Are you struggling to feel connected to your child? Do you sometimes wish you could turn the clock back and not be parenting this child? If so, you need to listen to this interview with Melissa Corkum, adoptee, adoptive mom, and co-author of Reclaim Compassion: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Overcoming Blocked Care with Neuroscience and Faith.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Are you struggling to feel connected to your child? Do you sometimes wish you could turn the clock back and not be parenting this child? If so, you need to listen to this interview with Melissa Corkum, adoptee, adoptive mom, and co-author of Reclaim Compassion: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Overcoming Blocked Care with Neuroscience and Faith.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please pardon any errors, and this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport 0:00
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am both the host of this show, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that is so important we hear it so often, and that is blocked care. We're going to be talking about understanding and most importantly, overcoming blocked care. We will be talking today with an adoptee and adoptive mom Melissa Corkum. She provides insight and resources to adoptees adoptive parents and professionals through her speaking coaching and writing. She is a TED speaker, a safe and sound protocol practitioner, a cultivating connections facilitator and a certified anagram coach as well as the co founder of adoption wise. Additionally, and not incidentally she is the co author of claim compassion, the adoptive parents guide to overcoming blocked care with neuroscience and faith. And they also have an eight session program on block care called Foundations for overcoming and preventing blocked care. Welcome, Melissa to Creating a Family. Dawn, thanks
Unknown Speaker 1:14
so much for having me.
Dawn Davenport 1:15
We're going to talk in a minute about how we define blog care. But we get questions so often both sent in to us as well as we have a large online support group. And so this is such a important question and such an important issue. And one that I am so thankful to see that we're getting a lot more discussion surrounding it too. I wanted to read you an email that we have received dear Dawn it says I am the mother of nine children born to me, ages 20 months, 18 years, all homeschooled. And I have adopted my husband's cousin as of two months ago, we did not know her prior to this. And the adoption moved very quickly. Once the state determined that the mother could not get our act together. She is three and a half years old, I think she would have an easier time overcoming her attachment issues. If I could overcome mine. Everywhere I read, no one has a problem with loving and sympathizing with their adopted child. But I do. I feel like a complete beast. I am civil to her, often affectionate and I tried to be fair about her rights in the family. But I am unable to fake expressions of love and do not like how the integration has to be so sudden and total. I feel like if I was joining a family, I would be quiet and shy and try not to make waves and let people get used to me. Instead, I have to treat her like the sister to my children from the minute number one. And everyone has to act like she has always been here. I don't want to bore you with the details, especially of how awful I am. She is a normal little girl. But I am choking on what is required of me. I listened to about 24 of your podcast preparing for the adoption, especially anything about attachment and parenting. But now that I'm living it, it's a lot harder than I imagined. Melissa, is this a good example of blocked care?
Speaker 1 3:05
Yeah, absolutely. We get similar emails, social media messages, messages on our support groups with similar sentiments. And it makes me want to like run out and find this mom and give her a hug because I know so
Dawn Davenport 3:20
hard. I know exactly how I feel. I just want to I want to hug her. I want to reassure her. Yes, I'm so glad you said that. So how do you define blocked care?
Speaker 1 3:33
Yeah, so blocked care is something that happens in a parent's nervous system, when the nervous system is overwhelmed with extreme stress. And it's a self protective mechanism that happens, subconsciously. And I think that's the piece that we try to over emphasize when we're talking to parents, because when they can't find this love and connection and attachment to their child, like this mother wrote, like she feels like a beast. And there's definitely something that she can do about it. But it's not her fault, per se, you know, her nervous system is protecting her from a big change. The nervous system doesn't love change. And sometimes that comes out by turning on this protective mechanism that makes it really hard to give affectionate care to a child that you're caring for, you know, and like she said, she's doing the things she's going through the motions, but the emotional connection isn't there. And that's exactly what we see in parents with bought care is that they're going through the motions. These are parents who mean the best, they're good parents, but they don't know what is happening and they don't know how to stop it. In
Dawn Davenport 4:47
the book, reclaim compassion, you make a distinction between blocked care and blocked trust. What is that distinction?
