Why Can’t My Child Self-Regulate?

Contributed by Michele Jessee

  • In our house, there has been a lot of talk about Executive Functioning (EF) skills and how they fail to develop in situations where trauma is prevalent.

    And, even skills that were developed can be taxed in times of stress.

    The good news is, even if these skills failed to develop and or have huge gaps, they are trainable at any age… and even in the average person aren’t fully developed until age 30…

    One of the core components of EF is self awareness which kind of controls all other aspects of EF…

    Our kids can name all the emotions and parrot back what they should do but the self awareness of their emotions and or the motivations to cooperate ( which are in the realm of self awareness are hampered in our kids and or adults)

    So, my husband suffers from significant impairments in EF. We were unaware of how much he was impacted because he always worked in fields that were highly structured, like the military or later as a civilian police officer on an army base, he does well in places where things are clear an organized but struggles in environments where the rewards/consequences are less defined like family life. It was not really an issue when he was gone on deployments a lot etc and I just handled everything whether he was home or not to make it easier on us all when he left.

    But, at home, he can’t plan or execute projects effectively. He starts a whole lot of projects and pretty much never finishes them… and doesn’t really plan the project in any way so what he does accomplish will most likely need to have a significant level of redo.

    He’s great at playing with the kids and being a good time dad. He didn’t do discipline on any level ever.

    He worked a lot, probably more because he felt comfortable in that environment and family life made him feel like a fish out of water.

    While he had to process his early trauma, that in and of itself did little to help him develop the EF skills he never gained as he grew.

    He needs to continue his early trauma processing and his Work stemming from trauma experienced in Iraq because processing trauma is part of the self awareness journey, but he also has to learn the skills.

  • It’s like learning to type… at first you have to pay attention to every key stroke to be sure you are hitting the right key and it takes lots of practice before you can type without focusing on each stroke… it becomes automatic…

    Or like learning to drive… have to focus on each small component of the process and you need someone in the car with you for quite some time to support and help… but…,after significant practice and support you are able to do it without as much thought.

    The work is yours but you require support staff to learn to drive. Same is true for developing executive functioning skills.

    It’s interesting to me that most people with executive functioning issues have areas where they can focus, achieve and seem functional and others where they just can’t. I think that component is the most confusing for everyone. If they can cooperate in this situation, why can’t they cooperate in that situation?

    The good news is, they have skills to build on… and the key is using the positive to build the rest and it can be a laborious two steps forward three steps back process.

    And I think it makes it harder when we, as parents are the executive function over achievers and do not struggle in that area.

    Any how, knowing that EF skills are trainable and are hampered from many catalysts… trauma being one of them…

    Are there things we can do to be supports for our kids with EF issues and equally important, are there things we do that exasperate the issues for family members that struggle in this area?

    The work is theirs … what can we do to support that work and what things can we avoid that make it hard for our family members with EF issues?

    What we have found is that the lack of self awareness is a protective mechanism…a wall that served them well when the trauma was happening.

    It’s a huge leap to dive into that pool of pain and acknowledging all that is wrapped in it… and the hardest part… acknowledging that holding onto that way of doing things is harming those around you. That’s hard!

    It’s scary!

    Over and over I am reading that it requires support to recover from EF issues.

    BUT… that support does NOT involve saving them from their actions or making excuses for them… or allowing the behaviors because they have EF issues.

    And research is showing that educating everyone in the family about the issues and that the emotional awareness is key to remediating it all. It seems to make all the difference when it’s presented in a non judge mental… we can fix this fashion.

    No saving, no fixing, no doing their work for them. Firm boundaries… telling them how what they did made you feel… leaving the door open for them to make mistakes …

    Being supportive in their journey but the work is theirs.

  • I know I did these things that perpetuated EF issues in our home:

    1) engaged in arguments they were using to divert attention from the issues( took me a LONG time to break that cycle)

    2) fixed things… it was easier to limit clothes and do the laundry myself than to deal with them learning to work out that learning curve

    3) expected too little of them because it was easier than dealing with all the issues

    4) didn’t offer supports that insisted on emotional awareness… all the above were geared at keeping that from happening …

    5) was not good at I feel statements because I always placed blame…as opposed to simply stating how I felt…

    6) learning to set healthy boundaries was hard because healthy boundaries are about me and what I can control and not an attempt to control them or their choices… so it was a nuance that is still developing….

    7) I felt ashamed of their behavior at times and felt obligated to do something about it… (I should have done something about my feelings and left their actions that made me feel that way alone)

    8- I felt sorry for them and gave them a free pass or I was exhausted and just let things slide because I didn’t have the energy

    9- I then compensated by being all up in their business for a time…

    10- I did not accept that I can not control others and my role is support staff …

    What I have changed:

    1) educating everyone on EF and how critical the emotional awareness and the willingness to be emotionally aware is to improving these skills

    2) realizing that when thrown in a pool everyone will fight to save themselves… if they lack the skills to swim… they will take down everyone with them… because fear is a terrible master … and in their attempt to survive they take everyone down with them…

    3) I learned how to neutralize that fear in myself so they can’t pull me down with them

    4) I learned I can throw them the life preserver but they have to grab hold…

    5) I learned my job was to help them learn to swim and support them in the process but never to let them have me swim for them while they drifted along

    6) EF issues can be exasperated by lack of exercise, sadness, stress so to be patient when life throws a curve ball.

