More About Blocked Care- Friday Q&A {EP 130}


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Can you please talk more about blocked care?

This Friday Q&A is a follow up to Episode 123- Healing Blocked Care. 

  1. If connection is a biological imperative, how can I be experiencing blocked care?
  2. How does blocked care fit into the owl, watchdog, and possum approach to the nervous system?
  3. What are some more tips for parents experiencing blocked care?

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Mentioned Resources:

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

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Grief in Parenting Kids with Vulnerable Nervous Systems {EP 129}


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In this episode we tackle the difficult topic of grief. And while we’ve explored grief on the podcast before, it’s something we really can’t talk about enough because, in our culture, grief isn’t talked about enough — especially grief in parenting. Even more so in parenting kids with a history of trauma and toxic stress. 

When we don’t talk about something, when we don’t connect with it or give it relational resonance, we run the risk of it morphing into shame. So, we talk about hard stuff here. 

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Where There is Trauma, There is Grief

A mentor once told me that trauma work is really grief work. 

Underneath all trauma is a need – a really righteous need – that wasn’t met.

And the tapestry of integrating trauma always brings us back to the precipice of the grief.

Facing a Pit of Grief

In my own work, I stood and looked at the pit of grief for a really long time, before I was willing to take any step toward it. My therapist assured me that when my system was ready – when it experienced enough safety – I would be able to face the grief. 

And even as I’ve been able to do the work of grieving, I still struggle to connect with grief – to know how to grieve. 

Unfortunately, no one can tell us how (trust me, I have asked for specific instructions), but I have some thoughts about how we can begin to explore grief on our own paths.

What We Learn about Grief When We are Young

We can start with exploring the cultural (both overt and covert) messages we’ve received about grief in our culture and in our families of origin, etc.

I ask parents these four questions:

  • How does your child know that feelings are ok?
  • How does your child know that it’s ok to have hard or uncomfortable feelings?
  • How does your child know that feeling grief is ok?
  • How does your child know that grief specific to adoption – or to the loss or the trauma that they’ve endured – is ok?

And then, I want you to take those four questions and ask them of yourself: 

  • How did I learn in my own family when I was small that feelings were okay? 
  • And that hard feelings are okay? 
  • And that feeling grief, specifically, is okay? 
  • Or that grief specific to a traumatic loss is okay? 

And now, in your adulthood, how do you show up for yourself in a way that tells you and all of your inner parts, especially your youngest and most vulnerable parts, that all feelings are okay? That hard feelings are okay? That grief is okay? And that grief related to a traumatic loss is okay? 

Can you acknowledge the grief that comes with parenting a child with trauma and toxic stress, a child with big, baffling behaviors and a vulnerable nervous system? 

Can you lean into the truth that although some families may experience what you’d consider to be harder or more worthy of grief, that doesn’t diminish your experience of hard or your righteous grief?

The Role of Self-Compassion

The courage to grieve comes with the courage for being with yourself with self compassion. 

How can you grieve everything you’ve lost, if you can’t have the compassion for yourself, to acknowledge those losses? 

Sometimes you’ll be consumed with grief, and sometimes you’ll be consumed with shame. And sometimes you’ll be able to flex your self-compassion muscle. And sometimes you’ll be able to hold in mindful awareness how exceptionally hard things are for you and your family and your child.

The Grief of Not Being Seen

In our media and in the larger community, families like yours do not get much, if any, representation. Those moments where you encounter parenting advice that doesn’t work for a child with a vulnerable nervous system, can bring up unexpected grief. 

It’s an experience of micro loss when parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems don’t get to be seen and reflected in the ways that other families get to be seen. 

That’s part of what drives me on this podcast: to create a space where you instantly feel seen, without having to work too hard, or sort through too much to find that moment of being known. 

Resources in mentioned in this podcast:

Robyn’s book: Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors

Ongoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The Club

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

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Q&A: My Child Hates Having their Feelings Validated! {EP 128}


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Why does my child hate having their feelings validated?

In this episode, I talk about the top 5 reasons I see about why kids don’t like their feelings validated:

  1. It feels too vulnerable
  2. It feels intrusive
  3. You’re getting it wrong
  4. You’re on the watchdog or possum pathway
  5. They are too far down the watchdog & possum pathway

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

Regulated Does Not Mean Calm https://robyngobbel.com/lisadion

Toxic Shame Series https://robyngobbel.com/toxicshame

Has Trauma Informed Become another Behavior Modification Technique? https://robyngobbel.com/traumainformed/

Robyn

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The Mother Load with Meredith Ethington {EP 127}


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Today on the podcast, I am introducing you to my longtime, dear friend, Meredith Ethington. 

Meredith Ethington is an award winning writer, and published author of The Mother Load coming April 18, 2023 and her 2018 debut parenting book, Mom Life: Perfection Pending. She’s also a mom of three kids residing in Salt Lake City, UT. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She began writing in 2007 as a way to document life as a new mom, but quickly realized that she had a passion for writing, and has turned it into her career.

