Attachment-Informed Tools for Working with Kids

Are you looking for practical strategies to build attachment with your child? Jeanette Yoffe, MA, MFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in adoption and foster care with over 20 years of experience treating children with complex trauma. Her new book, The Traumatized and At-Risk Youth Toolbox: Over 160 Attachment-Informed Interventions for Working with Kids and Families in Foster Care and Beyond offers specific strategies and tools parents and caregivers can build into their family rhythms to promote regulation and healing in their homes. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Overview of trauma’s impacts on the brain, on learning, regulation, and on the ability to trust.
• What does co-regulation look like between a caregiver and a child with a trauma history?
• What are some simple, everyday things caregivers can do at home to support a child’s self-regulation? 
• What practical tools – activities or routines – will help us build emotional safety in our homes?
• Why is play such a powerful tool for connection and healing?
• Trauma often mimics ADHD or overlaps with it. How to help teachers understand what’s really going on.
• How can parents or relative caregivers support our kids for homework, without turning the evening into a power struggle?
• What kinds of professionals should we look for?

Resources:

• Working with Traumatized Children in the Classroom
• What is Adoption?
• What is Foster Care?
• What is Family Court?

Transcript

Please pardon errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adoption, foster care, and kinship care. If
you're brand new here, we are so glad you found us. If you've been here a while,
you know that our executive director, Don Davenport, recently announced her retirement.
My name is Tracy Whitney, and I'm the content manager here at CreatingaFamily .org.
I've been with the organization since 2016, and I'm thrilled to be stepping into
Don's podcasting shoes. We have a great conversation to share with you today. We're
going to be talking about the new book, Traumatized and At -Risk Youth Toolbox, over
160 attachment -informed interventions for working with kids and families in foster
care and beyond by Jeanette Yoff. Jeanette is a psychotherapist specializing in
adoption and foster care with a master's degree in clinical psychology. She has over
20 years of experience treating in teens and adults with complex trauma histories
related to abuse, neglect, adoption, and multiple foster care placements. She is an
adoptee who spent six years in foster care herself and she brings her professional
expertise and personal insights to her work. She's also the founder of the Celia
Center, a Los Angeles -based nonprofit supporting all members of the foster care and
adoption constellation, and the clinical director of Yaft Therapy, a mental health
center serving that same community. Welcome, Jeanette. We're so glad to have you with
us today. - Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this and I'm
excited to talk with you about what I've written and all the advice and
interventions that I have for families. - Well, let's get started. Let's talk in kind
of a brief overview of how early trauma can impact a child's developing brain?
What are some of the ways that it changes the brain, especially when it comes to
things like impulsivity or trust or the child's ability to learn or to focus?
And the big one for most families is how it impacts emotional dysregulation or
emotional regulation, I should say. That's right. So early trauma does impact the
brain because the brain is fired for connection. There's always two tracks in the
brain, either go towards my caregiver because they're soothing and comforting or move
away from my caregiver because they're distressing and causing me overwhelm. And this
occurs from the moment we're born. We need attachment. It's so crucial. And when
that first connection is disrupted, whether it's through abrupt loss,
through adoption, which is considered separation trauma. This sends a message to the
developing brain that the world is just not safe. And if a child isn't soothed when
they're distressed, whether it's through abuse or neglect, high levels of cortisol
flood the system. And Don Dorsey talks a lot about this. He's a researcher on child
development in the brain. And he says, "The cortisol levels make up for the lack of
soothing." So think about how cortisol builds and builds and builds when a child's
crying out for their caregiver. So this activates this stress response system in the
body and in the brain. And so the amygdala, the hypothalamus,
which is crucial, it's like the thermostat for the body. It regulates hunger.
And what's important to recognize is it's not a conscious choice. Is people are
always saying, "Oh, they're doing this on purpose." No, it's a biological choice that
the brain needs to make to regulate the body. So what Don Dorsey talks about is
these kids are more prone to staying upset when they get upset because there's too
much cortisol flooding the brain and it goes on repeat. It's just, it's a constant.
And you know, I grew up in foster care and entered therapy when I was 13 because
of suicidal ideation. And I remember telling my therapist, and I think stories are
really important, that I always felt like my body was on a subway, always just on
the go, on the go. And that's that impulsivity, I'm always aware of where's the
door? Where do I need to go in case there's danger? So it's the nervous system
that is scanning the environment, which causes the inattentiveness, the impulsivity,
the inability to trust. And so there are two types of behavior that I do want to
point out that I think is really important. And that's hyperactive behavior. And
that's kids that are just jumping from one thing to the other. They're distracted.
There's no cause and effect thinking. And they're just in the here and now.
And then there's hypoactive, which is they're not talking.
They appear like they're not motivated. They can't trust others.
