What Is Blocked Care? What Can I Do About It? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: I love my child so much, but lately I feel emotionally worn down and shut down in my parenting. Someone mentioned they recently learned about blocked care, and now I’m wondering if that's what’s happening. What is blocked care, and what can a parent do about it?

Resources:

• Understanding and Overcoming Blocked Care
• What Is Blocked Care? How Do I Overcome It?
• Trauma-Informed Therapy
• Building Rhythms of Self-Care Into Our Parenting
• Making Self-Care a Priority for the New Year

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome to Weekend Wisdom. My name is Tracy Whitney. I am the content director for creatingafamily
.org. Weekend Wisdom is a short podcast that we offer every Saturday morning where we answer a
specific question sent to us by a listener. Today's question is, I love my child so much,
but lately I am feeling emotionally worn down and shut down in my parenting. Someone mentioned that
they recently learned about blocked care, and now I'm wondering if that's what's happening to me.
What is blocked care and what can a parent do about it? So anonymous listener,
thank you for your question. I want to acknowledge how vulnerable and stressful it must feel to say
this about yourself and then to reach out for help, even in an anonymous way. I want to normalize
this conversation for us right off the bat, because many of us who are raising kids that have
experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, and other adverse life experiences, feel this deep well of love
and care for our child, but we also still feel emotionally worn down or shut down.
When we are feeling shut down, irritable or numb or distant, it can bring an extra sense of
exhaustion and even additional shame to the load that we are already carrying.
And that's really challenging to navigate. So blocked care may explain what's going on in your
parenting experience, especially if you are raising a child who has experienced any kind of
significant trauma, loss, neurodivergence, any of those things, because the stress in our homes is
basically chronic. And it just feels like it's unrelenting.
So I want to give a quick disclaimer that we are not mental health professionals. I by no means am
a mental health professional. So we can't diagnose you or give medical or mental health advice or
care. We do want to say that if you are feeling hopeless, unable to function,
or have other more dire feelings of harm or... hopelessness,
please contact a mental health professional or a doctor right away. Do not let yourself continue to
suffer in those ways. So all of that disclaimer being said, it's really valuable to talk about what
blocked care is and what we can do about it. And I will add that we have a free online course
specifically about this topic, and I will link it for you in the show notes. So let's dive into it.
The definition of blocked care is that it is a self-protective stress response in a caregiver's
nervous system. It develops when chronic relational stress overwhelms our capacity to stay open and
connected. Our brains shift into survival mode, which would be fight,
flight, or freeze. So it's important to clarify that it is not a lack of love.
It is not a character flaw. It is a biological stress adaptation,
and it develops gradually over time. And again, this is why I say I hope you feel comfort in
knowing that you are not alone. This happens to many parents who are handling chronic stress in
their homes. So why does it happen more often in trauma-related parenting?
Well, it happens more often because our kids experience more frequent and more chronic
dysregulation. It happens because there is a more consistent rejection of or lack of reciprocity in
relationship between us and our kids. It happens because we have to be constantly vigilant about
their care and their safety and our own regulation and their regulation. And it also happens
because there's limited access. often to restoration of that relationship and support for that
relationship, not just within our homes, but around us. So I want to talk about the common signs
and symptoms to be looking for. And we can break those common symptoms down into three categories.
The first would be the emotional signs of blocked care, which would include mental and emotional
numbness, emotional flatness, kind of no affect, no... emotional response,
irritability or anger that escalates quickly or maybe out of proportion to what's going on, a dread
of certain times of day, like knowing that bedtime is going to be just a mountain to climb every
day, or feeling like you have nothing left to give. There's also what we would consider kind of the
cognitive signs or the mental space that you're in. Always thinking negatively or catastrophizing
your thinking about this child or about the condition in your home. It could be a very harsh
internal dialogue towards yourself or towards the child. Not that you necessarily would speak it,
but you're constantly rehashing those thoughts. and that negative pattern and that negative cycle.
Loss of hope would be another cognitive sign. And then an increasing comparison of yourself and
your family dynamic to other families that are around you, even if those other families aren't
living with chronic trauma or chronic stress or that constant. dysfunction in relationship,
you're comparing yourself to them internally, and you're just always coming up short.
And then of course, there are the behavioral signs. And that would be emotional withdrawal, as the
anonymous listener pointed out, increased sense of needing to control what's going on in the home,
or increased rigidity about control and about how things go in the house, avoiding connection in
the home or outside of the home. And then kind of swinging between over-functioning and under
-functioning or over-functioning and complete shutdown. It's important to remember and to
interpret these three different categories of signals as the fact that your system is asking for
support. These are your body's and brain's way of saying, something's not right inside and I need
help to function and cope. These are not signals or signs of failure.
And I want to just keep stressing that. Blocked care is not a character flaw and it is not a sign
of failure on your part. So let's talk about what we can do about it. And the very first thing is
what you did here in writing to us today. And it's to remove the shame of it and name it for what
it is. Naming it. And increasing your awareness about it reduces your reactivity to it.