Speaker 1 4:54
So a really simplistic distinction is that blocked trust is what It children experience. So not all children. But if you're a child who your nervous system is expecting a certain type of care, you know, the kind of care that we talk about in that attachment cycle, and for whatever reason, it doesn't get it, then the child's nervous system turns on its own self protective mechanism. And is like, Oh, well, I thought I was supposed to be able to trust adults to care for me, and they haven't really come through. And adults might not be safe people anymore. And so it's kind of like this wall in your heart, right? That keeps a child from opening up being vulnerable, having that safe, intimate connection with a caregiver. And so it's a similar mechanism in the parent. But in this case, it's blocked care, because that wall keeps them from caring for their child, whereas the child's wall keeps them from trusting the adult.
Dawn Davenport 5:55
So maybe this would be a good time then to talk about the healthy attachment cycle that happens when neither block here are blocked trust are there. So can you describe what that attachment cycle is? Yeah,
Speaker 1 6:06
and I'll just claim this by saying I'm by no means an attachment expert. So this will be like a kindergartens take on Dutchman. That's totally fine. But when a child has a need, somehow they express that need and it starts the day and infants born and it usually starts with crying. And then an adult is supposed to come in and figure out what that need is, you know, does the baby need to eat as the baby is asleep? Does the baby need a clean diaper? And they meet that need. And so that needs to happen hundreds of 1000s of times in the early beginning of a child's existence, to help form their understanding of the world, even their own self, Am I important? Do people hear me Do I have a voice all of those things. And so that's the cycle that we're talking about the attachment cycle, a child has a need an adult or a caregiver meets that need. And that cycle completing itself again and again and again, is what creates what we call felt safety in the nervous system.
Dawn Davenport 7:07
And it also has the added benefit for the caregiver, when you are able to meet an infant's needs or a child's need that is reinforcing that you are capable that you are meeting this child's needs. And so it's a mutually beneficial thing that as you said, it's a cycle and it's mutually beneficial. And it just feeds in, in an ideal world. It's feeding upon itself. So the issues associated with the child can interfere and issues associated with the parent can interfere with the attachment cycle. Is that a good understanding of how this might work?
Speaker 1 7:40
Absolutely. And I would say it definitely can happen from either part of the relationship. And once that cycle breaks, there's a new cycle that goes into effect. And it's that blocks care cycle, right. So whether it starts with the parent or the child, there's a wall there that keeps the attachment cycle from completing. And so like, for example, if a child has blocked trust, then they potentially might reject a parent's care. And then like you said, the parent doesn't get that dopamine and oxytocin, right. And the nervous system is like, Well, that didn't really feel good. Let's stop doing that. Right. And then the parent starts to withdraw and protect themselves. And then that creates a message to the child that's like, See, I told you so these adults aren't trustworthy. Look at that adult withdrawing from me, or the opposite might be true, a child may not have bought trusts are looking for that adult to care for them. And for whatever reason that adult isn't able to. And then they're like, Oh, well, you can't care for me. Maybe I shouldn't trust you. And again, it creates a cycle, a self
Dawn Davenport 8:46
fulfilling prophecy at that point. Yeah. Do you see that this primarily happens or only happens when parenting children with more extreme behavioral issues? So
Speaker 1 8:55
that's a great question. And I would say it's probably one of the myths and misnomers in that blocked care blocked trust cycle. And I think because it isn't unusual for a child with blocked trust, to have big baffling behaviors. And it's natural for parents to start to withdraw from children that have such big behaviors. It's hard to parent that and parenting extreme behaviors creates a lot of stress in the family system. So that's definitely one reason but it's certainly not the only reason. You know, if we go back to the definition of blocked care, it's triggered by extreme stress. And so that extreme stress could be a job loss, a divorce, a sickness, a global pandemic, right. There are so many other things that are independent of how a child is behaving that can start to shut down those empathy and caregiving systems in the parent,
Dawn Davenport 9:56
including just having very unrealistic expectations. of what the initial months are going to be, or years are going to be when you are adopting and setting yourself up with your expectations being in one place and reality being in another makes you more vulnerable. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 10:13
In the book, we actually talk about that gap. And one of the things I think we haven't always been taught as parents or recognized, even as a culture is whenever there is a gap between your expectations and your reality, and this happens all the time, in big and small ways, there's something that needs to be grieved. And sometimes it's something small, it's a small disappointment, like I was really hoping for there to be sunshine today, and it's raining. And sometimes it's really big things like I thought I would be able to, to enjoy empty nest in my mid 50s. But it turns out, I'm parenting a child who has lifelong needs,
Dawn Davenport 10:50
or even in between things like I had in my head that this was going to be, you know, an all boy, you know, he's going to love sports, just like I did, or my husband did, he's going to be the kid that just like I used to be, or that I will enjoy. And he turns out not to be that way turns out to be uncoordinated and quiet, and just totally the opposite of what you were hoping for. And that can be somewhere in between. That is also something to grieve. Yeah.