The Power of Authenticity and Storytelling

When Meredith began blogging back in 2007, she was struck with how much response she got when her writing touched on her own mental health and the often invisible challenges and unspoken struggles in parenting. Parents reached out to her with gratitude and comments like, “I thought it was just me.”

She knew it was important to use her voice to help other parents feel seen and known.

Mental Health and Parenting

Meredith reflects on the challenges of balancing the emotional demands of parenting while honoring our own emotional vulnerability: 

“When you’re parenting with your own personal struggles and trying to maintain your own sense of self and be centered and be present, it’s really challenging when you’ve got a person in front of you that’s even more vulnerable, and needs you to be the person who can hold space for them.”

Can I show up and be here for my child in this moment, and then also allow my own vulnerability to come to the surface and get the attention that it needs and deserves, in a different moment? 

Of course, it is possible – it is always possible – yet it can be challenging to create space for both when, as Meredith calls it, the mother load is demanding so much of us all the time.

The Invisible Load

The invisible mental load that many parents face is one of the factors that Meredith brings to light as impacting mental health.

“Society’s expectations for parents and the pervasive culture of toxic positivity don’t give space for parents to be open and honest about the struggles of mental health and the mental load.”

Meredith’s new book, The Mother Load, is available the day this podcast airs, April 18, 2023.

Resources in mentioned in this podcast:

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

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Q&A: What Does this Look Like with Teens? {EP 126}


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What does this way of parenting look like with teens?

In this episode, I:

  • Reassure you that teens want to be parented with playfulness and connection, too
  • Explore what’s hard about realizing we don’t have control over anyone’s behavior- including our teens
  • Remind you that the behavior you want to see from your teen are all owl brain skills, so keep using regulation, connection, and felt safety to grow their owl brain

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

Parenting in the Eye of the Storm by Katie Naftzger

Brainstorm by Dan Siegel

How to Talk to Your Teen About Anything by Katie Malinski

Podcast episode with Katie Malinski: https://robyngobbel.com/talktoyourteen/

Robyn

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When You Feel Like a Parenting Failure {EP 125}


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Do You Feel Like a Parenting Failure?

For the mom and dad or grandma or grandpa or caregiver who is worried they are making things worse because of how they are parenting:

You have tried so hard to be the parent you want to be.

You have tried so hard to break cycles. To not parent the way you were parented.

And I’ll bet that sometimes, you end up parenting or behaving in exactly the way you are trying not to.

And maybe sometimes it’s really bad.

Not just chicken nuggets instead of a gourmet meal bad- because that’s not bad.

Not just couldn’t make it to your kid’s holiday party at school bad because also- that’s not bad.

And not even just yelling bad.

But maybe saying things or doing things that really truly are bad. 

Things that if you told me about it, we’d sit together in the truth that there are parts of your inner world that are holding a lot of hurt, and sometimes those parts hurt other people, too. 

And maybe that other person is your child.

What I Want You to Know

If we were together, I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you it’s no big deal.

Or that kids are resilient.

I wouldn’t betray your trust by lying to you. I wouldn’t try to make you or me more comfortable.

But I would show you that I could be with you in this place that hurts.

I’d sit you with you in the truth. 

We would grieve.

We’d grieve that it takes more than one generation to heal from multiple generations of hurt and trauma.

We’d grieve that it’s not fair.

We’d grieve that you are likely doing the work of two, three, maybe four generations.

We’d grieve that this is the most painful place to be. The place of awareness- to be able to see that you want to do something different- but not have enough regulation, enough internalization of safety, to do something different. 

And we’d grieve the truth that I can’t promise you that you will have enough regulation to parent the way you want to while your child is still a child.

That maybe your child will have a lot of work to do too to be able to parent the way that they want to.

Then I’d remind you of something really, really, really important.

Something that is almost impossible for you to see.

You might not even believe me.

But one thing that’s true is that I know a lot about the brain.

I’ve held the enormous privilege of being with kids who are hurting, kids who have had unthinkable things happen.

Also adults who have had unthinkable things happen to them.

What Your Child Wants You to Know

They all have told me, in different ways, how it would have mattered to them if their parent had ever acted in a way that suggested they were AWARE of how they were behaving. That they were aware it was hurting them. That they were doing something to try to do things differently- even if they actually couldn’t do anything different.

They would tell me that it matters. That it would have mattered to them if they had a parent who had known they were hurting them and were trying to stop.

You are Not Alone. You are Seen.

And yes. We would sit and acknowledge that it’s not enough. That you want to do different. And in a lot of circumstances you do. And in some circumstances you simply just can’t.

The hurt and the chaos that still lives in your inner world is sometimes still too much.

And it’s not your fault. 

Just like I’m confident that your child’s innerworld is healing at exactly the pace that is right for them, I’m confident that yours is too.

