The things I most remember about Amy early on were how controlling she was, how passive aggressive she was, and how shut down she was. Her eyes would just glaze over and you couldn’t touch her emotionally. She couldn’t selectively filter out what she didn’t want to feel so she shut down her emotions across the board.

No matter what we did, she found a reason to not like it or to complain. The week Tommy joined us, when Amy was 4, we went to Leaps & Bounds, a play area, and she didn’t like that (“too... more

A reader asked what Amy was like as a child and what behaviors concerned us early on. This is a good question and a difficult one to answer… not because I don’t know the answer, but because it is painful to remember our struggles that originated so early on and never really resolved. Amy was 21 months old and weighed about 21 pounds when she arrived. She was a beautiful child, notwithstanding the dour face and perpetual pout she wore from the very beginning. I was completely clueless about attachment, grief and loss. I... more

A reader asked how Beth responded to our animals and the concept of “rescuing” them. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I did a mediocre job of preparing her for and explaining the circumstances around the loss of Lexie. She also knows Zoë would have been put to sleep if we hadn’t grabbed her when we did. Beth is a very deep thinker and I know she is processing it. She is a child who takes it in, chews on it awhile, and then asks very intelligent and probing questions about the conclusions she makes. She is still in the chewing... more

There is a very interesting thread going on the FRUA list today. A family who hosted an EE child is now hitting roadblocks in making this child a permanent member of the family. This would be this couple’s first child… so they have no frame of reference for parenting at this point. The mom asked… If folks had seen or identified major “red flags” prior to adopting a child who turned out to have serious special needs, would they have proceeded with the adoption anyway? This mom wrote a poignant plea for help in figuring out what... more

Recently a mom on another forum asked how to discern the difference between attachment issues, abandonment issues and anxiety issues. In my opinion, they are variations of the same thing… fear that something bad is going to happen.

I have a friend who has two daughters. My friend had to be away from her first child for two long years when her daughter was between one and three years old. When my friend returned to her daughter, her child “punished” her. The child was angry. Underneath her anger were fear, pain and loss.

Soon after her family... more

I recently received more questions about holding time and when to use it. The reader wanted to know what to do when their child was raging. Is it appropriate to hold a child who melts down after being given a simple request or told “no” for something? Should you hold when the child doesn’t want to be held? (That’s a big question for many people…) The reader also wanted to know if she was busy doing something at bedtime and daddy was putting the child to bed, and the child became hysterical and was crying for mommy, should they practice... more

Recently a comment was made regarding my posts about depression. My reader suggested I had misinterpreted the commercial and she was unhappy with my statement that a depressed person had some responsibility for seeking treatment.

Her thoughtful comment prompted me to research Cymbalta, and depression in general. The Cymbalta website has this to say about depression:

Who Does Depression Hurt? Depression is common, affecting about 121 million... more

Depression hurts everyone. Have you seen that commercial? The one where the Weimaraner dog drops the tennis ball and looks sad, and the little girl looks neglected, and the spouse looks ignored? And the depressed person is crashed on the bed? The commercial keeps repeating, “Depression hurts everyone.” The message of the commercial is… GET SOME HELP. Your problem is becoming everyone else’s problem!

If someone had told me twenty years ago that a child could and would come into my home,... more

Burn out. We live it, we breath it, we define it. We give, give, give and often are met with take, take, take. A good day is when your emotionally disturbed child is neutral… Never mind anything positive coming back. A normal day is when they sabotage, manipulate and attempt to ruin anything fun or positive happening around them. Or maybe they don’t overtly attempt to undermine fun family dynamics, but they are the yoke around the neck of the family just by their negativism and uncooperative... more

Awhile back one of my readers posted a question that I tucked away for a future response… and the time is now. She wanted to know what to do about screaming fits. Here is her question…

The screaming fits? Really let them go? Today it was, "turn off the light!!!" for about 15 minutes, literally screaming bloody murder. One, the light wasn't on it was the fan, two, he could've done it himself and three, I would've done it if asked in a normal tone of voice. One worry I have is how much it torments the other... more