Speaker 1 11:19
And unresolved grief is really hard. It's taking up space in our nervous systems.
Dawn Davenport 11:25
Let me take a moment to tell you about a new or I guess, new ish podcast from creating a family that podcast drops on Sunday, it is weekly, and it's short form no more than 510 minutes max, where we answer a question from our audience. So you can send in questions via email to info at creating a family.org. And please listen to weekend wisdom is a terrific resource. So check it out. Oh, and let your friends know about it too. Okay, what causes a well meaning parent to not be able to attach and bond with their adopted child? You mentioned stress is stress, the primary isn't the only thing or a host or constellation of factors that we can look at and say these parents are going to be more likely to enter the blocked care cycle.
Speaker 1 12:19
I don't think it's one thing for sure, I think it's definitely a constellation of things, I probably couldn't give a complete list. But I think some of the things you mentioned and some of the things that we already talked about a gap between expectations and reality. And, you know, we're expecting to bond and attach to one type of child, and they're not who we expected them to be, we might not understand their personality, we might not understand their behaviors. I also know that, you know, parents come in to parenting, there's no manual, there's even an adoption, there's training and a home study and all of these things. But ultimately, they fall really short of actually preparing parents to do the hard work of parenting. And so we see a ton of parents who have a lot of their own unresolved BIG and LITTLE T traumas from their own childhood, perhaps their own attachment issues that they bring into parenting. And that, for sure, can interrupts that attachment cycle. So I think stress, I think, our own attachment challenges that we bring in as parents, I think, unresolved grief, you know, coming from that big gap between expectations and reality. Those are all parts of it. This
Dawn Davenport 13:33
is totally anecdotal. But it does seem to me that we hear of this more often with kinship caregivers, and especially non grandparent, you know, aunts, uncles, cousins, it's also possible that one of the reasons we hear it is that they feel more comfortable talking about it. And it's also possible just because of the nature, they were not actively seeking out to bring this child in. I wonder if you have seen that as well. You
Speaker 1 13:59
know, we probably don't have as much anecdotal evidence, we definitely work with a lot of kinship parents, I actually have never really thought about it too much. But it does make sense for the reason that you mentioned one is there's not the same kind of shame of I wanted this desperately. And now if I don't feel this, you know, warm, caring feelings,
Dawn Davenport 14:21
I am a failure because I asked for this. And now I'm not appreciating it. That type of thing. Yes, right.
Speaker 1 14:26
We're a kinship. A lot of times kinship, carers kind of fall into it. There's always a decision that they made, obviously, but it was kind of, you know, presented upon them
Dawn Davenport 14:35
well, and many of them will say that they really didn't have a choice. Now we try to make them stop and help think through that they actually do have a choice. But a lot of times they think well, what choice is this? The kids going to go to foster care if I don't step up in everybody's expecting me to step up. So go ahead.
Speaker 1 14:50
I think all of that and I think, you know, there's complexities in kinship when you already have a relationship potentially with birth parents and that relationship his family, right. And so I think that's extra stress on the nervous system when you're trying to integrate a new child into the system. And you're also, on the other hand, trying to manage your family dynamics around the circumstances for why you were asked to take in a family member.
