My Life was Changed by This Conference, Part 2

Empowered to Connect -- A Conference Review

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed reading through some of our newly acquired knowledge yesterday. Are you starting to see why we thought this conference was so awesome?! Ok, maybe not yet, but I'm almost positive once you read these last four wisdom nuggets and then attend the conference yourself, you're going to be blown away. Just like me, you'll be saying," Dude, that conference changed my life!!"

If you missed the first post and have no idea what I'm talking about, no need to stress! You can find it right here. Once you're caught up, come on back for the wrap up, which can be found by reading the words directly below these words. :)

"It's much more about me becoming his than him becoming mine."

This was one of my favorite quotes from the weekend. When thinking about his relationship with one of his adopted sons, Michael Monroe made the revelation that we, as parents, need to be flexible. We need to let go of what we thought parenting was going to be like and just be the child our parent needs. So what if you thought Johnny Jr. was supposed to be like x (x = genius, doctor, soccer player, movie star)? He's not! So redefine what a "Smith" looks like in your mind. Or in your case, change "Smith" to your own last name. And remember -- that kiddo's a part of your family now, so make sure the family evolves to embrace him, instead of forcing him to fit your family's specific mold.

"We learn how to parent from those who parent us."

This part of the conference just about blew my mind! Through studies done on 1-year-olds and their mothers back in the 80's, Dr. Purvis and company have determined four different types of attachment styles (secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and unresolved) between parents and children. The study went a little something like this:

Mother and 1-year-old child play together in a secluded room with toys. Within a few minutes, Mom leaves the room and baby is left alone to react. After 3 minutes of watching the child's reaction (or a shorter amount of time if baby is really sad), a stranger enters the room. The child/stranger interaction is observed. After several minutes, Mom returns and stranger leaves. Child's reaction to Mom returning is noted. Then later, Mom participates in a follow-up interview.

So what does a securely attached (aka connected) child look like? He cries a bit when Mom leaves, not too inconsolable, but still sad. When the stranger enters, baby keeps on crying a bit. When Mom returns, baby rushes over to Mom and holds her tight. That's a child that will likely have success in future relationships, and therefore, life. Secure attachment comes about when the mother meets all the child's needs: body, soul, and spirit.

The avoidant attached child does not cry at all when Mom leaves, continue playing with toys, and remains the same when Mom returns. Though, a heart monitor on the child shows majorly increased heart rates through the entire process of Mom leaving, stranger entering, and Mom returning. So the child really wanted to be connected, but Mom wasn't providing the right care to be securely attached. These mothers tend to only meet some of the child's body, soul, and spirit needs. Typically, avoidant moms make materialism a priority, while relationships are secondary and impoverished. (E.g. Mom gets mad when baby innocently scratches new furniture).

The ambivalent attached child cries inconsolably when Mom leaves the room, runs toward her when she returns, but still is not consoled by her affection and attempts to soothe and does not make eye contact or snuggle close. Ambivalent attachment occurs when Mom is passive-aggressive, giving off mixed signals to the child, sometimes present and sometimes not. This Mom might be overworked, have a drug or alcohol addiction, or a bad marriage.

Finally, the unresolved attached child acts very confused when Mom leaves, starts to run to Mom when she returns, only to turn the other way as soon as she gets close to Mom, and runs after the stranger when stranger leaves the room. Unresolved attachment (AKA disorganized attachment) occurs when Mom has a big unresolved trauma in her own past (abuse, neglect, death of a loved one, psychiatric disorders).

Avoident, ambivalent, and unresolved attached kiddos will likely struggle in relationships with others as they get older.

After the experiment, the mothers were interviewed and typically the way they answered the questions about their own mothers lined up with how their 1-year-olds reacted in the experiment. In other words, as the above quote says: "We learn how to parent from those who parent us." I suppose that makes a fair bit of sense, but how many of us are guilty of saying/thinking, "When I'm a parent, I will NEVER raise my kids the way my parents raised me!"?

