in here. Do you want to take your hat off in? The teen says, no, I think I'll keep it on. And the mom says, well, your hat looks good on you. I like pure new half that you got for the holidays. And the kid says, thanks. It's nice and fuzzy that serve in return. This is what, um, um, kind of, uh, a mess up. Looks like the child comes into a waiting room and he sits down and the mom says, you should take your hat off. You're indoors. He says, I don't want to take my hat off. And mom says, that gentleman takes his hat off when he comes in doors, especially when there's a woman here. Hmm. And he's like, oh, I don't want to take my hat off. And she says, take it off. And he takes it off and he's got hat here and there's acute 12 year old girl. You're sitting in the waiting room. Yeah. Nothing's worse than a hat hair and a cute girl. Yep, that's right. Yeah. We all have those kinds of mess ups. And this is how you reestablish later the mom said, I don't know what got into me. Suddenly my great aunt started to speak out of my mouth. I'm so sorry I insisted on that. I should have been more sensitive to you. Would you forgive me? And then the kid says, no, cause you really embarrassed me mom. And you're doing that all the time. And the mom has the opportunity then to back off and kind, but she keeps who I'm serving return. She said, I'm sorry that I do that. I'll try to do better. Can you help me by pointing out when I'm insensitive to you? Kush I sure don't mean it. He said, well, I guess I'm going to have to kind of educate you. Otherwise we're going to have this problem over and over again. And then you're right. It's not just teens who are getting educated, their parents are too. So part of the serve and return is, um, it's, it's all part of, part
Speaker 1:of it, however, is icontact, closeness, uh, attuning to what your child is actually saying. And nobody can do that 100% of the time. Sometimes you are trying to get the kid out the door or whatever, but the goal is to create as many of these and they are often quite short. You've described some long ones, but sometimes it's just a child running out the door, uh, getting ready for school and the mom rubs their back and strains or had a little rubs their back and smiles at them.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, so on that cheek have a good day and somebody's saying, thanks mom. Or you know, they're, they're leaving for the day and the mom says, hold on a second, you for[inaudible] forgot your backpack. Thanks mom. Appreciate that. Then you say you got this, have a good day. You know, absence of shame. There's an absence of lecturing instead. Those are real concentration on making, uh, some fluidity between the two of them in. So there's this sense of ease. Like somebody's got your back. It somebody who's looking for the best for you.
Speaker 1:But some kids, when we're working with, with we're parenting, these children are so hard to try to, they, it's like they're not giving in this given return, the serve and return, you're serving and, and, and there you're not getting a return. So what's apparent to do then when they're giving but don't feel the return?
Speaker 4:Did you all feel the return? Sometimes sin part of parenting is you have to go in it with, it doesn't matter whether you're an adoptive parent or not. And then of our listening audience, they have both biologic children and children through adoption. But when you are following from someone else's foundation, basically you're pouring the quick backs for what cracks are there in the foundation. It's perhaps a faulty metaphor, but you're going to have to teach them a lot about reciprocity. That is the going back and forth that they never experienced in the past. And so there's gonna be a lot of filling up that pump until you've got a private in the pump and you start to get something out the other end. And is one of my clients said to me, I need more support because my child is not going to be gratifying for awhile and that's one of the realities is it's going to take some time until you really have children who become more gratifying. Sometimes we actually go back through interactions. This is helpful to do with a therapist, but you can play different parts and you can say, no, I'm going to be the mom or you're going to be the mom and I'll be the child, you know, and we'll go back through this. How did you feel when I turned away from you and didn't acknowledge you and they might say not very good. Yeah, it makes me a little sad. It would mean a lot to me. If you could turn around and say, oh, thanks mom. Or you have a good day to mom, or give me a little bit of a hunt back. That would mean so much TV and you've got a good heart. You're a great kid. It's just you didn't learn. This wouldn't be for, and you know it would mean something to me. Would you please work on that? Okay. So notice here.
Speaker 1:Yes. Well, I was gonna say one technique is to specifically ask for what you as a parent need. Um, identify a one thing, not, not a million, uh, and specifically asked for it. So that's one technique I'm hearing you say.