Dawn Davenport 15:20
And it happens often very quickly. Number one, there's often no training, no preparation, no helping you set realistic expectations. You've probably not done reading or research on your own because you weren't expecting to do this. And the whole idea of trauma or whatever, it's just not something that's entered into your sphere of things to think about. And the decision often has to be made quickly. And as I mentioned, very often we hear I didn't have a choice. And it's interesting to me, because I don't hear it. And again, this is all anecdotal, but I don't hear it from grandparents. And that just could be for whatever reason, anyway, just throw it out there. I just thought it was interesting. Let's talk about some of the common emotions for parents who are experiencing this. The email are, you know, I'm awful. I feel like a beast. I'm a terrible person. I mean, that's something she experienced. What are some other common emotions that you hear from parents who are not feeling connected to this child that they have brought into their home? Well,
Speaker 1 16:18
I think number one we kind of already touched on it is shame. Mm hmm. Big one, people have barely thought these thoughts, they definitely don't want to speak them. And when they do, it comes with that shame of I must be a terrible person. This is my experience. And I would say, guilt, which you know, is attached to shame, sadness, anger, resentment, lots and lots of big feelings.
Dawn Davenport 16:48
Yeah, a lot of big feelings. And none of them feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 1 16:52
they're not the feel good ones, for sure. Not to feel good ones, for
Dawn Davenport 16:55
sure. And another thing that we see not infrequently is that it's one parent, it's not both parents. And that also adds complexity. Because you feel even more alone in that situation. Do you see that as well,
Speaker 1 17:09
I would say we see both, we see where one parent is really struggling. And another one really kind of, is like digging their heels in and saying like, we can do this. I think it's more common for us to see it. Kind of, like taking turns. That's kind of how it worked with my husband and me, like, one week, I was like, Okay, I will like pull myself up by my bootstraps, and you know, get some extra resolve and be like, we're going to do this.
Dawn Davenport 17:35
We've started this, we're going to finish this. By golly, we're Yeah, I'm really determined.
Speaker 1 17:38
And my husband would be ready to throw in the towel. And then the next week, it could be the exact opposite. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we also see it where a family is really in crisis. And both parents are just really, really struggling. Yeah.
Dawn Davenport 17:51
When one parent is not feeling it that has its own complexity. But when both parents have just said there are at the end of their rope. Yeah, that's when it's really hard. I think, guys, I don't know about you, but I am loving this interview. And I hate to interrupt it. But I want you to know about some free courses that we offer at creating a family.org they are one hour courses that you can take, they're really aimed more at people who are actively parenting, they're brought to you by our partners, the jockey being Family Foundation, you can check out the full library at Bitly, slash j, b, f support, that's bi T dot L, Y, slash j, b, f support. All right, now we need to come about what can we do about this feeling of not liking or loving our child. And I think we need to give specific examples. And let me just say that we can't touch on all of them. But the book reclaim compassion, the adoptive parents guide to overcoming blocked care with neuroscience and faith, we'll go into a lot more detail. But we're gonna go into some here. So you list a host of things. And what I particularly appreciated in the book was that it felt very practical, because at this point, that's what people need. They need to be practical. They don't need theory at this point. Although you do include theory as well. One of the first things you said is be kind to your body. First of all, why did you start there? And then tell us about what you meant by that?
Speaker 1 19:24
So the big overarching answer to how to prevent and overcome blocked care really comes down to a really good nervous system carer for the parent. And the theory behind that is, in order to be in the kind of reciprocal relationship where that attachment cycle is working, both parent and child need a sense of in neuroscience what's called felt safety. Our good friend Robin Goble talks about it as connection mode as opposed to protection mode, right and so But in order to feel open and vulnerable enough to be in that kind of reciprocal relationship, our nervous system has to be getting enough signs and cues that it's safe. And when we're in these high stress situations, our nervous system is getting a lot of cues that we may not be safe, even if technically we are there's these things that are saying that's a stressor, or what about that. And so, it's really easy for our neuroception, our subconscious part in our nervous system to be like, Oh, we're too stressed, shut down, or shut that system down or attack or whatever. So we talked to parents about doing practical things that help them care for their nervous system. And imagine that like helping us grow roots into our sense of felt safety, that we can anchor ourselves really strongly in our sense of felt safety, so that we can stay available to be in relationship with our kids, even when it's stressful. And this is not to turn off our protective mechanism when it's necessary. You know, if you have a child in your house that's aggressive, like you want that system to tell you that you could possibly be in danger. But we find that sometimes parents nervous systems become over reactive, you know, a child comes into the house after school and slams the door, and maybe just by accident, and immediately, the parents nervous system is thinking, Oh, my gosh, we're gonna have a major blow up, right? Because maybe that's what the history has shown us, right? But we need to anchor ourselves into a sense of felt safety long enough to be able to evaluate was that slam door really dangerous, a sign of danger? Or was it just the wind blew the wrong way, you know, at that time. So the practical part of that looks like, we need to send cues to our body, our mind, from our external environment and in our relationships. So the nervous system is looking at three different domains, internal, external, and between for cues, and we can actively feed it cues of safety. And so we start with the body is your body feeding your neuroception cues of felt safety. And this sounds silly, but like if we're tired, that's a cue of stress to our nervous system, not a cue of safety. We can't control our kids behaviors, but we can control some of these other things. Are we feeding our body? Well? Are we caring for ourselves? Well, if we're sick, are we hydrated enough? All those things, and they seem silly and kind of over simplified, but they're important. Yeah, if you stack all of those, and you're tired and sick and dehydrated, and hungry, your body is going to feel stressed. And it's already feeling the stress of some of those things that you can't control. So let's do the best we can to feed our body cues of safety and as many ways as possible.
