Empowered to Connect Conference

This weekend my husband and I attended the Empowered to Connect conference.  It was powerful and wonderful.  It was emotional!  It took military strategic planning to orchestrate getting all of the kids situated with a total of 6 different families taking various duties of the kids plus our teenagers taking on a huge role to allow us to be gone from 7 a.m. Friday to 7 p.m. Saturday.  But it all went off just fine:)  Soooo thankful for the families who helped us out!!!  So thankful for our responsible teenagers who did a wonderful job watching younger siblings.  My husband and I got to stay away from home sans children for the 5th time in 18 years, 3rd time since we have been a family of more than 4.  It was a delight.  We went out for lunch the first day at Famous Dave's and my husband got to eat the All You Can Eat Ribs special without having the distraction of children lol!  Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory for supper.  That is a special place for us.  Our first time there was in Utah when we met up with the social workers and JJ's Tummy Mommy for the first time.  It was there that she confirmed she wanted us to adopt JJ, she asked me to be there when JJ was born, and she cried when she found out that JJ would be adopted into a family where the daddy cared enough to come up with a name for his son that was not his own...

We were SOOOO looking forward to totally uninterrupted sleep!  However, at 3:30 a.m. a group of apparently drunk people returned to their room just above us and kept us awake for an hour.  Then they got up at 6:30 and made a bunch of racket again.  We mentioned it when we checked out and the staff had already heard plenty about them...  I was so upset that I had forgotten our sound machine at home - I know I would have gotten that always elusive uninterrupted sleep had I just remembered the machine.  But...can't get getting used to such luxuries can I lol!

Most of Saturday Buddy was responsible for JJ.  The two of them have such a special connection.  It brings me much joy to watch them together.  Buddy has his own special nicknames for JJ, "Munchkin," or most frequently, "Munchie."  Buddy smiles and lights up in a special way for JJ that is so precious.  Buddy had a hard time for a few years after we brought the Middles home.  We all had a hard time for years after we brought the Middles home.  I am so glad for the laughter that JJ has brought back to our family.  He is a gift.

Even today when he was quite a bit more ramped up during church than usual and threw a rubber spider (that he was putting on his head) over his head making it land on the floor of the pew in front of us.  I am not sure that those people will ever sit in close proximity to us in church again.  I laughed so hard that I was crying but managed to not make a sound.  Then Buddy started to "steal" the rubber bugs from JJ and that got him being even... sillier.  Yes, it was definitely more of a distracting (and noisy) church service than usual.

Raising kids from hard places is not like raising kids who enjoy "optimal development."  Everything is harder.  Everything is more complicated.  Everything that one thinks they know about parenting must be re-examined, and everything about discipline must be re-examined.

The Empowered to Connect conference taught TBRI, Trust Based Relational Intervention.  TBRI is a way of working with kids who come from hard places that recognizes the implications of what those "hard places" have done to the child neurologically, emotionally, physically, cognitively, etc.  It looks at the child as one who is seeking to "survive" their situation and is, even though they may be safe now, not feeling safe.  Thus, they continue in their old patterns of "survival" that look, to the bewildered and shocked adoptive/foster parents and other caregivers, like willful defiant behavior.  Once the caregiver begins to see the child from a "survival" perspective they can then intervene in ways that make the child feel safe and encourages them to have a "voice" and be "heard" (becoming the coach/mentor and not a warden).  This disarms the child's fear response that makes the child respond in ways that look defiant and willful and helps them come to a place relationally that they use their words appropriately to get their needs met rather than through behaviors that end up making everyone feel like they are living in a prison.

Add on top of that kids who biologically have sensory issues that get way too overstimulated seemingly way too easily.  Then that over stimulation makes it so they aren't able to process or make decisions in logical and rational ways.

On top of that, these kiddos have learned from an early, early age that caregivers are NOT to be trusted.  So if you try to intervene and be helpful they do not process it in a way that "optimally developed" biological children do where the child thinks, "this person loves me and I can trust them so I will calm down and feel safe and move forward with healthy behaviors and choices."  Telling them that they are safe and loved is not sufficient.  They need to feel safe...feel/know/own their preciousness.

That isn't any different from being a child of God, right?  It is one thing to be told that He loves us, died for us, and we can trust Him.  It is entirely a different thing to know in your heart, in your very marrow that He created, died for, and intimately knows and cares for us...to the level that we can completely and totally trust Him for ALL things and stop trying to wrestle control from Him.

Anyway, having kids who have these difficulties makes for parenting that feels like playing the Wipe Out course.  And for the child it is exponentially worse.  And if there is more than one child in the home...

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And this brings me to the vulnerable part of my post.  I attended the TBRI training for masters and doctorate level providers back in 2011.  It was a 10 week pre-course of 5 modules of lectures, research articles, and books followed by tests.  Then  we went to TCU and I sat for 40 hours that week with 80 other professionals and learned about how to implement TBRI.  It was like drinking from a fire hose.  The perspective was unlike that which I had been taught before but having had our 1st kiddos home for almost 5 years at that point I knew that it was what we needed to know.  I had to wrap my mind around how it was different philosophically.  We implemented many of the changes with JJ right away.  It was admittedly harder with the other kids as we had already developed patterns of responding with them, many of which were not consistent with TBRI.