They have a hard time talking and reaching out for help. And they can be overly
compliant, which is fawning like I'm going to do everything you want me to do. And
they're not even thinking about their own brains. They're thinking about what everyone
else needs them to do. It's hard for them because they're doing this push pull with
not only with internally, but with others. It's, I'll bring you close,
but only so close, because I'm trying to manage all of these things that are
happening in my nervous system. And I will reference myself, because I came from
this lived experience, so I think it's important. The stories matter. And I was one
of these kids. I had dyslexia, I had trouble reading, I needed special services to
help my brain settle and feel more confident in my body because my nervous system
was just out of whack. I had multiple placements and at that time in the 80s there
wasn't this understanding that we have now about trauma. So it's just wonderful that
we have all this research today that informs parents so they know better what to do
with these kids. Yeah, I agree. I'm loving the access to trauma informed resources,
trauma sensitive care, trauma responsive information that helps me help the families
that we support, but also helps me with my parenting, just that that added lens, if
you will, putting, you know, kind of like going from, you know, a bright sunny
space and putting sunglasses on, you can actually see things more clearly. And so
having that filter helps. And I think that filter is a great setup for the rest of
the conversation that we're going to be having this afternoon. I love that you talk
about all of those behaviors and how they look to the outside and how they look to
a parent or a caregiver, can you talk a little bit about how we have to go beyond
what it looks like on the outside, how we need to look at the behavior and kind
of, we say all the time, behavior is a communication of a need. So how can we get
there? How can we look at that and go, "Oh, he's not shut down. He's overwhelmed.
He's not ignoring me. He's trying to cope with everything that's going on inside of
his brain, right? Help us, help us put kind of feet on that. - Yeah, so it's,
and I'm an attachment focused family therapist and I'm very much on the understanding
of being attachment informed, which is understanding that these kids are their inner
world is a living hell. And Daniel Hughes talks about this.
We need to accept and understand acceptance is a big piece of it that actually
internally they're working so hard on trying to regulate their nervous system.
That think about it. It's going to impact their ability to learn because they're
balancing their nervous system and then learning how to be receptive to math,
spelling, English. And also, there's sensory dysregulation going through the senses.
And this is another piece that's connected with the nervous system. And if you think
about the brain as a computer, it's filtering all of this information,
lighting, sound cues, touch, taste,
smells, all of these sensory signals, memories, feelings,
thoughts, sensations. Think about the brain as a computer, it's filtering all of
this. And if we think about it, it's not that they won't behave, they can't behave,
and that's the trauma lens because of what happened to them. So, in a classroom,
per se, a child is attempting to learn, but they're also imagining there's a tiger
in the room somewhere. Right? And then the teacher, it could be the slightest sense
of rejection from the teacher that they're unlovable, unwanted, they don't matter,
or they're so nervous to be called on, that now not only is there a tiger in the
room that's a predator, the teacher becomes a predator because anything that they do
can be a rejection. And when a child senses rejection, they feel abandoned,
they feel unheard. And that's when really the nervous system goes offline and now
they're in self -preservation. How do I save myself and manage this experience that
is distressing and it is distressing. So it's understanding there's so much going on
inside and we are seeing it with these maladaptive behaviors, right?
Fidgety -ness, their inability to stay grounded, a lot of kids just cannot sit still.
It's not what's wrong with them. It's about what's happened to them. So yes,
really accepting that trauma lens. And I'll have parents write it down on a card.
It's not that they won't behave, and I have them cross it out. It's because they
can't behave. Even parents need visuals to go, "Okay, I accept this now." - Yup,
yup. - Right? And I tell parents, "Please don't ever ask a child with a trauma
history. What's wrong with you? Because they're already, they already have low self
-esteem, their self -esteem is compromised. They're already hard on themselves. And I'll
be sharing one of my interventions that I do with kids, to help them release that
pressure of feeling good enough. They're so hard on themselves. So we want to accept
that, Again, they're working very hard internally. Our role is to help calm their
nervous system, recognize what sense could be stressing them out and overwhelming
them. And the last piece is with the sensory system overload, it's asking the child
what sense is really heightened for them because we have found,
like one child that I was working with in the classroom, he couldn't focus. And we
were trying to figure out what was causing the distress. And once we asked the
right questions, so out of the five senses, tell me what sense is the heightened,
most heightened for you. He said, I can't pay attention because there's so much
noise. Okay. So then there's a tool for that he wore a noise off headphones and he
was able to self -regulate his nervous system, not be overwhelmed and focus and he
was diagnosed with ADHD and so it's asking the right questions and providing the
right tools and helping school personnel and teachers understand what's happening
internally because just because kids, you're not actively talking about what's
happening to them. It does not mean it's not actively happening to them internally.
So that's it in a nutshell.
Big nutshell.
And it's how healing happens. Really, once we accept this piece, that this is the
approach that they need, and that's being a source of comfort and accepting the
nervous system is is out of whack is feels tsunami like is overwhelming for that
child and they're attempting to calm down that system which is a lot of work for a
child especially when they don't understand what's happening to them it's scary it
feels threatening why do i keep hitting other kids on the playground when I just
want to play and ride my bike, because they're in protective mode a lot of the
time. So they need us to be soothing, calming,
validating, and saying what we're seeing. I see you're having a hard time right now.
I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere. And I also tell parents because children with
trauma histories have trust challenges. Use the phrases let's,
we, us, so that they feel there's someone co -regulating with them.
