Attachment and radical unschooling
Tiffani
A bit of background. We adopted our daughter at age 8 she is 13 now. We have 4 boys by birth. She is age wise in the middle of the boys.
Is it possible to completely radically unschool a child with an attachment issue? She has frontal lobe damage due to drug use in utero. And attachment issues due to multiple placements till she came to us. We are currently in therapy. We have stayed away from therapist till now because all they saw was a damaged child that needed strict punishments for any infraction.
I have been learning all I can about radical unschooling philosophies for a couple of years and I am beginning to see very clearly my relationship with the boys. I am still very confused with my daughter. She has these needs that I can not fill up. When I have tried to give her as much attention as she wants/needs she wants way more then I can give without it being detrimental to the boys. She would be perfectly happy to keep me all to herself. Is there a way to form appropriate attachment?
I am trying to work with this new therapist in a way that is unschooling friendly. She seems willing then she explains how if I control everything for my daughter she will learn to control herself. Example Strictly structured days. Any thoughts?
Tiffani
Is it possible to completely radically unschool a child with an attachment issue? She has frontal lobe damage due to drug use in utero. And attachment issues due to multiple placements till she came to us. We are currently in therapy. We have stayed away from therapist till now because all they saw was a damaged child that needed strict punishments for any infraction.
I have been learning all I can about radical unschooling philosophies for a couple of years and I am beginning to see very clearly my relationship with the boys. I am still very confused with my daughter. She has these needs that I can not fill up. When I have tried to give her as much attention as she wants/needs she wants way more then I can give without it being detrimental to the boys. She would be perfectly happy to keep me all to herself. Is there a way to form appropriate attachment?
I am trying to work with this new therapist in a way that is unschooling friendly. She seems willing then she explains how if I control everything for my daughter she will learn to control herself. Example Strictly structured days. Any thoughts?
Tiffani
Sandra Dodd
-=- She seems willing then she explains how if I control everything for my daughter she will learn to control herself. Example Strictly structured days. Any thoughts?-=-
http://sandradodd.com/control
Control, strict and structure all in one short space that way makes me think that it might be beneficial for you to change counsellors or augment.
Michelle Barone does counselling and knows all about unschooling. http://www.michellebarone.net/
If your current counselling is at a discount or on local insurance, maybe one session with Michelle to get advice on how to explain to your other counsellor might be worth it. :-)
Don't shortchange your boys. Maybe hiring another older kid or teen to do things with your daughter sometimes (like a mother's helper)--to play with her, or do art with her or whatever she likes, so you can spend more time with the boys and have a break, would be a better use of fund than counselling, at some point.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://sandradodd.com/control
Control, strict and structure all in one short space that way makes me think that it might be beneficial for you to change counsellors or augment.
Michelle Barone does counselling and knows all about unschooling. http://www.michellebarone.net/
If your current counselling is at a discount or on local insurance, maybe one session with Michelle to get advice on how to explain to your other counsellor might be worth it. :-)
Don't shortchange your boys. Maybe hiring another older kid or teen to do things with your daughter sometimes (like a mother's helper)--to play with her, or do art with her or whatever she likes, so you can spend more time with the boys and have a break, would be a better use of fund than counselling, at some point.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Robin Bentley
> Don't shortchange your boys. Maybe hiring another older kid or teenNo, don't shortchange your boys. But you could carve out a few special
> to do things with your daughter sometimes (like a mother's helper)--
> to play with her, or do art with her or whatever she likes, so you
> can spend more time with the boys and have a break, would be a
> better use of fund than counselling, at some point.
>
outings with her, too, if the boys are happy to be with dad.
It might fill her up to have some focused mother-daughter moments.
Being the only girl in a family with 4 boys can be challenging,
regardless of attachment issues.
Robin B.
lalow
You might look at http://beyondconsequences.com/
She is not an unschooler but I have found much of what she suggests to be "unschooling friendly". She deels with attachment/adoption related issues from a unique approach.
She is not an unschooler but I have found much of what she suggests to be "unschooling friendly". She deels with attachment/adoption related issues from a unique approach.
Tress Miles
Hi Tiffani,
I have a 9 year old adopted daughter with attachment issues. I am single
and she is my only child, so I'm not qualified to speak to the issue of
having several additional children.
Unschooling is the ONLY form of schooling that my daughter can tolerate. I
was a teacher/administrator for 27 years, and I jokingly tell people that
my daughter dragged me kicking and screaming into Unschooling:) But she is
a natural at it. I think I am still deschooling myself.