I have been continuing to use TBRI at home and use it in counseling often.  However, my husband only knew what I had been telling him so we thought it would be helpful to go again to the parents version.  Much of it was similar but much of it struck me differently this time.  Probably because we are in such a very, very hard place in parenting some of the kiddos right now and part of it because I already had enough understanding of TBRI from a "nuts and bolts" perspective that I was able to process it more emotionally this time.  Much more emotionally.

I found myself filtering the conference from several different perspectives and it made my head swim to do so.  I am posting this in part to try to keep that all straight.

First, I thought of it from a professional perspective.  There is new research and new information out since 2011 and it was great to hear the information.  Also, because it wasn't so "new" to me, I was able to fill in blanks in a way that answered many of the questions that I have had regarding the "hows" of implementation.

Second, I thought of it from the perspective of someone who is going to present it in less than 1 week.  I already had the presentation done, but I realized that I wrote it all from a perspective of "how" rather than addressing the "why."  It is a very different way of conceptualizing our kids than traditional parenting, psychology, or even the church would advise.  Therefore, I devoted a separate section in my notes just for what I have to change in my presentation to help the attendees understand why they need to use TBRI.  I have to laugh, my husband is not one for sitting still and listening to anything without falling asleep.  He had to alternate between sitting and standing just to stay awake while I was so busy feverishly writing all kinds of notes that I wished I could just tape it all.

Thankfully, at the end they said that we could buy an audiotape of the conference.  I will be doing that.  I am hoping that it will be a good refresher for my husband and I to listen to again and that the teenagers can also listen to parts of it and better understand.  Living in this house is traumatic for them too.  But, I am also hoping that our friends, and hopefully our family, will be interested in listening to it if they want to better understand us - or other families who are have "kids from hard places."  There is another conference in September in Eden Prairie, MN and I cannot more highly recommend going.  I am happy to loan out my audio of the conference though if anyone at all wants to hear it if you want to better understand (but it is not the same as seeing it;)

Third, I processed it from the perspective of a parent.  I had a hard time not crying when I was confronted with the many mistakes that I make.  Parenting these kiddos is so utterly exhausting.  I don't have much in me at the end of the day but to just get the "needs" done.  I have known for a long time that I don't have much joy anymore.  Everything seems to be "how long can we survive until the next blow up?"  Those happen multiple times a day.  I began to see the message behind the blow ups differently and began to have hope that this ship really can be turned around.  Being there with my husband and having him hear and understand was necessary for me to know that I am not trying to do this myself.

They spent quite a bit of time talking about attachment.  I have learned tons about attachment in the past but there was a slight shift in the way that they talked about it this time that really, profoundly clicked for me.  It wasn't as a professional looking at it from the outside, but as a parent who yearns to be attached to my children.  It may be the biggest shift yet in my parenting and was very emotional for me.

Fourth, #3 led to me processing it from a perspective how I was parented.  Pealing back the layers of how I parent, and why I parent the way that I do brought me deep levels of regret and vulnerability.  I will attempt to say this in a way that is as honoring to my parents as I can be, but I began to look at the patterns how I was parented and although I have long realized "why" things were done the way they were and have "dealt"with it, I never wanted to parent that way.  Yet, I realized that in the chaos of parenting 3 toddlers who had come from hard places, I went right back to that pattern.  And, even worse, I have realized that since the loss of Superman and Faith's little sister, I retreated even further into that pattern.  If I am completely honest, I do not think that I used that pattern at all with our 2 bio kids prior to the Time of the Toddlers.  My husband doesn't think so either.  I also don't think that I have used that pattern with JJ.

It essentially comes down to this: do my children experience me as being emotionally present and attentive to them?  I am not talking about just being physically in their lives (my husband or I are with the kids 95% of the time...or more).  I am not also not talking about just meeting their physical needs.  But emotionally do they feel like our hearts are connected?  Or... do I close myself off?  I think that the reason we had so many issues with the now teenagers after the Middles came was that they had me before... and I retreated.  Keeping oneself emotionally present for the constant emotionally needs of the kiddos was like having 1000 vacuums simultaneously sucking at my soul.  We "got 'er done" in the physical, but not emotionally.

I have to laugh at our kid's responses to me today.  All the way home my husband and I talked about the practical things we need to do differently.  The vast majority of them have to do with how we handle JJ and Grace's "emotional dysregulation" moments (or...longer than moments).  Dysregulation happens constantly in this house and it feels like we walk a minefield.  There were good suggestions on how and when to intervene.  So, I implemented some of the tools that I wasn't using before.  Beautiful said to me many times last night, "Mom!  What is wrong with you?!?!"  She said it again this  afternoon, "Mom!  You don't have to use that fake happy voice!"  However, Grace then jumped in with, "Yes she does!  She hasn't yelled at all today!"  Sigh...The teens know it is not authentic (yet...I WILL get there!!!  I WILL find the joy in this!!!) but the constantly dysregulated children are responding as they should...No level 4 behaviors yet today, only 1 level 3 behavior, quite a few level 2 behaviors, and a mostly we have stayed at level 1 behaviors.  That, in this house, is major, major improvement.

I expect that I will remain exhausted, but I am hoping that this shift will calm things overall...over time.  They say it will take 1 month of consistent intervention per 1 year of the child to overcome this...we've got time;)

Gotta go...a child is quickly disregulating and I must go intervene!

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Well that went to a level 4, but we got back on track:)
Then another child went to a level 3 for too long but we got that back too.

Always an adventure:)  Off to rock and snuggle 4 kids while watching Andy Griffith!!