Dawn Davenport 22:49
Okay, you mentioned the physical ways to feed your body cues. But there were other components of taking care of ourselves as another way, what were some of those,
Speaker 1 22:59
I would say the one that has been the most impactful, it's the one that we start everyone off on is something called points of joy. You know, when we're in these stressful situations, whether it's a stressful life situation, or a stressful parenting situation, Joy is kind of like the first thing to go, it kind of feels, you know, like a little indulgent, right? And our nervous system has a mechanism of a confirmation bias, right? Once we go down a path, the nervous systems looking to keep confirming that we're on the same path, we talk about things like self fulfilling prophecies. So if we're in a stressful situation, and we're, oh my gosh, life is so stressful. That's where like our mindset is, our nervous system is going to be looking extra hard for stressors, right, which we don't really need. And that doesn't really help us. On the flip side, if we make a list of things that bring us joy, and we set out intentionally to do those things, and not even just do them. But notice that a lot of times parents do this exercise, and they're like, oh my gosh, I had points of joy all over my day, and I just hadn't even stopped to realize that I do them, then you're telling your brain, there is joy in life, even though it's hard, keep looking for the joy. And then instead of looking for the extra stressors, we're noticing the joy, and again, I know that seems silly and simplified, but we hear from our people all the time, like you know, points of joy helped me feel like I got my locus of control back I can feel a shift in my nervous system even though nothing else has really changed the world feels a little bit brighter you know all of those things and they don't have to be huge things they can be exist taking the first sip of your coffee while it's still hot, you know, right exam.
Dawn Davenport 24:39
I was thinking that exact one. Yes. Right. It can be where I
Speaker 1 24:43
live. It's kind of snowy right now. Right? And so there's still kind of that like, fresh snow on the patio and in the trees and I can take five seconds. You know, even if you have a kid throwing a massive tantrum, you can find a window to look out and notice the beauty outside and take To deep breaths and find that little itty bitty slice of joy.
Dawn Davenport 25:03
I love that. Another actionable step for how to overcome blocks Roy, it's somewhat related to what you were talking about, but you haven't separate in the book and that is establish a healthy mindset. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 25:18
So points of joy is kind of like one of the tiny steps you can take to establishing a healthy mindset. There are so many other things that draw our minds to different things. So it could be gratitude, you know, some of the things that we talked about in the book you may have never thought of before. But a lot of the things in the book are just connecting the dots to how a practice that maybe you've already known about something like gratitude can impact something like your blocked care. Another one that we talk about is not just reclaiming compassion for ourselves, but reclaiming compassion for our kids. You know, most parents came into parenting and had at least a short period of time where they saw the preciousness and they had compassion for the child that they're raising, even if they came in through kinship. And that wasn't expected, there was something that compelled them to say, I can make a difference in this child's life, or I want to help them overcome the circumstances that were a part of their childhood, before they came to me. You know, all different types of things are just like that mother's heart of looking at a picture of a child and just feeling that sense of compassion, love all those warm feelings, a lot of us had those at some point, before life got really, really hard. And so we asked parents to anchor back to that. And one of the ways we asked them to do that is find the earliest picture that you have of your child, especially if it's one that helps you go back to a time that you felt that compassion, and put that as your phone wallpaper printed out and put it somewhere, just to remind you that there is a precious child beneath all of this stress, wherever the stress is coming from, it's especially important if the child has big behaviors. And I think as an adoptee who remembers being a child with big behaviors, that helps me tap into the importance of my own work as a parent and my responsibility as kind of the adult in a situation to do my own work. Even if my child behaviors don't change that's still on me to be as compassionate as I can.