My daughter does not have fetal drug or alcohol exposure, so I'm not
qualified to speak to that, either.
Another person mentioned the website www.beyondconsequences.com. I would
recommend it highly, as the resources on that site have helped me
immeasurably with my daughter's emotional issues. Also, there is a
parents' yahoo group associated with that website that I would recommend.
[email protected]. The people who post on that
group all have children with attachment issues and have been helpful to
me. Many of them are also unschooling for the same reason that I am.
Best wishes,
Tress, mom to Lillie,9, adopted at 26 mos.
I have a 9 year old adopted daughter with attachment issues. I am single
and she is my only child, so I'm not qualified to speak to the issue of
having several additional children.
Unschooling is the ONLY form of schooling that my daughter can tolerate. I
was a teacher/administrator for 27 years, and I jokingly tell people that
my daughter dragged me kicking and screaming into Unschooling:) But she is
a natural at it. I think I am still deschooling myself.
My daughter does not have fetal drug or alcohol exposure, so I'm not
qualified to speak to that, either.
Another person mentioned the website www.beyondconsequences.com. I would
recommend it highly, as the resources on that site have helped me
immeasurably with my daughter's emotional issues. Also, there is a
parents' yahoo group associated with that website that I would recommend.
[email protected]. The people who post on that
group all have children with attachment issues and have been helpful to
me. Many of them are also unschooling for the same reason that I am.
Best wishes,
Tress, mom to Lillie,9, adopted at 26 mos.
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 9:36 PM, Tiffani <tiffermomof5@...> wrote:
> **
>
>
> A bit of background. We adopted our daughter at age 8 she is 13 now. We
> have 4 boys by birth. She is age wise in the middle of the boys.
>
> Is it possible to completely radically unschool a child with an attachment
> issue? She has frontal lobe damage due to drug use in utero. And attachment
> issues due to multiple placements till she came to us. We are currently in
> therapy. We have stayed away from therapist till now because all they saw
> was a damaged child that needed strict punishments for any infraction.
>
> I have been learning all I can about radical unschooling philosophies for
> a couple of years and I am beginning to see very clearly my relationship
> with the boys. I am still very confused with my daughter. She has these
> needs that I can not fill up. When I have tried to give her as much
> attention as she wants/needs she wants way more then I can give without it
> being detrimental to the boys. She would be perfectly happy to keep me all
> to herself. Is there a way to form appropriate attachment?
>
> I am trying to work with this new therapist in a way that is unschooling
> friendly. She seems willing then she explains how if I control everything
> for my daughter she will learn to control herself. Example Strictly
> structured days. Any thoughts?
> Tiffani
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Meredith
"Tiffani" <tiffermomof5@...> wrote:
It will help not to get hung up on "radically unschool".
Is it possible for a person with an attachment issue to learn? Yes. To learn naturally as a part of living life? Yes. Her needs are going to be more intense in some ways, but not fundamentally different from the needs of other humans. She'll probably need to "deschool" in some ways much much longer than others and need more help for longer. It might help you keep the idea of learning, and what sorts of things support natural learning, in the front of your mind. Here's a handy link for that:
http://sandradodd.com/pam/principles
In some ways, she doesn't need an "appropriate attachment" so much as a re-do of her early childhood - and that's rough, especially as you have other kids. Do you co-sleep at all? That's something which could help her, if she's interested. But besides looking for ways to help her feel more loved and connected, it's good to realize you may never be able to fill her all the way up -that's one way of thinking about what it means to have an attachment disorder. You don't get "perfect" you get to help, you get to move things closer to fine than otherwise.
This is something I think about with Ray from time to time. He doesn't have attachment issues, but he does have big holes in his life. Now and then, when I'm really down about how less-than-ideal his life is, it helps me to stop and consider what his life might have been without unschooling - and since I have a few years of homeschool and school to use as a comparison, it's really easy for me to see that we've done a whole lot to make his life much, much better than it would have been.
This is one where it helps to step away from the word "control" and consider the principles behind what the therapist is saying. People like regularity. People like patterns. People like to feel safe and secure. In conventional parenting, "control" creates regular patterns and a sense of safety. The downside is that controlling another person makes it harder for that person to learn to make thoughtful choices.