It shifts you from, I'm a bad parent, because remember, it's not a character flaw, to my nervous
system is overwhelmed. And it's telling yourself as often as you need to that blocked care is
treatable and reversible. So the second thing that you can do about it is to regulate your nervous
system first. Blocked care can improve when a caregiver's stress response is stabilized or reduced.
Reframe self-care as regulation. Many of us kind of have this mentality about self-care that it's
pampering and indulgent and luxurious spa treatments and things like that.
If you can flip that to self-care is regulating myself and taking care of my nervous system,
then it's not an indulgence. It's not an escape. It's maintaining and caring for your central
nervous system. And so there's a couple practical resets that you can do that would be self-care
as regulation. Number one, take three slow, deep breaths before you respond to dysregulation on
your child's part. Number two, you could try just taking a brief pause in the car before you enter
the house, kind of giving yourself that transition space.
I'm going into the house now and I'm going to stay regulated and calm. I'm leaving my work stresses
in the car and I'm walking into home ready to be present for my family.
Another step that you could try to reset is to just take a quick minute to go outside and do some
deep breathing outside in the fresh air. It's really helpful when the fresh air is very cold too,
because it's a good reset. And speaking of cold, another reset could be to run cold water over your
wrists or put an ice cube on your wrists. And that just kind of resets your nervous system and
says, okay, let's think about this differently. Or you could take a short walk around the block.
Take the dog with you if that's restful and calm to you. If it's more stressful to bring the dog
with you, don't do that. Another thing that you can do is to build rhythms,
not rescues, into your day. So have a five-minute practical reset that you do every day,
whether it's at night before you go to bed, you kind of reset the house, or in the morning when you
wake up, you're setting your expectations and your plans for the day to be regulated,
to buffer yourself, to take care of yourself. Another rhythm to build into your home is to maintain
predictable routines for the whole household. So have a schedule that the kids and the partners all
know is this is how we do our morning routine before everybody leaves for work and school. This is
how we do our lunchtime routine. This is how we do dinnertime and dinnertime prep. This is how we
do bedtime. Keep it consistent. Keep it predictable for you because that's a huge benefit to not
having. things set off all the alarms in your regulatory system, but it's also really good for your
kids. You could have a weekly support call, whether that's with a therapist or a parent coach or a
counselor or just a really good friend who gets what you're going through. Set up, like an
appointment that you make with yourself, a regular call for checking in with that person. letting
them ask you hard questions, and then just giving reports as you keep this practice up.
Another rhythm to build into your home and for yourself is to find something that you love,
whether it's music or prayer time or journaling or quiet instrumental music before you start your
day. Some families enjoy yoga time. privately or as a whole family unit.
Whatever it is that you can look forward to and that you can plan as kind of a treat for yourself
that is refueling and rejuvenating. And then a last one to consider is maybe figuring out how to
have a few minutes of quiet time alone before everyone else in the house wakes up.
That's really hard for me. I'm just going to be honest. I'm not a morning person at all. I prefer
my quiet alone time at the back end of the day. And so I'll read for five or 10 minutes in a
devotional book, or I'll crochet quietly by myself, you know, for a few minutes before I turn my
phone and alarms off for the day. But find something that you can do that gives you that quiet,
peaceful time before everybody wakes up or after everybody's gone to bed. In all of these things,
The goal is to remember that small steps toward consistency are better than intensity going all at
once, which can be its own form of dysregulation if you don't monitor it carefully. So small steps
can build that sense of maintenance and care for your regulatory system. The third thing to
remember when addressing blocked care is to separate your child's dysregulation from yours.
And this is hard. I understand that. When you're escalating because they're escalating and then
you're escalating more and then they're escalating more, it feels like a vicious cycle. Try to
remember when dysregulation is happening in your home that two escalated nervous systems increase
disconnection rather than decrease escalation. So practice anchoring yourself when your child is
ramping up in a dysregulation. So you could say, I need five minutes and I'll come back and handle
your dysregulation. after I've regulated myself. And it's okay to use that language with our kids.
It's good for them to see us modeling these regulation practices. You could also say something
like, I'm feeling very dysregulated and it looks like you might be also.
Why don't we each take five minutes and then come back to talk? in a more regulated way when you
use that language you're normalizing that everyone gets dysregulated but you're also normalizing
that we can come back and repair these brief pauses that you give yourself are a gift to your
regulatory system but they're also a gift in that they're modeling practices for your kids Your
regulation models not just good healthy habits, but it also models safety for your child,
which can often be at the root of why they're feeling dysregulated is maybe they're not feeling
safe. Number four is to reduce chronic stress wherever you can.
Strip it out of your calendar. things from your outside calendar are pressing in and creating
stress. So look for small changes that can reduce the cumulative stress, lower any non-essential
expectations that could look like simplifying routines and clearing calendar obligations.
But it could also just look like, okay, so I would love it if they made their bed every day,
but it's become a source of dysregulation for me. So I'm just going to say, Whenever they make
their bed, that's a cherry on top of the sundae and let it go. That's a hard one for me.
