and secure care giving.”15 Sheri Pickover, Clinical Director at University of Detroit Mercy Counseling Clinic, notes, “Attachment patterns become a self-fulfilling prophecy, trapping the child in a circle of despair.”16
Intentional therapeutic parenting revolves around emotional and physical security. The child’s perception of that security will ebb and flow over time. Some days the child will be more open to the security than other days. Figuratively, this secure base must be like a concrete foundation without cracks and swept clean of dust and debris. The family will not be perfect, but must be conscious of personal shortcomings and openly share their life struggles. They must “sweep” their foundation daily by discussing life’s difficulties, how they resolved problems and how they managed distress. These experiences become the child’s building blocks for how to handle distress, accept others’ and their own imperfections and learn problem-solving skills.
The secure base includes the child experiencing the parents’ taking care of all physiological, safety and relational needs. At times when the child “perceives” the parent not meeting one of these, their secure base is threatened. Trust is the first relational skill babies learn. When a baby can trust his caregivers to keep him safe, the baby is free to explore. Without this safety, a baby’s exploration is restricted. Early trauma and attachment disruptions prevent healthy growth. Children with early trauma do not always know how to play or even occupy themselves without making poor behavior choices.
Amy’s Family
Lori felt like she was a one-woman entertainment program. All day long, Amy demanded to be played with or occupied. When Lori ran out of ideas, she and Amy went shopping for new toys or clothing. Lori was afraid to ask Amy to play by herself, because she always got into trouble—mostly rummaging through her parents’ belongings or breaking things. Amy was not developing independence or a healthy curiosity about how the world works. Evaluating Amy from a secure base/safe haven model, one would say that she did not have a secure base from which to explore.
Each new independent action supports the child’s belief that “I can do it myself.” Through years of exploration and returning to the secure base/safe haven, children will move through stages with mastery. In a secure base, parents are emotionally regulated and available. Emotionally-attuned parents of infants co-regulate with their children. Co-regulation is a corrective interpersonal and emotional experience that occurs when an infant expresses fear to the parent (cries), the parent feels the same emotion (fear), the parent calms him or herself (understands the infant’s need) and then connects (soothes baby) and conveys that same calmness to the baby via words and actions (meets need). This series of events calms the infant. Healthy babies and caregivers interact similarly dozens of times a day.
Emotionally-dysregulated parents equal insecurity and fear. A dysregulated parent may not be safe or able to meet the child’s needs. Parents will have emotions. As they demonstrate ways to handle their emotions, their child will learn new skills. These skills will be addressed in a later section. Treatment professionals frequently ask that children be taught to regulate their emotions. Emotional regulation cannot be cognitively taught, as cognitive information is stored in the thinking part of the brain. We all lose our ability to think when emotionally dysregulated. We all have emotional responses. Children benefit by watching their parents regulate their own emotions and thereby experiencing co-regulation.
Creating the Healing Home with Parenting Goals and Skills Creating the Healing Home with Parenting Goals and Skills
Allan excitedly opened his mail, a letter from his maternal grandmother. She rarely contacted him, but she did remember his birthday. When Allan gazed down at the card, he exclaimed, “Doesn’t she know I am not a little kid?” Throwing down the card, he walked away. I tried approaching the topic throughout the day, but he always changed the subject. It felt like he was punishing us for the card. All day long I was settling fights and handing out consequences. I knew I should talk to him about his fears and sadness, but I could not force him.
Nothing provokes him enough to express his deep feelings. Even letters from his birth family don’t seem to interest him. He did like the dog drawing his birth father sent. Shouldn’t he want to talk about everything that has happened to him? When I told him that he can talk to me about anything, he said, “Why is it that everyone says that to me?” I have no answers.
—Faye Hall
EMOTIONAL COGNITIVE TRAUMA MODEL
Fourteen years of hard work, research, training and experimentation gave birth to the Emotional Cognitive Trauma Model (ECTM). It has changed and morphed since co-author Jeff Merkert began using storytelling to illustrate the impact of trauma on developing infant brains and internal beliefs working with client families. Over the years, Jeff has perfected the presentation and provides it to families and their support systems. We struggled with naming it. Faye gravitates to emotional work and Jeff to cognitive work; thus the name. The story links neurology, the impact of trauma on the brain and the damage created with attachment disruptions.
Throughout this book, parents are encouraged to see themselves as the ones who will help their child heal. The task can be overwhelming, especially for families with more than one foster or adoptive child in the home. The parents are on duty 24/7.
In this chapter, keys to success and goals are clearly defined and parents are instructed in interactive skills with their children. These are the foundations to navigate healing, without which treatment will not be successful. Please remember this is relational and emotional work, not behavioral.
Keys to Success
1. Parents explore their own emotional and cognitive world. Some of our most successful families are those who have explored their own history. They’ve done or, even better, are still doing, the hard work of examining their own fears and changing their response to them. These parents have empathy for their child and can be an encouragement as the child is challenged to do the same. Parents with a trauma history that is not explored or integrated into their narrative tend to be punitive and demeaning. Some have stated that “I got over it, why can’t they?” This lack of empathy prevents co-regulation between parent and child.
2. Parents increase or improve their self-regulation skills. Self-regulation is needed for co-regulation and the ability to remain calm when the child has disruptive behaviors. Our own histories and upbringings leave some parents with a “short fuse” or a feeling of being easily overwhelmed. Parents need to be on their “A” game in self-regulation when interacting with traumatized children. This leaves most of us with room to grow. Fortunately, this growth actually facilitates the same growth in our children. Children with a history of abuse and neglect likely have not learned to co-regulate with their birth parent. This will be one of the first interventions that occurs with treatment. Parents will be handicapped if they cannot regulate their own emotions. Without regulation, parents can overreact to the child’s behaviors and reinforce the child’s N-IWM. Sadly, parents are often counseled to over-regulate their own emotions. The professional may state, “Keep yourself calm; don’t communicate sadness or fear to avoid triggering your child, which causes an escalation cycle.” The problem with this strategy is that observation is the primary tool for learning personal emotional regulation. Can we really expect children to learn from lecture alone without observation of our own emotional responses? Being emotionally regulated does not mean being unemotional or flat in our expression of emotion.