Speaker 4:Sure. One technique is an in you script it, you don't have the make it up, you know, if you could say such and such. And for a lot of the listeners, they're already doing this for so important people in their wives. Um, some people know that, uh, their spouses don't necessarily know what they want on significant holidays. And so they'll say, you know, you know, they're, they're leaving the bread crumbs really close together. What would make me really happy for mother's Day would be that the Dah, and they lay it out and because they hear one condition is that we somehow expect other people to read our emotional minds. And as it grew, Paul rather faulty here at it. But you know, if you can tell kids how they can, what they can say, what they can do, that will make you happy and then you compliment them on it, they really enjoy that. Um, and you go ahead. Yes, I can tell you've got a comment here.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to agree with you. Absolutely. Uh, you talk some in your book about the importance of mealtimes and feeding and I guess it's almost primal. It kicks us back to the PRI. It's such a, it's a, a fundamental need that we all have. What are some techniques that parents can use during meal times, uh, that can help enhance attachment?
Speaker 4:Yes. And you know, when we think of attachment, because we're verbal people, conceptual adults, we tend to think of it in more abstract terms that actually attachment is, um, the part of the brain that really mediates attachment is our limbic system. And that is fairly primitive system. And when you were talking about emotional looping a couple minutes ago, that the back and forth, I gave mostly verbal, uh, verbally led a looping examples. But a lot of what we do in emotional looping or an attachment is nonverbal. It's very basic. You know, it has to do with Lindsay together, enjoy the food together. Let's have warm touch back and forth. That's all relaxed. Roll our shoulders back, take a deep breath and appreciate each other. It's in the soft dies. Ai Contact, um, the smiles around the table. And so those are times in which the family is engaging in attachment oriented behaviors that don't require a lot of thought, a lot of competition, a lot of concentration. It's, we really want to protect those times. You know, when we, when we're with people who give us warm smiles and just look at us and embrace us with their intention, attention, doesn't that feel good?
Speaker 1:It does something else that I would add for meal times. And this is, it's a hard one at times. Uh, because our children may come to us with some, what we perceive is, um, some unhealthy eating habits. Um, and, or if they come to us from a foreign country, we may not know what their eating habits are, but if they come to us, uh, uh, at an older age here in the U S it's not at all unusual for them to come with some fairly, uh, uh, unhealthy type of eating. And so there's a temptation to utilize meal times to correct that problem. Uh, but that can, especially at the beginning, interfere with that sense of security and attachment.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I like to think in terms of water first tier, second tier and third tier problems. Your first tier emphasis is on attachment and helping kids didn't feel safe. So safety connection, that's what you work on in the first year, first year and a half. Um, having proper table manners, that's a third tier problem. You know, wait and you don't want to lose your strengths while you work on manners. You're say your strengths are the ability to use food for attachment purposes is start to help kids feel secure and relaxed around their feeding. You enjoy dinner with their families. And so if you're going to work on manners, then you can work on manners at a different time in a little further down in place, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was actually probably more, I was more referring to children who only eat, you know, the only, the only thing they crave is macaroni and cheese and Cheetos. Um, and parents can worry about that. You know, my Gosh, a longterm health for this child when they literally will only macaroni and cheese and Cheetos, uh, where, where you, how would you handle that in your first tier, second tier, third tier,
Speaker 4:right? You include some of the things that they most like and are used to on the table, but then you put out other foods as well. You don't urge necessarily, you just invite the parents responsible for what's on the shopping list. If you have a child who was Mac and cheese every day, then by Matthew enough Mac and cheese for once a week, you just don't put it in into the shopping cart for the first few weeks when the child comes into the home, you can have a little Mac and cheese every day. Frankly, when they're coming into your home, you can have Mac and cheese for the first three weeks if that helps them to calm down as quickly as possible, but then you want to kind of pare back after that. I think some times when kids are coming into the family, our families are so desirous of the trout doing well that they make very rapid transitions and they work way too hard on many things and that and they create too many points of intervention if they're too hard on themselves and the child as you resolved, you know, it's really better to think in terms of what's most significant in the first few weeks in that happening. That child to feel cared for, loved starting in connection with you. Start the relaxing, helping them to feel safe and as many ways take a while,
Speaker 1:and that may take a while depending on the age of the child and the child's earlier life experience, so first tier, and it can last any number of weeks, months, whatever, is to establish the for the child a sense of safety and that they're going to be cared for their needs. Will be met and help them relax enough that they can learn something else. Um, because those needs are so fundamental,
Speaker 4:right. Acting about tears. I'm not necessarily saying that you say, therefore there is this like first tier. We're not there yet. So we have Mac and cheese for a year, you know, and the initial period of placement for children, it takes so many days and we to grieve a loss and they're in that intense grief state and kind of a shock state for many of the kids who are coming in internationally, the whole schedule is gone. And that was the predictability they had in the past. You know, things they smelled, people around them, the routines, the food, everything's missing. And so, you know, you're, you're helping them to calm down in as many ways as you can because that's really a crisis period for them.