Dawn Davenport 27:30
Hmm, yeah, sometimes going in at night and watching your child sleep, there is something innocent and wonderful about a child sleeping. And that can sometimes help kick it in because the child is not behaving at that point, you're just looking at the perfection that is this child.
Speaker 1 27:49
Yeah. I also think we don't talk about this as much in the book because it can be its own separate book. But understanding why children behave the way that they do, regardless of how they came into your family, regardless of whether their behaviors are by cultural standards bigger than normal, we can always help families find a reason behind the behavior and understand the behavior in a way that helps them increase the compassion that they use to view the behavior, which then in turn increases their ability and capacity to have compassion for the child,
Dawn Davenport 28:24
that behavior is a symptom, and trying to understand what is causing that symptom. Although honestly, sometimes, when you're in the midst of really struggling to attach to this child, it's hard to get yourself there, that goes back to the cyclical nature of it. Because you can't see the underlying cause you see just the behavior, which is annoying and frightening or whatever. And then that just feeds the whole thing. So you're exactly right.
Speaker 1 28:50
Yeah. And it's actually a sign we name 10 signs of blocks care in the book. And I think that's the first one like, you're so caught up in the stress of whatever parenting requires of you right now that you lose sight of and lose your curiosity for the meaning behind the behavior. So even if you're, you know, just feeling that block of like, I don't even care why they're behaving that way is in itself a sign that your nervous system may be struggling with blocks care.
Dawn Davenport 29:20
Exactly. Well, that was a perfect segue, because I was going to ask you to talk about the 10 signs. You don't have to go through all 10 but hit some of the high points of the signs. And the first one being that it's not that we don't notice, we also probably don't care. What's causing this child's behavior. I don't care. I just want this child to stop.
Speaker 1 29:38
Yeah, some of the other signs are isolation. We tend to isolate ourselves when we're in lots care for a myriad of different reasons. I think another one that we talk about a lot when we train professionals is parents appear or are resistant to well meaning advice. You know, we talk to professionals all the time and explain this to them and they're like, Oh, that makes sense. Ever since I just thought this parent didn't want to be helped or thought I was dumb, or whatever, you know, because you have these, sometimes you have coaches and therapists and social workers, you know, saying, Have you heard about trauma informed parenting and all of these things, and that parents kind of like, I don't care. And then the professional starts thinking, Oh, what is wrong with this parent? And there's nothing I mean, there is something wrong, but it's not with the parent, right? That's a symptom of their own nervous systems shut down, we actually have an assessment we can make available to your folks on on our website, we'll do a link specifically for your people, adoption wise.org/creating A family and that assessment is basically the 10 signs, you know, how many are you experiencing intensity and frequency? And then it'll kind of give them practical steps based on how they answer. So you know, if you're driving, you're like, I can't write all these signs down, and we didn't touch all of them. But you're curious, like, Oh, I wonder if I am experiencing bought care or how much I'm experienced plot care, then folks can head over there. And we'll make that assessment free. Okay,
Dawn Davenport 31:04
excellent. That would be great. It occurs to me that there's a similarity between, from the professionals just assuming not looking beyond to see what is causing this parent to seem as if they are not caring, or not wanting to learn or not wanting to implement even some of the simpler suggestions. It's easy to think that that parent is a parent who is not trying or is just a bad parent. So it there's a similarity between what we can do with our children when we see our children misbehaving. If we're not looking beyond to see understand what the behavior is meaning, but it is a symptom of professionals need to do the same when they're working with parents. What is that parents behavior a symptom of? And in this case, it could well be the symptom of blocked care. Yeah, absolutely. Let me pause here for a moment to ask you, have you subscribed to our free monthly e newsletter, if not, you really need to, it's a once a month free way to get practical resources to help you be the best parent possible. And when you do subscribe, you get a free guide, you can subscribe by going to Bitly slash trans racial guide and subscribe there. That's bi T dot L y slash trans racial guide. All right, so we are talking about what you can do. If you find yourself in a position. Let's say you take the assessment of the signs for black hair, and you go, Okay, I think I've think I've got some black hair going on here. I don't think I'm not nuts. This is actually a thing. So we've talked about some of the things you can do be kind to your body, work on your mindset work on trying to establish a healthy mindset. Another one you have, which I love the phrase is surround yourself with life giving people I love the phrase life giving people so I know what I think it means. What do you think that means when you say surround yourself with life giving people?