They don't have the pressure of doing this all on their own. It's the parent that's
aware of their own regulation, their own nervous system. That impacts the ability to
co -regulate. Did you know that creating a family podcast is now in video format on
YouTube? I'm sorry to interrupt this great conversation, but I just wanted you to
know that you should come over and see us over there. Our channel is
@CreatingAFamily and you can subscribe today so you don't miss an episode.
Though you talk about regulation as the foundation for healing and you started to
kind of go into a few of the things that we can do as parents and caregivers to
create a culture of that foundation, a culture of connectedness and felt safety.
Could you maybe put some practical activities or routines out there that will help
us build that emotional safety in our home, specifically for supporting the co
-regulation into self -regulation. - Yes, so there's a few things.
And one of the key points is parents being aware of their seven nonverbal cues.
So parents often aren't aware of how they're presenting and approaching a child. And
if you have like a father who's very tall and a child who's small, just the
perception of their father being tall can feel threatening. So the research shows
getting on the child's level and even getting below their eye level stimulates the
prefrontal cortex and provides more soothing approach. And the second piece is when
you're talking to them, talking a storytelling, tell them what's going to happen
beginning, middle, and end, which is called front loading. And if there's one thing
that parents take away from this, front load, front load, front load, and that's
getting below eye level, being aware of your seven nonverbal cues, which are your
facial expression, your eye contact, the way you're looking at them,
your tone of voice. When you shift from I'm telling you what's gonna happen to,
going to tell you a story about what's going to happen. It actually regulates the
child and brings them in to be receptive to what the parents telling them.
A parent's posture, how they're holding their bodies. I had a father in a therapy
session who would cross his arms a lot and he would complain. She never opens up
and shares her feelings with me. And I made him aware of his nonverbal communication
and how he was communicating to her. And I wanted him to model vulnerability for
her. And just being aware of that, he was able to open up. We did some discussion
about how he was parented, because we will parent, I'm a mother Well,
we will parent our children the way we were parented. These kids need a different
approach. And so we need to accept that as well. They cannot be parented traditional
and traditional parent. So the father understood that his parents weren't open to his
feelings, which of course made sense the way he was parenting his child. So posture
gestures, my foster mother would, I would cry a lot,
foster child, and I would go to her. And she was compassion fatigued.
She was, I had been through a lot. I need a lot of co -regulation. She was not
trained. She didn't know what to do. It overwhelmed her nervous system. So when I
would come to her she would do this, "Oy vey !" and I felt like a burden and her
gestures just by doing this made me go, "Okay." So I would go to my room and cry
and just cry and just be alone in my feelings until when I was adopted my mother
recognized how much I was holding inside that at nighttime she would have me punch
pillows until I cried because I was just holding all this stress and tension in my
body. So it's apparent being where there's seven number of cues getting below eye
level, communicating with a storytelling attitude, what's going to happen,
front -loading, and recognizing and saying what you see and what you hear,
what you're experiencing. I see you're really upset right now. I hear you. Let's
take a walk. Think about the senses. Let's get a glass of water.
Even putting cold water on your face regulates the nervous system.
- I had a little one that used to like to crunch ice. - There you go. Right?
Chewing, gong, yeah. Right. And each kid is different. And it's finding the right
sensory recipe, right? What they talk about in OT, right? And an OT will help with
that because every kid is different. There's no cookie cutter approach.
And that's what's complicated for families because, you know, there's 3000 parenting
books, right? And telling you all these things to do. But it's it's trial and
error. It's finding what works, right? And some kids gravitate towards one
intervention where others gravitate towards another. So think also of a bottom up
approach. So like I was saying, putting water on the face,
taking a walk, think about ways that you and soothe the body.
Even doing jumping jacks for kids, just releases good endorphins, holding things,
help me carry this is a body up regulator. And parents definitely be aware of your
own regulation because in a way you're giving them your regulated nervous system
until their nervous system catches up. - What kind of co -regulation do you wanna
share?
- Oh, dysregulation? - Right, exactly. - Don't wanna share, though. - Yeah. - Right,
you can either be a source of comfort or distress and I know, and I've worked with
families for so long now, I know parents come to me with compassion, fatigue,
they've and everything in the book, they're overwhelmed, but really focusing on your
nervous system, getting your needs met, and recognizing the sensory needs in your
child, applying bottom -up applications, interventions. So you had asked me about
everyday routines, right? Things you could do. So I have a little list here for
you. So routines, crucial. They need to know what's going to happen.
So I am big on visuals, like a visual routine, what's the morning routine and
pictures written out because they can't rely on that working memory because it goes
offline. So the visual reminders. I even have a parent who bought a slow down yield
sign and she put them all around the house because the kids were running down the
halls, right? This worked. She had yield signs,
she had stop signs. It helped them regulate the environment because they had these
visuals to stand, slow down. We're safe here.
So having visuals, having and knowing what's going to happen, front loading,
front loading, front loading, even going to a party. I had one kid, he was going
to the adoption Christmas party at the adoption agency. Well, he was the child in
the home that was in therapy, that was having a lot of challenges. They all got in
the van. He had five siblings. They all drove to the adoption agency. And all mom
said was, "We're going to the Christmas party at the adoption agency." He interpreted
that as something completely different. He would not get out of the car.