Speaker 1:[inaudible] and, and so simplify your life, simplify your expectations of what you think this child should be doing and how they should be responding. Um, that's kind of the, um, um, just trying to survive mode, but that won't last forever. Uh, and then, then you move into some of the slowly but surely the attaching the, the serve and return seeking as many moments to verbally and nonverbally, um, send serve in return. I contact a rubbing of the back, um, protecting a child in at night and rubbing their feet if they like that are scratching their head or whatever, uh, is a form of something that gives comfort to them. Um,
Speaker 4:well looking for lots of things that have skin to skin, eye contact in the book, attaching with love, hugs in play. I worked for at the publisher to see if we couldn't get pictures in this time. Just showing some of the postures. You know, we play games like airplane ride play, um, pony girl Ponyboy on, on the lab. Lots of, lots of um, movement games so the kids have to look at your eyes and notice the expression on your face to know what comes next. We do lots of skin to skin, like swimming together. I'm rocking together. Things that caused children to want to reach out and clean. Clinging is a really kind of significant bonding thing that occurs with children where they cling to you. So what causes children to want to claim? Well, if you're swimming around plan airplane or you know, you're running, you're playing run and chase games, any things like any of those things. Um, because cleaning activities, uh, things where, you know, you're playing some kind of, uh, our, our kids like to play flashlight tag in the winter time. You know, we would get dark early and we'd play flashlight tag if you can have high excitement, a lot of fun, you know, that kind of thing really causes children to get gold and laugh and enjoy your company.
Speaker 1:You know, I often will tell parents who are in the, you know, the very beginning stages that you don't need to remember a lot of things, but one thing you need to remember is look for as many opportunities to enjoy yourselves with this child. Find something that you and the child enjoy doing and make a point of doing it as often as possible. And in a minimum, uh, the family should be doing something that everyone in the family enjoys once a week and every day you're going to try to find something that the child enjoys and you enjoy and you're trying to add joy in because there's nothing like, as your book title says, there's nothing like play, uh, to help families attach and children and parents both and both ways, both parents to checks to the child and the child attached to the parent. So I had just can't, uh, I can't stress the power of play enough. It seems to me
Speaker 4:and play actually when, when you have dynamic play, I'm not talking about board games, but dynamic play where you have to kind of guess the intention of the other person. And this can start as early as a year or you see kids having more dynamic play. We find that the, um, she'll, if we scan kids' brains, that's when all the parts of the brain are working together the very most. And we have tremendous amount of brain development during that time. So for parents who are interested in um, stimulating their children, especially when their children have not had adequate stimulation in the past, they're often thinking, well you know, what kind of special services can I get in for the Child? It's not necessarily that you don't ever want to get a speech language evaluation yet that done, but playing is really right up there with one of the things you can do to help your child's brain.
Speaker 1:Oh absolutely. You are listening to a family
Speaker 3:today we're talking with Deborah Gray about simple strategies to help you attach to your child. This show
Speaker 1:as well as all the resources provided by creating a family could not, wouldn't happen without the generous support of our partners who believe in our mission to providing unbiased, accurate information about all aspects of adoption and fostering one such partner is Holt International. They were founded in 1956 and they want every child to have a loving, insecure home. They have programs that strengthen and preserve families that are at risk of separation and they lead the global community in finding families for children who need them and to provide the pre and post adoption support that they need to thrive. Another one of our sponsors is Spence Jason. They are a licensed accredited nonprofit organization in the New York City Metro area that has been offering adoption services for more than 100 years. They have a robust post adoption services that they provide to, I'll ask, I'll all members of the triad, birth parents, adoptive parents and adoptees, uh, and they really believe in supporting the families for a lifetime. Adoption is for the life then they believe in supporting families for the life, for the life of the family. All right, so we've been talking a lot about the importance of play, uh, of all sorts. Let's talk a little about some how sleep disruptions can impact children and families who are trying to create attachment. I raised this because the reality is that a combination of stress for both the child and the parent and just the, the, the child being fearful at night can be waking at night or the worry from the parents and the child's going to be up and moving about at night can interfere with sleep. So some thoughts on how sleep affects attachment and what we can do about it.
