Being Adopted with Amy Wilkerson {EP 104}


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Amy Wilkerson, LCSW, author of Being Adopted,  is a transracial and transnational adoptee from Santiago, Chile and was raised in Milwaukee, WI. She was raised in a Jewish home and has always been curious about how different identities intersect. From an early age she was passionate about social justice and creating spaces of safety. She entered reunión at age 16. While she has advocated in adoption spaces her whole life, she professionally entered the adoption world in 2008. She currently has a private practice working with the adoption triad. She is also a military spouse and a mother.

Keep reading or listen on the podcast!

The importance of providing an authentic mirror for little adoptees

Amy is a strong advocate for creating spaces for adoptees to see themselves represented –spaces where they feel affirmed and seen, having their authentic selves and experiences mirrored–not just in the adoption story of how different families come to exist, but in the reflection of their inner experience, their thoughts and feelings, and all the complexities of being adopted. 

When kids don’t have these more complex parts of their experience explored, normalized, and met with curiosity, they get silenced and coated in shame. These parts become suffocated because there’s nowhere to let them breathe.

Allow parts of your child’s spirit to breathe.

When we talk to adopted children, we need to make sure we’re not just focusing on the parts that feel safe to us, or that feel safe to our families. We have to be so brave to be able to be super curious about all the parts that might be triggering. That might be difficult. That might be hurtful. That might be scary. All parts need to know that they’re affirmed, they’re heard, and they’re seen. Because if we don’t allow those parts to breathe, we’re literally suffocating part of that child’s spirit.

“Fixing it” isn’t the intervention

We often want to jump to fixing those difficult, scary or hurting parts of our children, and we forget the power of attunement and validation. It’s ok to not know what to do.

Don’t underestimate the power of just pausing and telling your child in a very honest way, “I have no idea what this is like for you. And I have no idea what this must feel like. But I refuse to abandon you in this experience. And I refuse to abandon you in this discomfort.”   It’s important for parents to become comfortable with being honest that you don’t have the answers. And that you don’t know. Your child will know whether or not you are being authentic!

How to reconcile when child hasn’t had mirroring from their community

  • Help your child access the community of adoptee voices, mentors and guides through books, such as Being Adopted by Amy Wilkerson, LCSW
  • Identify racial mirrors in the community
  • Help your child learn a language or have access to their ethnic foods
  • As a caregiver, become educated about the racial complexities and experiences that may be impacting your child’s inner world

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Would you like to explore a complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.
Just let me know where to send the links!

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How to be a Cycle Breaker with Mindi Kessler {EP 103}


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Mindi Kessler is the author of the book, Cycle Breaker: A Guide To Transcending Childhood Trauma. This book tells her story of overcoming devastating childhood abuse and imparts wisdom to inspire you to create a life you love if you also grew up feeling unsafe and unworthy. Her mission in life is to guide traumatized people through their cycle breaker journey.

Keep reading or listen on the podcast

Articulating Pain

One of the gifts of sharing her story of trauma, healing and transformation is that Mindi can articulate for parents of kids with trauma some of the things their children may be experiencing but cannot articulate. But she also gives voice to the journey of using your experiences with parenting challenges to inspire your own healing and transformation.

Becoming a Cycle Breaker

When we start to investigate our own reactions to our children’s behaviors, we can start to get clear on exactly how we are getting triggered by our kids and begin to identify how that is a trauma reenactment. 

What exactly is a trauma reenactment? 

Mindi explains, “Anytime we have a wound that’s unhealed, we are going to be driven to resolve that wound. And one way that transpires is that we engage in interactions with people that are very similar to the interactions we had when we were victimized. And so as adults, then we can be in both roles where we are being the one re victimized. So if we had a parent who was abusive physically, then we might have a child, for example, who gets physically aggressive. Or we might be the one to get physically aggressive to our child. And so we can find ourselves in either role of the victim or the aggressor. And when that’s happening, it’s important to do a deep dive to see what is being replicated. What is this reminding me of childhood? And that’s the point of intervention, which often needs to be done in the presence of a trauma practitioner who can really help because it’s a very complex process.”

But wait…maybe you didn’t have an obviously traumatic childhood?? Mindi expresses how often our own experiences of trauma were not recognized or minimized as children, so it is sometimes difficult to acknowledge or face the pain of not feeling safe or not feeling worthy in childhood…which are core experiences of trauma.

Looking at these unhealed wounds in ourselves is grueling work, but so worth it.

The magical thing is that as we heal what’s going on inside us, we see big changes in our external world. As WE heal, it’s causing a contagious healing effect to those around us, including our children.

Ways to Start Your Healing Journey

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Would you like to explore a complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.
Just let me know where to send the links!

CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE FULL TRANSCRIPT!

How to be a Cycle Breaker_TRANSCRIPT

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Telling the Truth To Adopted Kids-Even When It’s Hard {EP 102}


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How do we talk about the hard stuff with adopted kids?  I turned to adoptee and therapist, Marcella Moslow for help!

Keep reading or listen on the podcast!

Marcella Moslow is a transracial and transnational adoptee and therapist. She was Born in Bogota Colombia and adopted to Buffalo NY. She began my work in the mental health field working with children and adolescents in the public school system, as well as working with refugee and immigrant families in the city of Buffalo. Additionally, she worked in a clinical outpatient mental health setting working with Spanish and English speaking individuals of all ages and families with a range of needs. She is a certified trauma therapist and registered play therapist, specializing in the areas of attachment, international and domestic adoption, foster care, neurobiology, dissociation through the lifespan and complex trauma. She is also trained in Progressive Counting, brainspotting, IFS/ego states/parts work, Theraplay, nurture and Play, safe and sound protocol. She started her own private practice about two and a half years ago where she offers clinical services, and  she also is a consultant and trainer for adoptive parents, schools, agencies and professionals working with those impacted by trauma. 