(Ahem... Hi, Mom! I know you're reading. This is just a normal thing people say. Still love you!)

The point is this: you are most likely to parent the way you were raised, and connect to your child the same way your mother (or father) connected with you, even if you promised you'd never be like them.

Unless...

You're probably thinking, well, how do I break the mold if I wasn't thrilled with the way I was parented? Great question. First, you need to be more mindful -- be aware of the way you were parented and how it's affecting your parenting now. And second...

"You cannot lead a child to a place of healing if you do not know the way yourself."

We all get stuck in our past. We all have examples of grief and loss that haunt and follow us. For example, I've got infertility taunting me. Dr. Purvis explained that grief and loss manifest in three different ways -- linearly, developmentally, and circularly.

The grief you experience will always be with you, everyday, as part of your timeline, making it linear. You will also experience and process your grief in different ways at different points in your life (e.g. infertility will hurt differently when you're 20 years old vs. when you're 40 years old), making grief developmentally dependent, or dependent on how your mind can process it at the time. And grief will come back to bite you in cyclical ways, for example, when Christmas comes around or the scent of Spring is in the air, reminding you of the suffering that happened during a Christmas or Spring long past. That makes grief/loss circular. It's no wonder our infertility grief (or any grief/loss, really) hurts so much!

Grief is a journey. Grief/loss doesn't go away overnight. It will, unfortunately always be with us. Our job, though, is to keep working through it. Keep processing. As the quote above says, we cannot lead our children through their healing if we haven't journeyed through our own healing ourselves. Notice, we don't need to get over our grief/loss. That's just not possible. It'll always be there. No, we just need to make sure we keep pushing forward on our journey toward healing. We need to be honest about our past so we can own our history. And once we can do that, we can help our kids through their own hurts and histories.

I say all this because it makes the point that even if you have some skeletons in your past, making it hard to securely attach to your child as discussed in the previous nugget, it's not the end for you. You are not defined by your past.

If you and your mother had an avoidant, ambivalent, or unresolved attachment, it's not too late for you and your own kids, even if your own kids are long grown. Take an honest look at where you stand now as a parent (or as a child -- how were you attached to your own parents?) and start processing. Be mindful. Only this will help to change your parenting and connections in the future.

"We're all made to be connected."

With a name like "Empowered to Connect," you'd probably expect the experts to talk a fair bit about connection. And you'd be exactly right. The overall message for the weekend was: it's important to connect with your child AKA connecting with your child can make a world of difference. Let them know they are loved, they are precious, and their needs will be met.

For an adopted newborn, this means making lots of eye contact, responding to every cry within the first 30-60 days of life, and plenty of skin-to-skin contact. For children adopted well after birth, this means giving them a voice to tell their story, helping them through sensory processing overloads or other behavioral issues, sometimes reverting to actually coddling them like a newborn to help them live the experiences of connectedness they never had. And keep in mind, none of this specifically applies to adopted/fostered children. The importance of connecting applies to every child, no matter their past.

The best way to summarize the weekend is with Dr. Purvis's own words: "Our children must see how precious they are in our eyes."And let your children know, "If it's in my power, I will move Heaven and Earth to meet your needs." Because if they know that to be true, then you're on your way to creating one happy family.

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Still with me down here? So that went on a little longer than I thought, and included wayyyy more  details than I intended. But I'm pumped about this stuff! It gets me excited. It makes me want to tell the whole world. And it's pretty much because it all just makes so much sense.

So how did it change my life? Well, there are (very hopefully!) going to be children in my future, and with all this in mind, I know I'm going to have the right focus as a parent. Much better than what I would have come up with on my own. My future is changed because I'll now be much more mindful of the connections I'm making with my children. Connection is key, so I'm going to strive to do it right! And my overall takeaway is... there's hope for every child. So while adoption/fostering can seem intimidating and a daunting task, it doesn't have to be. This stuff we learned can work with any child, even the toughest, 'cause like I said, all they're looking for is love and connection. We can provide that, right?