Speaker 4:Sure. Well, first of all, um, there when children have lacked a primary caregiver, um, who's attached to them, even if everything else in their life is safe, what we find is that they're running high cortisol levels, which makes your stress. And so when children are coming into families, we've additionally found that there's, um, an inverse cortisol curve that we see in those kids. And not all kids have this, that an awful lot of them have. It's particularly common after maltreatment or if kids have come in to families through foster care, the inverse cortisol level means that they're more tired, groggy, hard to get going in the morning or Luxton deed in the morning, and they're more wakeful at night. They're hungry at night, they're more active at night. You could see why this could make sense if you don't have somebody with, um, you can depend on it night and that kind of dependability or trust as part of a secure attachment. If you don't have that, maybe it's kind of better for you to have your eyes open or sleep lightly at night and then this exactly what's happening to a lot of the kids coming into the families. And so as you, um, improve insecurity of attachments, kids are more likely to normalize their cortisol curve so that then they become more alert in the morning and go down to bed at night better. Um, that being said, what are some things you can do in the interim? Why don't I just go and go through a bunch of things? First of all, no TV, no computer, no back lit games two hours before bedtime. Um, the photons stimulation, you know, photons being, um, the receptors for light, those cause us to get signals that it's time to be up when we should really be in bed. And so for parents and children alike, they shouldn't be on phones, computers, TV, anything like that. Two hours before the time they expect to go to sleep. When your child's brushing your teeth at night and you're brushing yours, they'll put on those strong vanity lights. Either that kind of goes against the whole atmosphere you're trying to create. You kind of know where your face and teeth are. You'll be fine with just, you know, a normal. So, um,
Speaker 6:so, and then when you're trying to get good sleep, if you could have an hour of physical activity every day for parents and child, you'll sleep better at night. Um, we kind of forget that we're mammals and we need our exercise to be able to have a normal sleep schedule. And for both parents and children, you e even if parents can get that five times a week, it will make a big difference. Children optimally should have an hour of physical activity, have a physical x, you know, a lot of motor activity every day. Uh, another thing is, um, for the kids, you want to start to slow down into the evenings. So you know, if you can have your reading time, cozy time, you're sleeping time, going into evenings, it's just great. My mom used to read to us that was so neat and she'd sing lullabies to us. That was wonderful. And so that was part of my family heritage. I was happy to pass on to other people. Why are the kids do very well if he just kind of rock him? Just sleep. Parents really have to watch themselves for sleep because we're not in a culture that supports it. And when you're parenting kids who are going to take extra energy, kind of thinking about what did that mean when they did that or how do I handle that situation or um, I think my child is showing me evidence of some kind of a trauma or loss memory. What does that mean? It means that their brains are parents doing this type of processing. It causes a pretty big mental load and they actually need about a half hour to an hour more sleep at night. So if parents can make sure they get that extra sleep, that would be great. Our culture doesn't tend to support the extra sleep needs of parents who are adopting passed the infancy stage. I couldn't agree with you more. They need more sleep because they're processing so much information. It's tiring. And so you give yourself extra sleep or you look for times to have naps. Just as if you had that new born and you had that kind of a societal expectation that you should be getting your sleep.