He was holding on to the car for dear life. She didn't understand what was
happening. And he had anxious attachment. And when I was curious with him,
and curiosity is also another intervention, be curious and pretend like you don't
know anything. And you'll actually get more information from the child. And once we
were curious, I said, what was happening that you didn't want to get out of the
car that day? You know what he said? I thought she was giving me.
We're going to open them and then we're going to come home, go in the car, come
home and hang out and relax the rest of the weekend. He just, and that's just,
that literally took me 30 seconds, the beginning, the middle, and the end. And make
sure you get their buy -in, their understanding, and once you're good,
they're more, and I don't like the word client, they're able to trust.
That's the word of them. They trust the process because they trust you and being
consistent, like not going somewhere else before going there because then they're
going to, I thought we were going here and then the child starts to go get
dysregulated. Well, she told us we were going here and now we're going here. What's
really happening here? because transitions are hard for these kids.
They just need a sense of control. And I was also one of those kids.
I needed to know it was going to happen before it happened because then it's
predictable. Then I know, okay, good, great. And then when we get there, oh, the
world is safe. There is consistency and I can trust you now because after I was
adopted, I kept asking my adoptive mother, "When are you going to give me away?" I
didn't understand adoption and I was seven and a half. I was doing this for a year
and a half till I was nine. I kept asking her, "When are you going to give me
away?" So we needed a lot of trust building. Okay, so Another routine is just being
with, naming the feelings, offering choices, utilizing sensory tools.
I had another family who created sensory stations, corners of the room where this
one child, he loved doing Legos. So she created a Lego corner and that he could go
to the Lego station when he felt overwhelmed because Legos helped him organize.
It was an external attempt to internally organize by building and putting things in
order. It helped him regulate Jitter Art Station. So thinking about even weighted
blankets while doing homework, breathing together. There's a tool called scaffolding,
where you cross your arms, you put your hands on your shoulders, and you push down,
which is proprioceptive input, and you're pushing down and pushing down and releasing
stress. And it's just doing this, pushing down on the arms and releasing stress.
Well, a parent did that during homework. She recognized by looking at the child's
seven nonverbal cues. So parents are aware of their seven nonverbal cues and pay
attention to your child's seven nonverbal cues. And she could see because he started
fidgeting his gestures that he needed a tool. And she said,
"Okay, we're going to do scaffolding and pushing down on the shoulders, and he was
able to go back, I think she also gave him some water, she was thinking about the
senses, he was able to go back and complete the task and complete the homework.
And that's time and a lot of time and parenting is what these kids need because a
lot of kids didn't get, like we were saying, it's a communication of an unmet need.
They just didn't get this. And it's the phrase I like to say, it's in your best
interest. - Right. - It is. - And it's in everyone's best interest in that. - Yeah.
- And one thing I would add here at this point to encourage parents is in my
experience, I don't have nearly as much experience as you do, but in my experience,
if I'm present and safe for my child, then the particular intervention that I may
use may work or may not work, but the larger message always works.
The larger message, I'm here with you, I've got your back, you're not doing this
alone. That bigger message, even when I screw up and choose the wrong intervention,
it kind of balances out the fact that I chose the wrong intervention. So I want to
encourage parents, even if you feel like you chose the wrong intervention in the
moment, the fact that you're there and that you're trying and your body language and
your facial expressions and your heart are all saying, I've got you. That's right.
That's right. It's okay to go ahead and try it again next time. That's right. And
another piece that creates safety instruction in the home is repair after a rupture.
And if you feel as a parent and I do have a biological child, however, I am an
attachment focused parent with my child. It works for any child. And repair is
something that I would like to point out because parents often expect kids to
repair, right? They threw their cell phone or they cussed at them or they did this
And I'm going to wait with children with attachment challenges and trauma histories.
It's the parent that needs to come back and repair. Really, really important because
if you're expecting that child to repair, guess what? You will wait forever. And
then you're going to take a personal, but it's the child needs to know that the
relationship is important to the parent that I'm coming to you and it's I love the
circle of security which is a parenting program. They have beautiful graphics about
the circle of security and children need their parents to come to them and embrace
them and be excited and that the relationship matters to them and then as the child
sees this consistently they begin to internalize, this relationship is important to me
now. Right. And by apparent modeling, I'm sorry, I yelled, I'm going to work on
that. I'm going to take responsibility over my reactivity, then the child. And I'm
going to tell you kids learn what they live. The kid's going to turn around one
day and go, you know what, mom, I'm sorry that I yelled today. and it's shocking
for parents when they see this happen. So again, I tell parents a lot,
make mistakes. Please go and apologize for your mistake, not for who you are,
for your mistake, and model that, and that's discipline right there. And kids learn.
They want to feel that they matter to somebody. And again,
they're working so hard inside, and they learn by what is expressed and how they
live. So yeah, those are definitely some structures and interventions to implement in
the home to create more safety, more regulation, more tools. Can you talk a little
bit about why play is such a powerful intervention for building connection and
setting the stage for healing for our kids? Well, children make sense of their world
through play. It's their language. And so it's how they process the world,
express feelings. They act out relationships with toys, with people.