Speaker 1 33:01
Yeah, so like I mentioned earlier, our nervous systems are taking in cues from our bodies, our minds, our external world, and the people whose nervous systems were around. And if you're parenting in a really stressful situation, and or if your child has big behaviors, those cues that are flooding your nervous system are not ones that are telling your nervous system, hey, we're okay. It's all good. And we are built to need interaction safe, life giving interaction with other people. And we mentioned isolation is a big part of blocked care. And sometimes we're isolated with people who may be reflecting back to us. You're a terrible mom, I don't like you.
Dawn Davenport 33:43
If you would only do this. Yeah, you need to, you know, yank and nodded them are you've got to Yep. Or you're right, you did make a mistake. Or I told you, you shouldn't have done this, you already had enough on your plate. Why did you add this to it, you know, blah, blah, blah,
Speaker 1 33:56
right? And that's exhausting. Like we cannot be our best selves, we can not overcome block care when those are the messages and the kind of cues with receiving from other people in our sphere of influence. And so we just encourage people to add interactions that are life giving that have to do with other people. So maybe it's a great support group. It could be virtual in person, obviously is ideal. But we have a lot of tools. Technology has given us a lot of access to people in other ways. Marco Polo is a video messaging app that I'm a really big fan of
Dawn Davenport 34:32
why Marco Polo, why do you like that above other messaging apps?
Speaker 1 34:36
I like it because it's video and our nervous system can receive more cues of safety when we can see people's eyes and their facial expressions their tone of voice, so it gives the most access to all the safety another person can provide co regulation from another person, definitely more than text obviously and then even more than justified Ways. So we're really a huge fan of virtual video interactions if you can't get in real life with someone, and then, you know, everyone needs a mental health provider that they trust a therapist or a counselor, if you're a person of faith, like a spiritual director, and not because something's wrong with you, but because, you know, life is just stressful. And we all need a third party, someone who can just absorb some of that stress that we can unload on, who has a little bit of a different perspective. And who can help, if necessary, process some of the why we're resentful towards that child or why we know on some sense, like that initial email you read, she said, she's just a normal kid, right? Sometimes it's not the behavior of the kid, we need someone to help us like, why is this kid so triggering to me, when I can tell on a purely logical level, that there's not any quote unquote, good reason to have this reaction? My
Dawn Davenport 35:58
reaction is bigger than the reality my reaction is outsized. Exactly. The last one that I wanted to talk about. And it feels like in some ways, this is a really important one, not that they all aren't, but of the ways of overcoming blocked care is connecting with your child. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 36:18
So that's like, the end of all the things right, like, ultimately, blocked care is this break, and block trust is this break and this attachment relationship, and ultimately, what we want to be able to do is get back into a relationship with our child that feels good, feels better than it feels right now. And so I think, in the past, before I understood blob care, when there was a break in that relationship, I would encourage parents, you know, just get back in there, you know, try harder, try again. And we'd go right back to what looks like the source of the problem, which is the relationship between the parent and the child. And so what we've realized is overcoming block care has to start really not in the relationship with the child, especially because that's where the biggest point of stress has become in that cycle. And so all the things we've talked about so far, are mostly independent of your actual relationship with the child, right, you can do exactly or get enough sleep, go have coffee with your friends, none of that's like asking you to get back into that hard relationship. But at some point, that's ultimately what we're hoping for. So that happens, after you've built more margin in your nervous system. By doing these other things, then we have some suggestions in the book of how to dip your toe back into that how to start to reclaim that compassion, and that relationship with your child. One really simple thing is to give an unexpected guests. And again, these are like we get some of the best stories when people tell us how this went. It doesn't have to be extravagant. Sometimes people will say, my kid asked to go to McDonald's on the way home from speech the other day, and I always say no, and they always ask, and today, I just decided to say yes, and you should have seen the look on their face, you know. And so again, it's not the slippery slope, we're not asking you to spoil your kid. But like, just pick one time when you have a little bit more margin in your system. And you can give that little unexpected Yes. And just notice what happens. Notice how your child reacts, notice how it feels in your own nervous system. So those are just some of those little things. One
Dawn Davenport 38:28
of the things that I think you said a while back, one of the first things that goes when we're in the midst of a situation with block care is joy. And one of the first things that goes in connection with our kids is any sense of fun, any sense of joy? Oh, absolutely. That's the furthest thing for your mind. So introducing, if there is something that you enjoy doing, and the child enjoys doing, and there always is, because you as a parent have to be the more flexible one. It could be that it is watching a movie from your childhood and watching movies. Or it could be a TV show, it could be something or video game, or it could be hiking or it could be throwing a ball or whatever. Find something that you enjoy, and that you really enjoy. You're not just faking and saying, Oh yeah, let's play Candyland again, that you actually do enjoy doing or at least don't dread and that the child enjoys and add that back in.