Speaker 1:[inaudible] it's such a good analogy. We tend to think when we are adopting older kids, well and it's not just what we think, it's what everyone thinks. If you're adopted a 11 year old, there usually aren't a long line of people who are, uh, signing up to bring you meals. And when you run into people, they're not saying, oh, how are you surviving? How much sleep are you getting? Which is of course the standard lines that we give anybody with a new baby. Um, but, uh, new parents to an 11 year old need the meals, they need, the, they need the expectation that they've got to be into kind of a, a nesting self care stage. Uh, just as much. I'm really glad you pointed that out. Speaking of adopting an 11 year old, uh, let's talk about some of the differences in helping to create attachment. When you adopt a, uh, 12, 13 year old, 11 year old, 10 year old, whatever, 15 year old versus adopting a preschooler. Um, what are some ways that parents can help create attachment in there? Their tweens and teens when they, when they're adopted at that age,
Speaker 6:right? One of the things is to make yourself available. Um, teens act like they don't need you to lean need you right now. So you have to have lots of time where your schedule is cleared. Um, another thing is you have zones of time that are kind of cozy times where you're inviting a child into your presence. You don't over invite, but you invite, you sit down, you make yourself available, you find out what kind of movies they like. You watch movies with them kind of activities. Do they like you do those types of activities? Um, at one point, um, my husband, um, thought he was losing some connection with our son. And so started to play paint ball with him. Um, you know, it, it one point, uh, my husband, uh, propensity to goes get a coke and the canteen was revealed to me by my side. He said, my dad doesn't guard the perimeter, we find them snake and off to the canteen, but it was still a lot of fun. And so you're doing things that really follow the TNC interests. And I like having songs of time that are basically declared neutral where you don't work on a homework, you know, work out, you know, whether it's in, whether it's not, you don't work on any kind of behavioral issue and instead you just enjoy each other as a family. So that might be meal times, might be on Saturday mornings and like being on the way to guitar lessons, those are just neutral times. Um, food is huge for teens and so they're kind of like toddlers again that you want to up the food. And, um, something that I used to do that worked well for me when I fostered as well as when I raised my teens was, um, I would cook on Saturday mornings, they'd sleep in and they could hear the food being prepared. They'd wake up to the smell and then they come meet. You had these conversational times. Well, you know, you're making, uh, I like to bake. So the baking is smelling pretty good. The muffins are coming out, they're soup on the stove, you know, that's what draws them to you. But there's a much slower, uh, pacing that parents have so that they can accomplish the most important tasks, which are, oh, staying connected to your teens, but also being, um, available to learn about their world. One of the great gifts that our teens give us is the ability to bridge between the world we grew up in and the world they're growing up pan. And so I like to say to teens, I don't know what it's like to grow up at the time you're growing now. I need to learn from you what the world's like. Now. I knew what the world was like before. I don't know what it's like now. I want to learn about that. What's that like for you and what the parents really doing isn't understanding something we called theory of mind and when your theory of mind just, just understanding the emotional makeup, the thoughts, the feelings of the other person, how do they look? Like, how do they feel about life in secure attachment? Often move to, can you reinforce that teams dreams? Can you validate their worth as a human being? Do you believe in your team? Do you see what's significant for that team? And then work to make sure that things that are significant for that team or, um, woven into our daily lives in the values and how we spend our time or maybe what we think of in terms of vacation
Speaker 1:and something you brought up was the, uh, role of, of soul and, and how that impact and affect your relationship. Um, there's not a parent alive of, uh, of, uh, uh, especially a child who has been adopted in older age. Well, there probably are some kids who come in without academic delays, but there are a lot of our children who come in with significant academic delays. School is not a place that they excel. And the schools put a lot of pressure on the parents. Uh, kids not turning in his homework. Your kids has this year's reading at a fourth grade level. Your kid and is in the end is in 11th grade a your kid has not prepared for and probably not going to pass the integrated test. Uh, so there is a whole lot of pressure that parents feel, um, to keep their, get their kids up, to level our, to get their homework in or to do everything they can to, to help them. And it's driven partly by fear. Um, as a parent, you're afraid if my, oh my gosh, if, if my 11th graders reading on a fourth grade level, what does that mean? Um, does it, what does it mean for this child's future? What's going to happen? Uh, when they graduate, will they graduate? Uh, so let's talk a little about how to put school in perspective. Perhaps go back to your first tier, second tier, third tier. And this is particularly in the case either for children who were adopted past infancy or children who are adopted as and teens.