I've got to take another second here blast this reminder: I am not the expert. Chances are I quoted a few things incorrectly or explained them not-quite-right. So how do we fix this? We plan on attending an Empowered to Connect Conference in the future, that's how! Or, at the very least, we read more. I'll close with a ton of awesome recommended resources to help us continue learning about all this great stuff:

Resources

The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis, David Cross, and Wendy Lyons Sunshine (we bought this one and are in the process of reading!)

Created to Connect: A Christian Guide to The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis, Michael & Amy Monroe

God, Are You Nice or Mean? Trusting God... After the Orphanage by Debra Delulio Jones

The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz and Lucy Jane Miller

Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell

The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Bayne Bryson

Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray

TCU Institute of a Child Development DVDs

Empowered to Connect website -- videos, audio, articles

My Life was Changed by This Conference, Part 1

Empowered to Connect -- A Conference Review

Last weekend, John and I attended an adoption/foster conference called Empowered to Connect, and after reviewing everything we've learned, I'd love to share some nuggets of wisdom from the conference with all of you.

I could go on for days about this stuff, it was just that good. But I'll spare you all the minor details and give you more summarizing stuff. However, if you are an adoptive/foster parent, considering adopting/fostering, or even have never adopted/fostered but have biological kids, or you work with kids on a regular basis, I urge you to go to this conference!! It was absolutely fantastic, completely based in science, and so very practical.

The conference mainly consisted of videos and talks given by Dr. Karyn Purvis, a research psychologist who's devoted the past twelve years to developing research-based intervention for at-risk children, and Michael & Amy Monroe, proud parents of four adopted children.

It seems there's one more Empowered to Connect conference this year in Washington, D.C. during September. If you live close, here's my advice: GO!! And use their half-off code (FOCUS) when you register as a couple; it'll reduce the cost to $35 total! So cheap for all the priceless knowledge you'll gain.

If you can't make it to this conference, don't fret! The whole thing was led by several wonderful individuals who have written lots of books on all this stuff. So buy some of their books, go to the Empowered to Connect website, read their stories, watch some videos, listen to recordings of their talks. You will not be disappointed.

Because this conference was just chock-full of awesomel quotable quotes, I figured using some of said quotes would be the best way to guide you through our experience at the conference. But before I get to that, I must preface by saying I am not the expert. Heck, we don't even have kids yet, so I barely know what I'm talking about! I'm merely summarizing what I heard from them. So don't beat me up if you don't agree with what I say or if what I say is unclear. Instead, just go to the conference and learn from the real professionals. I promise you won't regret it!

Dr. Purvis in action. (I stole this picture from the Empowered to Connect website!)

Alright, here goes...

"Your child has a different brain, body, biology."

I'll start with the most shocking thing we learned: adopted children typically have different brains, bodies, and biology than non-adopted kiddos, and we're not just talking about kids adopted when they're older. This is about newborns too, because a pregnancy that leads to an adoption plan is typically not a stress-free pregnancy. Our baby grows in that stress, which rewires our adopted child's brain, and leads to sensory processing deficits in the future, among other challenges. Our adopted child is more prone to fight, flight, or freeze in stressful or over-stimulating situations. Our adopted child may have trouble transitioning to and from difference daily tasks (going from homework to dinner or home to school). Our adopted child may display more defiant behavior than normal.

The good news is this: All of the challenges can be overcome! And it starts with connection. As Michael Monroe said in one of his talks, "Our kids were wounded by relationship and, by God's design, they will be healed by relationship." Relationship is the key. Connecting is the magic solution. And being mindful of our child's challenges is important too. We need to learn how to recognize the difference between a behavior problem and a brain problem (by brain problem, we mean they can't help it -- it's how they're wired). We need to see beyond the negative behavior and meet the needs of the child's body, soul, and spirit.

So how do we do that? ...

"Consider giving your child a 'time-in' instead of a 'time-out.'"