So decreasing power struggles whenever possible is also a great way to reduce chronic stress.
Learn how to share power when it's appropriate or when to just disengage and say,
this is not a battle I'm willing to fight. And then identify the patterns that trigger the most
depletion that you feel. For example, the bed making thing. If you know that them not making their
bed every day is a trigger for you, you can say, you know what? I don't care if you make your bed
or not, but please just shut your door before you leave for school. And then you can just reduce
that trigger altogether by walking by a closed door and then training yourself that whatever's
behind the closed door is their business, not yours. And you don't have to worry about it. That's a
silly example, but for some families. It might be kind of an open door to a pathway that really
helps them identify where they're finding triggers most commonly. And number five,
increase the support around you intentionally. I mentioned a little bit ago to have like a weekly
support call. Blocked care thrives in isolation. So when you surround yourself with folks who can
show up for you and support you, you are... coming right up against that blocked care intentionally
you need support not willpower you need care not more rules you need tools to regulate yourself not
more shame for not regulating yourself. So you want to look for trauma-informed support groups.
You can check out facebook.com slash groups slash creating a family. We have a very active online
community and we, I think, do a pretty good job of supporting and encouraging each other with...
and vulnerability and honesty about where we're at as parents and caregivers. You should also
consider looking for adoption and trauma competent therapy. And we have resources on the Creating a
Family website that we can link for you in the show notes about what trauma informed therapy is and
how to find one. Look for respite care. That's another one that is huge. Find a friend that can
just come and hang with the kids for two hours. once a week so that you can go for a walk in the
local park or take a crafting class or go to a Bible study. And then you could look for weekends
away with your partner and mix it up so that you're getting the care that you need.
Whatever you do, look for ways to have honest conversations with people that you trust,
that aren't going to use your concerns or your worries about blocked care against you, people that
are going to support you. So not just support groups, not just therapy, but friends or family that
can be trusted with this information and that can be trusted to offer care to you physically.
helping out with groceries or helping out with laundry or taking the kids to the movies on a Friday
night so you can just stay home and get caught up on laundry or whatever. And then also look for
medical or psychiatric support to take care of some of the physical symptoms that you might be
feeling. Some of the physical symptoms of chronic stress can really mess up our bodies.
The anxiety can have a significant impact, depression, shutdown. numbness can have a significant
impact on our physical bodies. And so you want to make sure that you're working through that with a
medical or psychiatric professional as well. And finally, number six,
build reconnection into your home in like micro moments. Don't set an expectation for yourself that
you're going to just get through this blocked care and then you're going to have this great,
healthy, nurturing relationship between you and your kid. That's going to set you up for more
frustration and feeling of failure. Blocked care is not a sign of failure.
So you want to set yourself up for success by looking for small ways to repair the connection with
your child or your children. So that would be like five minutes of low demand connection,
reading a chapter book, you know, one chapter a night to your child at bedtime or sitting on the
floor and playing cars and trucks for just five minutes. Parallel play is a great way to build
reconnection. So coloring at the kitchen table together on a rainy day. rolling out cookies
together, doing puzzles at the table, doing your own separate puzzles, but in the same space or
doing a puzzle together, things like that. Shared humor is always a great way to build
reconnection. You can be sharing funny memes, texting each other funny stories, reels, cute puppy
videos, babies laughing together. Oh man, babies laughing is like the secret sauce to getting
everybody else in the house laughing together. Dumb comedy sketches. My kids love the who's on
first, what's on second. they have it almost completely memorized. They can just quote it in a
minute and it kind of breaks the tension and it just makes some really funny moments together.
You could also try sitting together on the couch without any pressure of interacting,
but you read while they're gaming or you play a word game on your phone while they're playing a
video game, that kind of thing. And then... incorporating wherever you can throughout the day,
small, safe eye contact moments that say, I see you, I'm here,
I'm with you. And continuing to message that short sentences,
eye contact, caring voice, those kinds of things can repair and rebuild that relationship.
When you're building back in that relationship, you want to focus on being safe and being mentally
and emotionally present for yourself and for them. I want to leave you with some hope and
encouragement. Again, blocked care is not a sign of failure and it is reversible.
Start small. Just pick one thing to try today. And finally, reach out to a friend, a faith leader,
or a safe relative to kind of process this all with them. Supporting yourself is the hard work of
parenting. And when you're parenting a child who's come from very difficult circumstances, you
deserve a safe landing place to recuperate your strength also. And that's why it's so important to
talk about blocked care and what we can do about it. Thank you for sharing your story and for
looking for answers to strengthen your family. We have many resources on our website about true
nourishing self-care and how to kind of build those rhythms in your home. We also have resources
on how to be the best parent you can be and building a network around you to help you do that.
I'll link some of them in the show notes. And listeners, again, if you have questions about
adoption, foster care, relative caregiving, self-regulation, co-regulation, all of those things,
I would love to hear from you. Please send them to info at creatingafamily.org. And thank you so
much for listening today. I'll catch you all next week.