Speaker 6:Sure. Andy is a matter of fact. Um, many of the kids who have any kind of prenatal exposure or if, um, had malnutrition will have some learning disabilities. So Shagana Ian Barons did a classic study in which they looked at kids after institutional placement. They found about half of those past infancy. We're going to have a learning disability, normal Iq with a learning disability. And um, wait, I said, I misspoke. Let me start again. Um, Shavani and Barron's found that half the kids, uh, who had posted that who are post institutional, that is, they've been in an institution beyond, um, a few months in infancy that those children ended up about half of them had a normal Iq, about half didn't have the half with the normal Iq, about half of them had a learning disability, um, that would really interfere with their performance. The reason I'm bringing this up is when you have that many children in the adoption, can we entity, we also have a lot of support. So fruit has a lot of information out on how to help kids with learning disabilities. But just in terms of the attachment perspective, one of the things that people do that really helps out in attachment is that they understand the dreams of the child and help them get to dreams with our parents. We want to make sure that parents are helping their child know that they can have a good future. And so what really makes a good future? You have to be able to support yourself or have a, a way of supporting yourself that's legal. If a child has such learning issues that they're going to be on social security disability, it's illegal form of um, income. But most of the kids aren't going to be on social security. They are, many kids will have learning issues. Of course, many won't, but many, well and so you don't make school. They'd be all no. All, and I've taken kids and may 10 dots and then on a piece of paper and I said, if you take these 10 dots, this is like out of every 10 kits and all circles, six I'll say this is how our schools are set up, is to best educate the sex. Okay? About one of the kids of these 10 will turn out to be a child who's learning is really slow. Okay? You're not that child. This would be for a child with learning differences. They hear one of these three, you learn differently. We can have a good future for you and I want you to work hard in school, but I don't want you to think if you're not getting A's that you're not an a kid. You may get some seasoned ds that never stops you from being in Nate kid or really having a good life. I don't want you to take on shame that you're not doing good job and I have a lot of discussion with kids around that. What can they do and be successful that it's going to give them a good way of making a living and taking care of themselves and how can they maintain their self esteem? You know, that's advice for parents as they come along. And I talked to teachers sometimes and say, you know, this parent needs to hear just as many positive things about their kid is any other child's parent. And so when you're sending home comments, can you send home as many positive comments as negative comments? This would really help the parents to be able to, um, maintain hope so that the child stays invested in school. I live in the state of Washington about in the middle here in the, um, and the states as far as, uh, our educational achievement, maybe a little above average, but if we have children who have IEP[inaudible] in our state, about 30% of them do not finish high school.
Speaker 7:Okay.
Speaker 6:Which I think is very significant. And so one of the reasons they don't finish high schools because they don't want to stay connected to something that brings her self esteem done all the time where they sure. See and so you have to figure out what this school, how can this child stay invested enough to get an education and feel successful?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. In addition that you, you mentioned, uh, the studies that show the impact of institutionalization. I would also say that, uh, there are similar studies that show children in foster care be it from prenatal exposure, are from early neglect, um, are also at a higher risk for learning disabilities. And a wonderful resource, uh, on understanding all, all of learning disabilities is a, uh, there's many of them just Google it. But there one in particular that I've recently become familiar with and think highly of, it's called understood.org, uh, a really good use of, of, um, a really good source of accurate information on understanding learning disabilities and IEPs and five oh fours and all sorts of a lingo that go with schools for kids who learn differently. Now I want to use our remaining time to talk about something that might not be perceived as a simple technique to help attachment with our kids. And that is self care. Uh, it seems like, you know, I said before that one of the things that I always bring up, uh, particularly with families who are in the beginning stages of a placement is the importance of play, uh, and that that play be something that both parent and child enjoy. Um, the second thing I always bring up is self care for the parents. Uh, and let's talk a little about why is self care for parents? It seems kind of selfish, you know, because we've got this child who needs a lot and needs a lot from us. Why am I, why would we spend time on a show that talks about attachment, talking about the selfish things that parents can do for themselves and not for this child?