Well, one great suggestion is to change 'time-outs' to 'time-ins.' Pull close to your child in the moments you'd normally push them away. You know what I'm talking about -- those frustrating moments when your child is talking back or throwing a nutty over not being able to color on the walls. Normally, we'd want to send the child away to a time-out corner or reprimand them. However, this is not building the connection the our child so desperately needs and craves. So instead, try to meet their needs in another way, by pulling them close and spending time together, AKA a 'time-in.'

First, ask them to use kind words instead of talking back. Let them have a 'do over' until their words are more polite. You may need to hold and comfort them by squeezing them tight and connecting through loving eye contact in order to soothe them to the point of conversation. Once they're calm enough to express their needs, let them cool off by offering some sort of playful, structured, calming, or protective activity... something to help the sensory overload. Hand feed your child a snack. Go for a walk and have a calm conversation with them. Let them snuggle under a weighted blanket. Or let them pick out a soothing scent that they like to turn to when they're  feeling blue.

Some may argue and say, "But my child needs a consequence for their behavior!!" I'd like to counter with a great point Michael & Amy Monroe made this past weekend: "Consequences cut off where we want to go with our child. Connecting with your child is not 'rewarding bad behavior,' it's meeting their needs." I don't know about you, but I'd much rather meet my child's physical, spiritual, and emotional needs than find myself in a three-year-old vs. adult power struggle. Sure, consequences are a natural part of life, but they don't need to be the dominating force when we correct and redirect our children.

Overall, let your child have a voice. Offer them options when they're going through a rough moment. "Do you want to snuggle and chat or play with playdough?" They'll feel empowered by options, continue to grow their connection with you, rewire their brains so they know how to handle sensory processing overload in the future by themselves, and open up to you in ways you never thought possible. This is especially true of adopted children who experienced trauma, stress, or neglect before being brought home to their new family.

"The toughest kids have the most tender hearts and the most need for nurture." 

Along the same lines, we need to remember that the toughest behavior often comes from the sweetest children who need us the most.

Dr. Purvis told us a tragic, yet beautiful story about an adopted child who was just incredibly difficult to work with, but only because no one had truly connected with her. She was adopted will into her teens, I believe from Romania, previously a child of a gypsy family who used to have to beg and steal to survive. She was in a psychiatric hospital and had already been through several psychologists, with a record of pinning them to the ground and violently beating them up within minutes of them trying to work with her.

Dr. Purvis's approach was different. The first thing she did? She gave that child a voice, and in the most creative way. She had a giant container of bubble gum and offered the child as many pieces as she'd like. But before she could have a piece, she had to ask politely. Each time she asked, Dr. Purvis would respond with a cheerful "yes!" That young lady ended up getting 27 pieces of Double Bubble that day, while Dr. Purvis put 27 "yesses" in that kiddo's bank. She was building her up, giving her a voice, giving her a memory of success after several years of feeling like a failure.

Within the week, Dr. Purvis spent with her, that young lady was majorly changed. She never once harmed Dr. Purvis and on her last day with her, she told her she didn't want to leave. What warm words from a previously hard-to-"deal"-with kiddo who just wanted to be connected.

"Think about who your team is. Who is walking this journey with you?"

The people who journey with you will shape your journey. Surround yourself with people who support you through and through. Adopting and fostering are certainly not the same as raising bio children, so find people who understand what you're going through and are willing to help in the right ways. If you can't find folks who have adopted or fostered near you, educate your friends and family so they can become the right support. Don't be afraid to speak up for this wonderful yet challenging thing you're doing.

Join a community or church support group. Find others in your area that are sharing a similar journey and develop a safe network of trusted friends. If there is not a ministry in your community or local church, consider starting one.

Ask friends and colleagues for recommendations on professionals' reputations of understanding children from hard places. Find a pediatrician, an occupational therapist, and a counselor who specializes in working with at-risk and/or adopted children.

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Whew! That's a lot of review already. How about we take a break here and reconvene tomorrow? I've got four more stellar nuggest of wisdom to share with you, so check back in the morning for one awesome Empowered to Connect wrap up.