They can put words to things, especially if someone's with them saying out loud,
"Oh, I see how you're putting the family in the kitchen and they're having a good
meal. What are they eating?" It helps kids make sense of their world. And so it
also, which is important to know, it bypasses that thinking brain and it connects
with the emotional sensory brain, which is where trauma lives. So play,
actually surprisingly, regulates that nervous system. And that's why play therapy is
effective with younger children 'cause it allows them to express out of their bodies
what happened to them, whether it's a dollhouse, it's a puppet, It's art, it's clay.
It really helps them make sense. And a big piece that I do as a therapist,
as a trained therapist, is to externalize what has happened and what they're holding
onto internally. So really using Play -Doh arts,
there's something else called the sensory sock, which you can get online. It's a
spandex, it's a big, it's like a blanket that's enclosed that has velcro in it.
You can see through the spandex material, but it serves as a womb -like container
that the child puts their body in and they can push on the fabric and it helps
them feel a sense of Where they and where their body ends and where others begin
and they can release all these big feelings in a contained environment and I love
using that in therapy sessions and I'll often tell parents get One for your child
at home so they can go home and now what we're gonna do is bridge the kicking
Feelings or the yelling feelings and it goes in your sensory sock now,
right? Let's let out those kicking feelings. So it's giving them an opportunity to
emote, not when they're angry or when they're overwhelmed,
'cause we know that there's a part of thing that is overwhelmed, that gets
activated, that gets scared. We're going to now bring it in the sensory sock and
release it. So in essence, we can give them a sense of control of their world they
can feel a greater sense of control of their bodies and The bottom line is we're
rewiring the brain. So play is really really important for these kids So help
parents and caregivers Like me who struggle to incorporate like a tone of playfulness
or a sense of playfulness in our homes, what are some one or two kind of practical
ways to get started on that journey of becoming more playful to kind of unlock that
ability in our kids' brains to bypass the thinking brain? So it's a parent.
Don't take yourself too personally. We're hard on ourselves. And I love the pace
acronym from attachment parenting.
of your box, but expand your box, like have some jokes in your repertoire, lighten
things up, make pancakes with smiley faces, think about positivity because a lot of
these kids just don't know how to play, how to have fun in a relationship, right?
So pace yourself, be playful, laughter, watch something funny,
show them something funny, do something funny. Laughter builds memories,
trust and connection and attachment. It's crucial. I'll have parents who have
resistant teens and watch a comedy with your child and I guarantee you when there's
something funny in the movie, what's going to happen is you're both going to look
at each other and laugh. Think about that. This is our natural innate ability of
connection. We want to connect and laugh and have good experiences together.
So thinking about that, then you're making eye contact. Now you're having a neural
pathway of connection. You're both laughing in zinc, so simple and so crucial with
attachment challenge children. So yeah, that's playfulness. And then A is accepting
the child always nonverbally, relaying to them, I love you unconditionally.
I may not love that you threw your cell phone against the wall. And I'll put
emphasis on that, but I'm not going to put emphasis on you. There's something wrong
about you. I'm understanding. It's not that you won't. It's you can't manage your
anger yet. I'm always staying in a growth mindset. You can't manage your anger yet
and you're learning and now I understand we need some more tools to help manage the
ability to regulate anger. So one of my interventions is the anger bag which is a
fun intervention and the sad bag but going back to pace see is be curious always
be curious and your whole tone changes when you're curious and e have empathy
empathy for your child how hard they're working internally I do tell families not
only are you approaching your child in a pace way, also apply it to yourself.
So P, be playful with yourself, except you're doing the best that you can. This is
hard. You will make mistakes. Be curious with how you're feeling and have empathy.
This is hard. Parenting any child is hard and parenting a child with attachment and
trauma histories is even harder. So you do Get to,
growth mindset, you get to do more self -care. Take care of yourself.
Go do things that are fun for you. Because once you're, like we were talking, your
nervous system is regulated, you're gonna be a greater source of support and fun for
your child, which builds attachment, crucial. This interview is chock full of such
excellent expert advice and support, and if your family is anything like mine, the
chance to learn from guests of this caliber is so valuable. Help us help others
find the podcast by sharing a rating or review wherever you are listening today.
Let's shift a little bit to the school experience that our kids have. Most of our
kids are school -aged or are are soon going to be schoolaged for those of us, you
know, raising really little ones. Let's shift to the school experience and talk about
how trauma can sometimes mimic other neurodiversities and how hard it might be for a
teacher to understand what's going on and then how we can kind of educate the
educators about our child and start talking about some of the school experience side
of things? Yes, yes, so there's a lot of confusion about trauma and ADHD because
they look very similar. And so teachers do get confused. And I actually attend a
lot of IEPs, helping educating the school system in recognizing that the root causes
of trauma and ADHD are different. So because kids who've experienced trauma,
their brains are wired for that survival. Again, their nervous system is on high
alert. So for teachers, they're gonna see kids have trouble sitting still, the guy
was saying they're ready to run, the difficulty paying attention, their brain is
scattered focusing on all of these things and impulse control, emotional outbursts.
So the symptoms of ADHD are similar, but here's the difference.