    Mostly I learned to be clear in my understanding that I can not change another person but my actions can certainly make it harder for a person to change.

    If I’m being to demanding, or doing too much for them, or not demanding enough or demanding anything really…

    I can not demand, I can support…

    What really gives me hope is that even adults well past 30 who have poor EF skills can recover…

    In fact when EF improvement strategies are used as the basis for support services for families in crisis… outcomes are much more positive.

  • READ MORE: HARVARD LINK

Why Does Traditional Therapy Fail with Children with RAD?

Nancy Thomas - https://attachment.org/rad-what-therapy-bombs/

Traditional therapy does not reach the parts of the brain most impacted by trauma. If it doesn’t reach them, it can’t heal them.

  1. RAD is a relationship disorder. They cannot establish a relationship with their own mother. Traditional treatments start with the treatment provider establishing a relationship with the client to use as a “trust base” for treatment. They are not capable of step one in the treatment process of these therapies so they clearly can’t get to step two and beyond.

  2. Further research, shows physical proof that when someone with PTSD has an emotion their brain’s logic and language cores literally shut down. This substantiates that they are not capable of learning from words while the emotional centers are active. Those feeling areas are extremely active in any kind of effective therapy. Any parent of a child with RAD can tell you their child does not learn from words! Lectures, warning, reminders, explanations are all useless with this population. They don’t work.

  3. Traditional therapy has the child alone in a room with the therapist. Children with RAD con, lie, and manipulate. It is part of their diagnosis. Alone in a room, with an adult who does not know the truth, they will test the adult by lying, conning or manipulating to see if they can trust that adult. An adult who believes their fables fails the trust test and no help from them will ever be accepted by the child with RAD. With the parent not present there is no one accessible to do a fact check. When an adult is fooled they flunk the child’s test for trust-ability and thus become completely ineffective. Game over!

  4. Providers are taught to take the child in another room and leave the parent in the waiting area. The blatant messages to the child are; “Your parent is not important. Your parent can’t help you. You don’t need them.” That is the opposite message for healing to begin. Parents are essential!

  5. Putting the deeply emotionally disturbed child in control of the treatment is common practice with non-directed play therapy, sand tray therapy and others. These children at any age are too disturbed to make those life changing choices. A trained professional should set up the treatment protocols and guide the therapy, not the disturbed child. Being in control of an adult actually causes a backlash. They do not feel safe when the adults “in charge” can be controlled by a child.

  6. When a trauma-based child does not feel safe they unleash their pent-up fear on their mother after therapy when they get home. These untrained professionals tell parents it is “normal” for that to happen and that those feelings have been stirred up from their past trauma. If that is true why would any caring adult stir up overwhelming feelings in a child and then leave them to deal with it without professional help?


READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE: https://attachment.org/rad-what-therapy-bombs/

Reactive Attachment Disorder: The Essential Guide for Parents

SYNOPSIS: Adopting or fostering a child with reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is beyond challenging. These kids often have violent outbursts, engage in outlandish lying, steal, play with feces, and hoard food. They are broken children who too often break even the most loving of caregivers. Many parents of these children feel utterly isolated as family, friends, and professionals minimize the struggles. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) - The Essential Guide for Parents comes from a parent who’s in the trenches with you. Keri has lived the journey of raising a son with RAD and has navigated the mental health system for over a decade. This is the resource you’ve been waiting for – you won’t find platitudes or false hopes. What you will find is critical information, practical suggestions, and resource recommendations that will provide a way forward.If you desperately need help to navigate the difficult RAD journey with your child, this book is it.

REVIEW: ★★★★★ “I was searching for the silver lining after losing our RAD kid after 6 years. We didn’t have a diagnosis and didn’t have progress with therapists and counselors. How did we not know about RAD? What should professionals have told us prior to adoption? How can we communicate to others that our adoption wasn’t a fairy-tale story when everything looked so ‘nice’ outside of our house? This book is a one-hour read and exactly the resource I set out to create. The low cost makes it easy to buy for family, friends, teachers, coaches and anyone else involved with your RAD kid - including the therapist!” - Chris (July 2021)

BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON: CLICK HERE

My wife said, “So reading a book written by a FBI hostage negotiator will help us parent our RAD?” “Yeah!” (She had no idea how serious I was!!!)

A former FBI hostage negotiator and the founder of the Black Swan Group consulting firm, Chris Voss is an expert when it comes to talking anyone into (or out of) just about anything. Years of experience in high-intensity negotiation settings led him to believe that learning to negotiate successfully can be helpful in all areas of life. Never Split the Difference is a testament to this theory.

Voss believes that most negotiations are irrational and emotionally driven. Approaching them from a rational, academic perspective often results in failure. To negotiate successfully, you must understand the psychology behind a crisis situation and improve your emotional intelligence. Central to Never Split the Difference is a method that Voss calls “Tactical Empathy.” This requires turning listening into a martial art.

Negotiations don’t just take place in hostage and crisis situations. Voss argues that they occur everywhere, constantly. At its core, negotiation is nothing more than communication with results. To get what you want out of life, you need to get what you want from others. In Never Split the Difference, Voss aims to teach you how to take control of the conversations that will influence your life and career. 

This Never Split the Difference summary will guide you through Voss’ negotiation techniques, so you’ll never have to compromise again.

READ THE BOOK SUMMARY: https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/business/never-split-the-difference/