Speaker 6:Well, when you're forming an attachment way in which you are doing that serve and return or the queuing with response has to be done in an invitational way. And when you're tired and you're stressed, you're in the wrong part of your brain, it comes out of duty. It doesn't signal emotionally in the same way. And so to be when you're really tired, you can ask a child to come sit with you, but it doesn't have the same emotional meaning as you convey the ask. And we have a part of, uh, our brain that's developed very early than actually can read the emotional intent behind the invitation. Kids know something's off and so you don't have what Karen Purvis called soft dies. Um, when you're really tired, you can't create secure attachments when you're exhausted. Um, I want to do is to take a bath and get into bed. I can't tell you how many parents I've talked to who hope that they could come up with physical condition that would require them to go to bed for a couple of weeks in someone bring them meals. Yeah, that's one thing. Say all, just something that will allow them to get rest. So you know, that's what you're, you're going for something that lifestyle that really pairs back a lot of them minutia. So that you're left with really the good Benson enough attention, um, on the child to do the extra, the extra emotional work it takes to attach to somebody because it's not like you can just be there and the child will come up to you, many cases, years serving in the child's looking at you with kind of a blank expression or maybe they walk away or they are confused or maybe they do respond and then, you know, the next time they don't. And so it's like other, uh, phases of development. They respond, then they don't, then they respond more than they don't. You know, there's had in arching the right direction, but it takes some time and the Nafta and, yeah, that's what's going to take the time. Also, very few of the kids after maltreatment, um, calm man without a control issues or real, uh, issues around food and security or, um, the ability to kind of relax into their parents' care. They have difficulty settling in. This is going to take a lot of work on your part. You know, it's not unusual for my parents who are working, uh, in new placements. They have two hours til bed to our bedtime routine. And that's tiring. And so you have to take care of yourself so you have enough energy to do that and just keep the infrastructure going. Even doing that is difficult. And so before a placement, you want to kind of go through in relentlessly, uh, take out some things that you need to draw up. And if you haven't done that in your, in the midst of a placement, in your feeling haggard all the time, then have somebody sit down with you and figure out what you can stop doing, resigned from trade away, uh, so that you can enjoy the life you've been given. Because you know, a lot of times that is more within our grasp. We realize,
Speaker 1:and it's important to think that if this gives you for some people that were given them Polish or yes, please give me a good reason to, to cut back. But for other people, the things they are doing or things that are important to them, they may be, you know, serving on a committee at, um, uh, at church. They may be involved in, uh, clubs that matter to them. Uh, and that it's, I think it's important to realize that number one, cutting back is not forever, uh, that you are in a period of time that you need to be focusing on this. But I also think it's important to keep some of the things in that bring you pleasure. If Book Club is something that rejuvenates you, then that's something you wouldn't cut out because you are looking for opportunities for nurturing yourself because you can't really expect a newly fostered, our newly adopted child to be nurturing to you are to be even providing him with some of the subtle nurturing that we get when our children are cuddly and sweet. And as you say, when we serve, they give the appropriate return. All of that is, is feeding for parents. And if you're not getting fed in that way, you do need to find ways to be, um, taking care of keeping a few things in that bring you pleasure.
Speaker 6:Well, and I think that that's such a good point too. You know, it's like what are the most stressful times of the week? How can you reduce or get rid of some of those on the other side? What are the real positives they need to be in your life, you know, and you keep those. But for example, over the holidays, if whenever your holiday Joyce, it might be making cookies or going to place, maybe one year you would go to place, but this year you make one batch of cookies, you know, and that's it. You are much more careful in how much you take on because we've created our lives to be enjoyable. But then after a while they were still in the, in the, uh, harness even though they've no longer be been enjoyable for some time. And so it takes some noodling. Just get rid of things that are pleasure revolver we're doing out of duty. Um, free time you have, you don't want to be spending it, um, because you're trying to please somebody else or you feel guilty if you drop out.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And one last thing I would add would be if, uh, for most of us we need a time alone and that is never more true than, uh, when we have young children are newly adopted kids are a new foster child or even quite frankly, some that had been there for awhile. So figuring out a way in your schedule that you can get some time off and uh, it be when your kid is involved in an activity, it could be if you have a partner, your partner and you trade off every other Saturday morning, you may have to be creative and how you do it. Um, but uh, it's important to find time for yourself. And I would also add important if you are in a relationship to find time for you and your partner, um, because that's an important relationship to so and not to be. It's all part of self care, uh, is uh, find out what rejuvenates you and make sure that you allow time for that in your, in your schedule. Well, we have, yeah,
Speaker 3:come to the end. Uh, Deborah Gray, thank you so much for talking with us today. About a simple strategies for creating attachment. I can't recommend enough. Her book is practical and easy to read. Yeah. Attaching through love Hudson play. Uh, and uh, of course there are other attachment books that uh, and other courses that we have on attachment also. So I would encourage you to continue your study of this because it matters and it's important. Keep in mind that the views expressed in this show are those of the guests to do not necessarily reflect the position of creating a family, our partners, our underwriters. Also, the information given in this interview is general advice to understand how it applies to you and your specific situation you need to work with your adoption or fostering professional. Thank you for joining us today and I will see you next week.