And I know you’re furious, disappointed, angry, devastated…that it can’t be faster.

You’re so mad that you aren’t in control. That you can’t move faster. If we were together, I’d be with you in that mad.

In that rage. In that fury. In that devastation.

We’d be together. I wouldn’t offer you any platitudes. I’d sit with you in your anguish.

And I would know that my willingness to be with you in your deepest pain is the best we can both do. There is no strategy or technique. If there was, you’d have mastered it by now.

But you are being brave by letting me be with you.

You are being brave by allowing your hurt to arise. And to let my presence touch you. 

You are taking in exactly what you can. I trust you. I know that you wish you could go faster. I wish you could too. We’re not in charge.

You see your children’s hurt.

They are seen and known by you.

Not just in their goodness.

But in their hurt.

Even in the hurt that you cause. 

And that really matters. It matters so much.

I promise you.

I’m not trying to make you feel better. But I do want you to know I see you. I see you in your hurt.

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

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Q&A: Should my Child be in Individual or Family Therapy? {EP 124}


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Should my child- who has a history of attachment trauma- be only doing family therapy? Or is it OK for them to do individual therapy?

In this episode, I:

  • Reassure you that this is a nuanced decision with no clear answer
  • Describe when individual therapy might be most appropriate
  • Describe when family therapy might be most appropriate

This is a Friday Q&A episode, where I answer a listener’s question.

Additional Resources:

https://robyngobbel.com/childintherapy

Robyn

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Healing Blocked Care with Melissa Corkum and Lisa Qualls {EP 123}


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Melissa Corkum and Lisa Qualls are the power duo behind The Adoption Connection. They offer support to adoptive families, including a faith-based community Reclaim Compassion. Melissa is both an adoptive mom and an adopted person. Lisa is an adoptive mom, former foster youth, and has lost children to adoption. They are both trained in TBRI and Melissa is a Safe and Sound Protocol provider- she was on the podcast back when I did a series on strengthening the foundation of the brain. Melissa and Lisa have just published an important book together all about helping adoptive parents who are experiencing blocked care. This is their first book together, though Lisa previously published The Connected Parent with Dr. Karyn Purvis. Clearly, these two women are powerhouses in helping parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems and I’m so thrilled to bring you this conversation about blocked care- what it is, what causes it, and how families can begin to recover. 

Keep Reading or Listen on the Podcast

What is Blocked Care

Blocked Care is language identified by Jon Baylin & Dan Hughes which describes the experience whereby: 

Overwhelming stress in a parent’s nervous system can create this subconscious, not on purpose, self-protective mechanism that makes it so that some of the parts of our brain and nervous system that bring us the joy and the compassion into parenting shut down.

This can look like parents who are doing a lot of the actions of parenting (i.e., making therapy appointments, packing lunches, driving kids, etc.), but all the reward of parenting– that reciprocal relationship, the enjoyment, the satisfaction– has left, and it leaves parents feeling a sense of apathy towards parenting, which then cycles into guilt and shame.

The stress in a parent’s nervous system that causes blocked care is not always, but can often be related to big, baffling behaviors.

Especially for Melissa and Lisa’s audience, adoptive and foster families, this can begin with early adverse experiences that a lot of our kids come to us with that are really hard on the nervous system. What’s interesting about blocked care is the parallel experience in the parents. When we’re overwhelmed, or we’ve had adverse experiences, whether in our own lives personally or having to do with relationships with our kids, our nervous system starts to become defensive and protective, which leads to the shutdown of joy, compassion, and reciprocal relationships.

What are the Symptoms

Melissa and Lisa identify 10 signs of blocked care in their book. In our conversation they discussed two signs:

  • Feeling too caught up in coping with your child’s behavior to be curious about the meaning behind it. 
  • Resentment toward one or more of your children or situation as a whole. You may even regret adopting or fostering. 

And there’s no judgment here. This is about your brain and your nervous system trying to protect itself from something that feels very, very confusing. 

An example of this is when adoptive or foster parents make bids for attachment with a child, and it is not received. The parent can become defensive and stop wanting to try to establish those overtures for attachment and connection, because it feels dangerous. So the receiving of it feels dangerous to the child, and eventually, the parent begins to feel the same.

Overcoming Blocked Care

Melissa and Lisa help parents begin healing their nervous systems by looking at three different aspects of their lives: 

  • We look at their internal world. So what’s happening in their nervous system, what’s happening in their mindset; 
  • We look at what’s happening in their external world, their sensory environments; 
  • We look at their relational world to safe people, spiritual relationships, etc. 

“So we really try to look at the whole person, and help parents take a journey through a pathway of healing.”

In their book, each chapter offers simple daily practices that aren’t overwhelming for parents to begin healing their nervous systems. They also encourage parents to prioritize things like sleep and nutrition. 

To hear more about blocked care and how to overcome it, head over to listen to the entire conversation on 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

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