Like you said, ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Trauma is a response to an
overwhelming experience. So once we can differentiate the two, is this child diagnosed
with ADHD or, and it's again asking the right questions, or are they having an
internal threat to feeling unsafe in their nervous system and it's showing itself in
the environment? Because parents, actually school personnel, will see this behavior as
disrespectful, distracted, disruptive, but the brain is actually doing what it's
needing to do to function and it's maladaptive in the environment to function and
survive and manage what is all the stimuli that is happening around them.
So we want to understand is it the trauma that they're responding to Or is it a
neurodevelopmental disorder because there are different approaches. So if we have a
child who is ADHD, it's going to be very hard for them to do reward charts because
it's not that they won't, they can't. Also a traumatized child may shut down,
zone out, overreact because they're triggered. It's not because they're inattentive or
oppositional. So it's asking what's happened to this child,
what is this child need in order to be feel safe enough to learn,
be receptive to learning. And it's really being a sensory detective and understanding
what is driving the behavior. When we see the behavior, is it an unmet need to
feel safe and seeing it, it's not defiance.
It's either ADHD or trauma and we need to approach it with the right tools.
When we see the difference, we can respond better. We can understand that they may
need connection first and with schools, trauma -informed schools,
it's about focusing on regulation -first techniques before correction.
Before getting on the task, we need to make sure that they're regulated enough,
their brains are online, they have the right conditions set up for learning,
there's not too many distractions. I had one girl, she was diagnosed with ADHD,
She also had a trauma history and in school, she became extremely overwhelmed because
you know, if you think about schools, the lighting system can be very bright. There
was so many distractions in the room, the visuals that we needed to create a little
hub for her. And it was a cardboard piece that went on her desk. So she only
focused on what was in front of her. And that helped her stay regulated in the
classroom. She wasn't reacting to her trauma history. She was reacting to her
inability to stay attentive because of the ADHD components her inability to filter
the environment because it was just so much stimuli for her. Yeah,
and I do have a booklet called "Helping School Understand How to Support Children
Who Can Traumatize in the Classroom." I'm happy to provide that for you because
schools just need a lot of education. Yeah, we can link that in the show notes.
Thank you. Sure, of course. Let's stay on the school track a little bit and talk,
first of all, huge props to all the teachers out there who are managing one child
with ADHD, sitting next to a child with a trauma history, sitting next to a child
with autism. I can't even imagine how hard it is to juggle all of that and still
get through a lesson in a classroom. It's so impressive to me, and I think as
parents and caregivers coming alongside of the teachers and saying, "Here's what we
find helpful at home. Here's what we know works for Johnny at home when we do
homework together. And let me know if I can provide anything that we use at home
to support Johnny in the classroom under your care. It's quite the undertaking for
teachers to juggle all of that. But in the vein of talking about school,
they don't just do school at school. They have to do school at home sometimes too.
And homework can be such a significant challenge for so many of our families.
Can you give us a couple strategies, practical implementations of these kinds of
attachment informed strategies to help us not let homework escalate into this power
struggle or this battle or Raging and gnashing of teeth, some of which might be the
parents. Not just the kids, but yeah, let's talk about homework.
- Yeah, it's a lot of pressure. It can feel really insurmountable. Especially with
kids, a lot of our kids have IEPs, Individual Education Plan. So they need the
accommodations. Not that we want them, they need the accommodations. So A big piece
is front loading. I cannot repeat that enough. Helping them understand we're going to
do math homework. So helping them understand what's going to happen and lessening the
distractions in front of them. One piece of paper. And so starting with regulation,
not homework. So make sure they're hungry. They've eaten a snack.
They have had time to decompress because when they leave school, they are mentally
fried They've been managing all these all the stimuli. They've their bodies are
working so hard So we want to help them regulate first Transition hall mm -hmm a
snack some play time movement Even snuggling on the couch.
So being in nature too, just going outside, turning off electronics,
because a regulated brain becomes a learning brain. So that's one tip. Start with
regulation before homework. Then we want to have routines, predictable homework,
time. When are we doing homework? And it's also at the same time, the same place,
and the same rhythms. It's not rushed. Rhythms are really important in attachment
also. Like you were saying, if a parent's rushed, then a child's going to feel
rushed and pressured. So a parent holding space for homework.
We're going to create an environment, be aware of the lighting, the sounds, any
distractions, turning off all cell phones, any Extractions offer choices to another
technique choices not commands instead of saying you need to do your homework now
Right that pressure. It's do you want to start with reading or math?
What's you want to start with and see how I'm being playful P a c e your tone
sets the tone Right, would you like to work at the table or on the floor.
Some kids have difficulty sitting, so I'll use and thinking about the senses and the
nervous system, those workout balls and they can bounce and sit on them,
that actually helps them regulate. Some kids, there are bands, you can,
they're like rubber bands you can put on the bottom of the chair that they push
against, that receptive input also regulates. There are seat cushions that have little
spikes that actually feel good and it's trial and error. What helps them stay
focused on doing their work? So finding those pieces also.
Maybe doing the sensory sock. Time to do sensory sock before homework, right? I like
to call these bridges. What are we bridging to bring them to the next task?