Notice what helps your daughter feel a sense of predictability and safety. Look for ways to offer her more of those things. When Ray was younger, it helped him to have meals and snacks at regular intervals - above and beyond having food available, it helped him have a *routine* . So I created a routine of regular meals and snacks around his natural rhythms. That helped me get breaks from running around, it helped him have a sense of predictability, and it helped keep him from getting stressed from running low on fuel. I created the routine, but it wasn't randomly assigned times, it was times which worked for Ray. Similarly, Ray had a hard time searching for things - he'd melt down if he couldn't find things easily. So I made sure his things and things he'd want to look for (movies, snacks, etc) easy to find by keeping them organized and put away. It was a little more work at first, but compared to dealing with Ray melting down... no, it was waaaay less work than that.
Now, from the outside, that could look like "structure" or "control" but it was done in response to his actual needs, not based on a theory of what "kids like him" needed. And it wasn't about controlling Him so much as making the environment friendly and easier for him to navigate so he had less stress in his life. He didn't have a stress-free life because at that time we had a 50/50 custody split so he was going back and forth from our house to a very chaotic situation where he didn't always know where he was going to sleep and when or where he would eat. But by making One home predictable and reassuring, he was less stressed overall and could manage the rest of his life more easily.
That's a different situation from your daughter, but the principles are still the same. You Can't make her whole life easy and predictable and secure - in part because of her past. But making things predictable, helping her have a sense of the patterns in part of her life will make it easier for her to handle the rest.
---Meredith
>> Is it possible to completely radically unschool a child with an attachment issue?**************
It will help not to get hung up on "radically unschool".
Is it possible for a person with an attachment issue to learn? Yes. To learn naturally as a part of living life? Yes. Her needs are going to be more intense in some ways, but not fundamentally different from the needs of other humans. She'll probably need to "deschool" in some ways much much longer than others and need more help for longer. It might help you keep the idea of learning, and what sorts of things support natural learning, in the front of your mind. Here's a handy link for that:
http://sandradodd.com/pam/principles
>>She would be perfectly happy to keep me all to herself. Is there a way to form appropriate attachment?***************
In some ways, she doesn't need an "appropriate attachment" so much as a re-do of her early childhood - and that's rough, especially as you have other kids. Do you co-sleep at all? That's something which could help her, if she's interested. But besides looking for ways to help her feel more loved and connected, it's good to realize you may never be able to fill her all the way up -that's one way of thinking about what it means to have an attachment disorder. You don't get "perfect" you get to help, you get to move things closer to fine than otherwise.
This is something I think about with Ray from time to time. He doesn't have attachment issues, but he does have big holes in his life. Now and then, when I'm really down about how less-than-ideal his life is, it helps me to stop and consider what his life might have been without unschooling - and since I have a few years of homeschool and school to use as a comparison, it's really easy for me to see that we've done a whole lot to make his life much, much better than it would have been.
>>this new therapist... explains how if I control everything for my daughter she will learn to control herself.*****************
This is one where it helps to step away from the word "control" and consider the principles behind what the therapist is saying. People like regularity. People like patterns. People like to feel safe and secure. In conventional parenting, "control" creates regular patterns and a sense of safety. The downside is that controlling another person makes it harder for that person to learn to make thoughtful choices.
Notice what helps your daughter feel a sense of predictability and safety. Look for ways to offer her more of those things. When Ray was younger, it helped him to have meals and snacks at regular intervals - above and beyond having food available, it helped him have a *routine* . So I created a routine of regular meals and snacks around his natural rhythms. That helped me get breaks from running around, it helped him have a sense of predictability, and it helped keep him from getting stressed from running low on fuel. I created the routine, but it wasn't randomly assigned times, it was times which worked for Ray. Similarly, Ray had a hard time searching for things - he'd melt down if he couldn't find things easily. So I made sure his things and things he'd want to look for (movies, snacks, etc) easy to find by keeping them organized and put away. It was a little more work at first, but compared to dealing with Ray melting down... no, it was waaaay less work than that.
Now, from the outside, that could look like "structure" or "control" but it was done in response to his actual needs, not based on a theory of what "kids like him" needed. And it wasn't about controlling Him so much as making the environment friendly and easier for him to navigate so he had less stress in his life. He didn't have a stress-free life because at that time we had a 50/50 custody split so he was going back and forth from our house to a very chaotic situation where he didn't always know where he was going to sleep and when or where he would eat. But by making One home predictable and reassuring, he was less stressed overall and could manage the rest of his life more easily.
That's a different situation from your daughter, but the principles are still the same. You Can't make her whole life easy and predictable and secure - in part because of her past. But making things predictable, helping her have a sense of the patterns in part of her life will make it easier for her to handle the rest.