Marcella and I talk about telling the hard truths in adoption. Because of both her expertise and personal experience, she is able to translate difficult topics for parents from the perspective of the adoptee, and has great wisdom about how parents can help to hold space for the hardest truths.

Why is it important to give our kids honest, accurate information?

When you give kids age appropriate, developmentally appropriate information, it helps to give them a narrative and language for what has already been living in parts of their systems, their neurobiology, and their bodies.

How can parents navigate the hard feelings of first families?

Of course, adoptive parents want to protect their children, and that is incredibly valid – your hard feelings about your child’s history is valid. It’s important that for your child to be able to integrate their narrative that you begin to understand the neurobiology of behavior even for the first family so that you can have compassion for these parts of your child’s story and the people who are a part of your child.

The core challenge of adoptive parents

Marcella shares that one of the most impactful and healing conversations she had as an adoptee was the acknowledgement of harm caused by the adoption, and the recognition that it would not have been her choice. When parents are able to hold space for both their child’s experience of adoption as well as their own, it is a game changer.

To hear more of the wisdom Marcella shares in this episode, head over to listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Would you like to explore a complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.
Just let me know where to send the links!

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Influence Behaviors, Not Control {EP 101}


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One of the trickier parts of the work I do is talking so much with parents about attachment, their role in co-regulation, and felt-safety, without snagging into parent’s shame about every parent’s deepest worry- that their child’s baffling behaviors are all their fault.

Keep reading or listen on the podcast

Influence is not the same as control

Obviously parents and caregivers have a tremendous opportunity- and yes responsibility! – to influence their child’s behaviors.  Both positively and negatively!

And that’s because parents and caregivers can offer co-regulation, connection, and they can make offerings of safety.

But we aren’t in control of what our kids receive.

We can influence but not control.

We influence by investing in our own nervous system healing

I do think parents have a lot of responsibility to work fiercely on their own regulation, their own state of mind with regard to connection, and their own sense of safety in their nervous system.

I include myself in this!

I also trust that everyone’s nervous system heals at exactly the right pace- for them.  I’m not in control of that.  I don’t even get to have an opinion about that.

That includes parents and kids.

That includes mine.

Sometimes I shake my fists and wail a lament that my nervous system isn’t healing faster.

Responsibility does not equal blame.

I’m not in control of someone else’s experience of safety.

It is my responsibility in our relationship to do the work I need to do to show up in a way that I offer safety, connection, and coregulation.

Some aspects of our own regulation will have impacted the development of our childrens’ nervous system in a way that isn’t ideal.

We can take responsibility without falling into shame and blame.

Responsibility might evoke some guilt but that’s OK because guilt is an important human emotion given that we are a relational  species–it keeps us working on self and the relationship.  

How do we acknowledge influence without falling into shame and blame?

How can I be OK with influence but not control?

And how can I be honest about my influence without falling into blame or shame?

Y’all won’t be surprised to hear me say self compassion and grief.

How do we establish enough safety and resilience in our own nervous system that we can offer and receive our offerings of self compassion, as well as to truly hang out in the grief?

Find people who offer you self compassion, presence, and connection.  Find people who will be with YOU with nonjudgmental agendaless presence. 

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Would you like to explore a complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.
Just let me know where to send the links!

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What Does it Mean to Be With? {EP 100}


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We talk about ‘being with’ our kids and each other and our clients.

But what does it mean to be with?

And why is it important?

The definition of Being With from Circle of Security Intervention

Being-With, a deceptively simple term, represents a profound need that, when answered, paves the way for a lifetime of satisfying relationships, for mastery of a raft of developmental tasks and adult competencies, for trust and self-regulation and even physical health.

It is by Being-With the child that the parent provides responsive caregiving and has the greatest hope of meeting the child’s needs. And it is by Being-With the parents that the therapist is able to elicit change.

Link to the COS Being With video.

If I turn to IPNB, I look at the concept of resonance.  The process whereby two separate parts become one- impacting each other, becoming something new together without losing the individual separateness.

Like an orchestra.

A family.

What is required to Be With

  • Strong energetic boundaries
  • Internalized co-regulation 
  • Compassion and curiosity
  • Owl brain!

All of these let you join someone’s dysregulation without being engulfed by it.

Sometimes Being With has words.

Sometimes it doesn’t have words at all.

Being With relieves us from the compulsion to fix a situation that isn’t fixable.  

Why Does it Matter

Being With changes the brain. It creates the experience that the brain needs to unlock a neural network and reorganize around regulation and healing.

What about the Tools?

The tools help calm our watchdog and possum brain and give us a sense of “I know what to do…I’m not alone and helpless.”

When my owl brain is stronger, I can be with.  So the tools help us be better at being with.

Eventually, the tools become amplified and that much more powerful when they are offered inside the experience of being with.

The tools – like scripts for when our kid is manipulative or practical strategies to help the child who can’t handle no– give us the confidence to trust that we can be with.  Then the Being With actually becomes the most powerful tool.  They work together in harmony, one needing the other.

Listen on the Podcast

This blog is a short summary of a longer episode on the Parenting after Trauma podcast.
Find the Parenting after Trauma podcast on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app.
Or, you can read the entire transcript of the episode by scrolling down and clicking ‘transcript.’

Robyn

Would you like to explore a complete paradigm-shift on how we see behavior? You can watch my F R E E 45(ish) minute-long masterclass on What Behavior Really Is and How to Change It.
Just let me know where to send the links!

/0 Comments/by

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