And also that gives them a sense of control. Another tip would be that collaborative
approach, sitting with them, sitting next to them, not across from them,
but you're with them. It's a form of time in.
Let's us we, you're sending the message, I'm on your team. We're doing this
together, right? We got this. As opposed to you need to do this. I'm not big on
you messages. It's us. We got this. Let's figure it out. This,
I had a one child, and this is one of my techniques. It's called the shame wedge.
And it is in my book. And the child kept saying, "I'm stupid, I'm stupid,
I'm stupid." And the parent kept saying, "You're not stupid." Right, where in a way
he was dismissive, not acknowledging what was coming up. And what the child needed
was, "I see you, there's a part of you "that believes you're stupid.
"I get it, I see it." So I help the parent separate out the child from their
behavior, what is distressing. So the bread on the bottom of the shame, which is
you're telling the child, you're learning all the good stuff. You're figuring this
out. We're figuring this out. We can do this. It's okay to make mistakes,
right? And then the lettuce, the pickle, the turkey in the middle of the sandwich.
That's what's hard. That's what's stupid. This math feels stupid. It's hard,
right? So we're putting the emphasis on the stuff, not on the person.
And then the bread on top is again, the self -worth of we got this, we can do
this. And when he approached the child in this way, because a lot of these kids,
they're hard on themselves. They have learning disabilities. It's not that they won't,
they can't. the behavior of calling himself "I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I'm stupid"
actually lessened in intensity, frequency, and duration.
And so this little approach, using the shame witch, when you hear a child saying
negative things about themselves, especially during homework, because they're expected
to do this work that is challenging for them. Right. But when we put the emphasis
in the right place, the child can have objectivity and begin to learn and take that
pressure off of their brains that are already under so much pressure. And place
emphasis in the right area that, yes, this math is hard.
And so we're going to break it down. And so breaking it down would be the last
technique, I would say. And that's really breaking down. You know,
I'll have parents fold if there's 10 problems on a piece of paper. And I was a
kid who was dyslexic. I'm seeing tons of numbers. I can't self organize that.
So literally folding the paper so they see one problem at a time.
As opposed to seeing 10 problems. It's overwhelming in itself. It's the same skill
teachers use when they're teaching a child to read, the chunking. Just take a
section of the sentence. Don't take the whole sentence. That's right. Let's just take
this sentence first. And make sure they understand what is being asked. Like,
did we understand what are they asking in this question? What do they actually mean
here? And I love and play curious, P -A -C -E, be curious, go,
wait, let's figure this out together. What are they really asking? Oh, some of us
helping our kids with homework don't have to play over those things.
I tapped out in fourth grade math and said, okay, this is a question for dad.
That's right.
And sometimes I'll say this too, no one to call it Yes.
Some days it's, again, not that they won't, they just can't. They're too flooded,
they're too tired, and that's the halt. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Halt.
Yep. You'll get to it tomorrow. What's more important? The homework or your child's
ability to self -regulate and your ability to stay regularly. That's most important.
Yep. Attachment challenge children. And prioritizing and preserving that relationship
with your child. I actually, for that very reason, preemptively put into the IEP
that there will be times that my child does not complete their homework because I
am preserving the relationship. Right. And especially if they have an IEP. They
didn't understand it when I started it, but by the time we finished elementary
school, all the people involved in her IEPs totally understood why I went that
direction. So, yeah. - Oh yeah, definitely parents of traumatized children and need to
be advocates because you know your child and you are trauma informed and attachment
informed. And you do know ultimately what they need. So we need to do a lot of
education. I mean, schools are not trauma informed. They're not, I recently worked on
a case so complicated that the school wanted the child in the classroom there all
day but they could only be there for a certain amount of time because their window
of stress tolerance was only so thin. And so it's really helping them understand he
can want him to master this time frame and once he masters that then we can add
more time in the day. But he has to master this first in order to master the
whole day. And again, breaking the day down in chunks so he can tolerate stressors
throughout the day. And providing the right team of support. Also,
he needed the one aid that also needed to be trained in trauma informed care.
This child had food neglect. So food was a source of comfort. She needed snacks
throughout the day that helped him regulate whereas another kid doesn't need that but
he needed that. He was a kid who lived in his car with his mother and siblings.
He did not have his basic needs met. So there's a lot of education that goes into
educating schools and teachers and understanding why what's driving the behavior and
how do we mitigate Re
find all 15 of the courses. You can take one, you can take two, you can take all
15 of them if you want. And each one of them is geared to specifically strengthen
the family that you are raising. Go to bit .ly /jbfsupport.
That's b -i -t dot l -y slash j -b -f support.
Thanks so much and we hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
- So speaking of advocating for our kids, both in school and in other areas of
their lives, how do we know what kind of professionals and what kind of professional
services our kids might need? What are the things that we should be looking for
when we are looking for a professional? - Yes, so when we're working with children,
parents need to be a part of the therapy the therapy process. So the first red
flag is if you contact a therapist and they work individual with the child,
not with this population. They need the caregiver, whether it's even a foster parent
needs to be a part of the therapy. So we're doing attachment focus therapy,
trauma focus, trauma informed therapy. or also something we didn't talk about here is
the grief and loss. There's also grief and loss component here that often gets
thrown under the bus. Kids are grieving losses of their birth family.