---Meredith
Dola Dasgupta
My daughter was four months old when we adopted her. She is now 10. I have
another friend who also adopted their daughter as an infant. we are both
unschooling our children. I have a son who is biological and is now 6. And
this friend of mine has a biological first born. I really like Sandra's
idea of mother help....I have done that time and again with my daughter.
And my son only wants me. it has often worked out greatly with my
daughter....
This other friend of mine has also done this with her daughter....and
somehow it works wonderfully....
I also like the idea of mom and daughter time and outings...it works nicely
doing feminine stuff together..We do this.
And as someone mentioned here in one of the threads....there is a hole
which cannot be healed by you perhaps....and learning to stay with that
discomfort....and doing and also not doing what you can mindfully out of
unconditional love for your daughter.....till the time you and she can
embrace this discomfort....without perceiving it as right or wrong or bad
or good...you can be responsible from now onwards...and not for what has
already happened with her....you really had no role to play in her past
when she was not with you....try not to take that on to yourself...work on
the relationship from the here and now.....And really unschooling gives you
and your daughter all the time and space it needs for this to
blossom....And it might take many years....but it is worth it....
DOLA
another friend who also adopted their daughter as an infant. we are both
unschooling our children. I have a son who is biological and is now 6. And
this friend of mine has a biological first born. I really like Sandra's
idea of mother help....I have done that time and again with my daughter.
And my son only wants me. it has often worked out greatly with my
daughter....
This other friend of mine has also done this with her daughter....and
somehow it works wonderfully....
I also like the idea of mom and daughter time and outings...it works nicely
doing feminine stuff together..We do this.
And as someone mentioned here in one of the threads....there is a hole
which cannot be healed by you perhaps....and learning to stay with that
discomfort....and doing and also not doing what you can mindfully out of
unconditional love for your daughter.....till the time you and she can
embrace this discomfort....without perceiving it as right or wrong or bad
or good...you can be responsible from now onwards...and not for what has
already happened with her....you really had no role to play in her past
when she was not with you....try not to take that on to yourself...work on
the relationship from the here and now.....And really unschooling gives you
and your daughter all the time and space it needs for this to
blossom....And it might take many years....but it is worth it....
DOLA
On Tuesday, April 3, 2012, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
>
> -=- She seems willing then she explains how if I control everything for
my daughter she will learn to control herself. Example Strictly structured
days. Any thoughts?-=-
>
> http://sandradodd.com/control
> Control, strict and structure all in one short space that way makes me
think that it might be beneficial for you to change counsellors or augment.
>
> Michelle Barone does counselling and knows all about unschooling.
http://www.michellebarone.net/
>
> If your current counselling is at a discount or on local insurance, maybe
one session with Michelle to get advice on how to explain to your other
counsellor might be worth it. :-)
>
> Don't shortchange your boys. Maybe hiring another older kid or teen to do
things with your daughter sometimes (like a mother's helper)--to play with
her, or do art with her or whatever she likes, so you can spend more time
with the boys and have a break, would be a better use of fund than
counselling, at some point.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
--
thou-art-thy-creator
http://thouartthycreator.wordpress.com/
*"Be kind to yourself and others,*
*Come from love every moment you can,*
*Speak of love with others. Remind each other of your spiritual purpose,*
*Never give up hope,*
*Know that you are loved." - Deepak Chopra from Love Sutras...*
*
*
*'Laughter we share generates more laughter, and the love we create
together spreads by leaps and bounds.' *
*
*
*Much love and warmth*
* Dola Dasgupta*
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
usuheinerfam
Tiffani,
There is an unschooling mom here in Idaho that adopted a daughter at a bit older age than your daughter and her daughter fits right in the middle of her kids also. She's struggled a *lot* but things seem to be going much more smoothly in the last year or so. Her Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/irishwildflower if you want to try contacting her since she's been in such a similar situation. Also, Laurie Coutoure adopted a son through foster care (her only child) and is vocal about radical unschooling being the only thing that would have worked for him. She is too strident and militant for my taste but I'm sure she would have some insight and ideas that could help you. She's at https://www.facebook.com/laurieacouture.
There is an unschooling mom here in Idaho that adopted a daughter at a bit older age than your daughter and her daughter fits right in the middle of her kids also. She's struggled a *lot* but things seem to be going much more smoothly in the last year or so. Her Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/irishwildflower if you want to try contacting her since she's been in such a similar situation. Also, Laurie Coutoure adopted a son through foster care (her only child) and is vocal about radical unschooling being the only thing that would have worked for him. She is too strident and militant for my taste but I'm sure she would have some insight and ideas that could help you. She's at https://www.facebook.com/laurieacouture.