Speaker 1 39:24
Yeah, I mean, some of the ones that we talk about in the book are little things like it might feel terrible in your nervous system to think about having to sit and watch a whole movie with your child. Like could you watch right like but could you pull up the world's largest hippo fart on YouTube and watch that like that makes pretty much everyone chuckle at least or smile or laugh? A lot of us have Alexa sitting around in our house. She tells great jokes and she makes funny fart noises you know, and those things are like right at our fingertips and they take just a couple of seconds. So you can like get in, have a laugh and get out and you just as you build Old, those small positive moments with your children, you start to retrain that confirmation bias that everything with this child is hard. Yes, where now we can start thinking I can find joy with my child. Sometimes their behaviors are really big and scary. But in the midst of that, if you're trying to find even simple moments of laughter, we had one family, I thought it was brilliant. They made a secret family handshake. And they would do it every time a timer went off, just to add, you know, that little bit of joy. It could be a little treat of food or something. But start small if you're feeling really, really blocked. Yeah,
Dawn Davenport 40:37
that's excellent advice. Because sometimes we think I love your point. Is that a whole movie? You think? Oh, great. It's been an hour and a half, two hours sitting here. But if we start small, and it tends to build on itself, Melissa, are there times that it's simply gone too far, that has been left unaddressed, and it's gone too far. And what do we do them?
Speaker 1 40:59
There are certainly times where it feels that way. But we really truly believe that every parent can overcome their blocks care. But sometimes we need a break, we need respite. You know, that's another one of those first things we invite parents to get into place is you need a break. If things are really really intense, there might need to be a higher level of care for your child, you might need to bring in some reinforcements, you might need some in home treatment or care. So it looks a little bit different when it's really really intense, you know, points of joy is like putting drops in a bucket, right and a bucket, that's probably a little leaky, to be perfectly honest. Right? So it helps, and it definitely moves the needle. And our people tell us that. But if your bucket is really really big, and has really, really big holes and points of joy is going to help but it's not going to move the needle the way that we need it to move. And so I'm a huge fan of bodywork, we could do a whole podcast on that we talk a lot about it on our podcast at adoption wise, we work with parents to do some of that I'm a safe and sound protocol practitioner. So we do that with parents. And those are the things that are like cut fulls of water into the bucket when just a little bit of cognitive coaching isn't going to move the needle where you really have to dig into the nervous system and give it a little help from spinning its wheels.
Dawn Davenport 42:20
I totally get that. And I get the analogy of a bucket too. There are times when our buckets have a lot of holes, and no shame. There are no guilt. It is what it is. And you don't have to beat yourself up. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Melissa corkum for talking with us today about block care. I truly appreciate it. The book is reclaim compassion, the adoptive parents guide to overcoming blocked care with neuroscience and faith. It is excellent. I cannot recommend it enough. So thank you for being with us today. And for those who are feeling this, you are not alone. And there is help and there is hope. So thank you. Thanks for having me. Before you go, let me say a shout out of thanks to Vista Del Mar. They are a licensed nonprofit adoption agency with over 65 years of experience helping to create families. They offer home study only services as well as a full service infant adoption program and international home study adoption program and a foster to adopt program. You can find them online at Vista Del mar.org/adoption
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