They could have multiple foster homes like I did. I cried missing my foster family,
grieving. It had nothing to do with trauma. It has to do with attachment loss. And
so you want a therapist who's trauma -informed, attachment -informed, grief -in -loss
-informed, who understands the early adversity that children endure when they've
experienced trauma and how it shapes that child's brain, their emotions, their
relationships. You want to know that they have been trained in trauma focused
behavioral therapy, EMDR, body, mind, techniques,
trauma, play therapy, attachment based therapy. And you can usually see this in their
resumes, on their websites, what trainings have they had,
even Karen Purvis's trust based relational interventions, the connected child,
Daniel Hughes's work, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. So caregivers need to be a part
of the treatment and also you're receiving psychoeducation from the therapist.
The therapist is also working with you and educating you about your child so that
you feel confident, prepared. You have the tools, you're working with the
professional, following up with the tools. Is this working? Is this not working?
How do we fine tune this? Because there's layers. Right. It's the onion shell
persona. Once we go through one layer, we then realize, oh, there's another layer we
need to approach as part of the treatment. And I've worked with kids over 10 years.
And recently, one of the kids I worked with, she just graduated from high school
and I've been with her since she was six and talk about layers. I mean we went
through layer, layer, layer, working on her grief and loss from her foster family.
We had reunion with her foster families because she was grieving the loss of her
foster family. They had nothing to do with her birth family. Then we found her
birth mother and we did open adoption work. I mean, there were so many pieces to
deal with. And then the trauma, she'd experienced sexual abuse. Then there was that
layer, helping her feel safe in her body, helping parents learn how to be with a
grieving child. And I tell parents a lot when children are crying, you need to tell
them, "I'm so sorry. You're feeling so sorry for yourself.
You have a lot to feel sorry for. And let them cry. Let them cry." Because when
you do that, actually, that's the medicine. You're going to shrink the behavior,
the crying episodes.
They're
intensity, frequency, and duration. So really understanding how to find a professional
that works with this population, they are hard to find and you do need to look.
Attach .org has a list of attachment informed therapists. - We have a resource list
on our adoptee voices page. Adopties who identify as adoptees in their therapeutic
practices. I have a question about occupational therapists. We've actually used OTs in
the past for some of our children and I see tremendous value in it. Can you speak
a little bit to what kind of value a trauma -informed or trauma -sensitive OT can
bring to a child's experience? - Yes, so when we have children with developmental
disorders, children who didn't crawl at the right age, didn't learn developmental
tools, their bodies weren't developed properly, they will need occupational therapy.
And I have referred to a trauma -informed occupational therapist that I work with
here in Los Angeles. Because, you know, being in therapy, if their developmental
milestones haven't been met. It's going to be really hard for them to stay attentive
and learn regulation tools with the therapist because this is the unmet need. They
have sensory processing challenges like we've talked about and they have motor
coordination struggles. For instance, quick story, I worked with the child with low
bone density. He couldn't write properly because he hadn't built the muscle in his
bones to write, which was causing him to feel less confident in himself.
He felt ashamed. So that little piece, occupational therapy,
can provide fine and gross motor skill techniques that an attachment therapist,
not that we won't, we don't know how to do this. So once we can recognize,
they need more fine and gross motor skill development. Some kids haven't had proper
tummy time, which is so important, it helps kids feel their bodies, they can have a
greater connection to their nervous systems. OT helps support their executive
functioning, because once their bodies are more regulated and more fully developed.
They can make better choices. They have better body awareness and better emotional
control. So I encourage, if you have a child with challenges in motor coordination,
OT only helps improve their overall developmental function. And it's so important.
And it's part of the therapy process. So maybe I'll have parents sometimes do OT
for a little while and then come back to do attachment focus therapy or we're doing
both at the same time because it's very important, especially with kids with these
early unmet needs. They need this occupational therapy input to catch up with their
bodies. - Right. That's a great way for it. - And fully functioning. - Yeah. - Yes.
- Yeah. - Well, wow, thank you, Jeanette. This was fascinating and super practical.
I love the acronyms that you gave, the pace and the halt and the seven body cues
that we need to be paying attention to. Those are all fantastic tools for families.
The book is called The Traumatized and At -Risk Youth Toolbox, over 160 attachment
-informed interventions for working with kids and families in foster care and beyond.
Jeanette, thank you again for your time. I hope everybody goes out and buys the
book and starts practicing these interventions. Just don't overwhelm yourself by trying
to pick several interventions. Just pick one at a time and get really good at it
before you move on. But thank you, Jeanette, for your time today. - Thank you so
much for having me. And I love this quote for parents. What's shareable becomes more
bearable. So just being there and doing any intervention with a child is so helpful,
crucial for their development and overall attachment.
So I wish you all well. Thank you for having me on the show. Thank you for
joining us. Thank you. I'd like to pause here for a moment and say thank you 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
full service infant adoption, international home study, post adoption, and foster to
adopt programs. You can find them online at vistadelmar .org /adoption.
And thank you, Vista Del Mar, for sponsoring today's interview.