EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique: Tapping

EFT is the acronym for Emotional Freedom Technique, commonly refereed to as Tapping. It is based on the Chinese acupressure points. It is possible to lead the child in tapping, with you tapping each point on your self and saying the script out loud and the child following your lead and repeating the script. If your child can't or won't do that, you can tap on them directly, speaking the script as you go. There are many scripts you can find online, with videos to follow. If you stick with it, your child will memorize scripts and be able to use them at the appropriate times.

The illustration above shows the acupressure points used. I always start with the forehead, work my way downwards, then end with the crown of the head. 

This link to Lisa's Life in the Grateful House where I started. She has such a good post as to why you should tap, that I will let you read it there. I am using tapping on myself, particularly after Hope has used up my last ounce of energy. I use it with GB to reinforce the self-talk she already has been taught as a technique to use when she is overwhelmed. For Hope, I am using a script Lisa and her daughter made up just for Hope. There are also  RAD scripts on Lisa's blog to get you started.

It has only been a couple of weeks that we have been tapping, but both girls request it. GB has actually requested that I tap with her when she has recognized she is getting dysregulated. 


Tapping isn't a cure for our kids, but it is another tool to use on our journey of parenting special needs children.

Couples Counseling

The kids spent three hours at Kid's Kingdom in the Little City. The Dad and I drove them, with MK, paid for their admission, and gave MK money for lunch. We picked them up three hours later and nobody wanted to leave.


We did this to manufacture time for The Dad and I to  spend alone. We went out to lunch and then to couples counseling. Couples who raise special needs children have an extraordinarily high divorce rates. Throw a RADish or two in there, expert at pitting one parent against the other, and professional help can be a necessity, not a luxury. Divorced Trama Mama's aren't a rare breed and the norm for Trauma Mama's can be strained relations between them and their other half.

The Dad and I have been married a long time. We have even survived raising a RADish together. Surviving is not good enough. We are looking for more. I have not kept Hope's struggles a secret. Our life is never easy, but the last eight weeks had pushed us over the cliff. We were not in sync at all. Hence, couples counseling. We are working for our future. God has better things in store for us. We are looking forward to our future together and if we need help to get there, we get help.

Professional Crap Not Needed

Still recuperating from surgery. It is difficult to be down for the count and try to manage things from flat on my butt. One week and three days and I will be mobile again. Lots going on here, but I just couldn't muster up the energy to post. A friend had an experience yesterday, my adrenaline started  flowing, and this was the result.

All of our children deserve the best medical care we can find. When the child has special needs, it is even more critical. Those of us with a high maintenance special needs  child know it is necessary for our family's survival. And there's the rub... our families do not look or interact like typical families. There are an infinitesimal number of highly qualified professionals who also understand that since our families aren't created out of typical children, they will never look typical. We are ordinary people in  extraordinary  situations. Some of us are overweight, some of us are not socially adept, some of us are performing most of the time, some are always moving, others of us are  a perfectionist or overly critical. We are imperfect people, like everyone else.

It is really discouraging to have an outstanding team of professionals lined up to treat our high maintenance special needs child, only to have one of them veer off into you and what you need. I had one tell me it was unfair to GB to keep Hope. In my world, neither helpful nor a solution. If GB's shrink spent her appointment discussing how much weight I needed to lose, that would also be neither helpful nor a solution. If my kid had cancer, everybody would be shocked at an oncologist who spent forty-five minutes telling me how much weight I need to lose or how much stress my child's cancer is putting my other children under and how I need to make different arrangements.

Our children have specials needs through no fault of theirs or ours. We are people trying to do the best we can for our kids. We do not need professional crap.

A Year Later

A year ago today, we were visiting J's family, sunning on the shores of Lake Michigan contemplating whether GB was up to trying fire works (she wasn't). Hope was a picture at the CHASK website that I couldn't get out of my head. We had not been considering another adoption, not even in passing.At first, the possibility of adopting  sounded both flaky and distant. I wouldn't have given any odds on us actually adopting Hope. Less than two months later, we had finalized her adoption, brought her home and she was ours forever.

I am not the same person that I was a year ago. I have no reason for having adopted Hope, except that there really wasn't any choice. Sounds crazy, I know. I am a work in progress, have been a work in progress for a long time. I have been sure about God and my relationship with Him for longer than I have had memories. He made me what I am through many unique experiences and trials. The person God made me into was unable to say no to adopting Hope.

Therefore, I had no choice but to change this year. That is what this God stuff does to a person. I am not an inspiration, fount of wisdom, or even especially good. In the last year, I found out that my patience was in a sorry state. I can do anything for a length of time. However, 24/7, with no end in sight, wore on me. Patience became an act of will. The more time that passes, the more will I have to have to exert any patience at all. I have always considered myself tolerant. In my family, which was more tolerant than most, I was always the tolerant one. The past year has shown me just how intolerant I can be. I have felt more unGodly feelings then I knew existed. Pure disgust. The urge to hurt somebody. Self righteousness so enormous, it is amazing I can still hold my head up. My sharp memory has been unable to hold on to the fact that Hope is emotionally not much more a two year old.  I owe Hope more than what I have been able to give her. A young friend tried to tell me that a while ago, but I wasn't listening.

I am taking better care of myself so that I can give my children the things they need. In some ways, the standards become higher as I do better. I am not on this journey alone. God has been with me every step of the way and gave me an outstanding support network. Hope is going to need it all.

Dealing With the Past, Again

GB has been struggling with the past actions of her birth mom. When  she saw BM at her grandparents four weeks ago, it was not a good visit. I don't think  there was any one incidence during their visit. GB was just looking for a sign of connection or love from the woman who gave birth to her. She didn't find what she was looking for.

GB spent a couple weeks coming to the conclusion that she no longer wanted to see BM at her grandparents. It took a few weeks after that, for GB to tell me how angry she was at her BM because of how little her BM cared. The whole thing is still something GB is processing.

GB found her own way through her current stuck spot. We are going to see J in Michigan next week. J is her birth father. She called J today and invited him out to lunch- Just the two of them. They will be going to R*by Tuesdays. She is paying. J said he would really enjoy it and thanked her for inviting him. She hung up from this conversation with a large smile on her face.

How can I help an eight year old with ASD, FASD, and Bipolar Disorder process what has happened in her life, when I can't even process it myself ?

The Isolation That Can Be Special Needs Parenting

I was reading my regular blogs this morning and was over at The Final Maze. I wrote a comment that turned into a post, so I came back here. Foster Abba wrote, in part,

As a parent, I often feel like I am living in the prison of fearful parenting, but I often don't know how to escape.  

 As a Special Needs Parent for 30 + years, I have felt as she feels, for a very long periods of time. Years even. The internet has helped the second time around. I love the internet support. Kari was a big help when I first started blogging and GB was drowning in first grade, The ideas she gave me about modifying GB's day were invaluable. Most of them ended up in her current IEP.  Still, it is not the same as having an IRL friend  who gets it.

I found a few close friends IRL that understand my childrens'  disabilities. One is a special ed teacher that started seeing GB at 7 months in our home. We became friends after GB went to Special Ed preschool and she stopped coming to my house. She has girls the same age as mine and nothing phases her. Another is an adoptive Mom with ten children currently at home. Her three year old makes my kids, even Hope, look like a walk in the park. The last one is a widowed grandmother, raising her granddaughter. She was a adopted herself, and adopted both her sons. She has boundless empathy and nothing much flusters her, even when we are out in public and one of them, usually, but not always Hope, has melted down. I found the grandmother and the adoptive parent at a gymnastic class in a gym that has broad inclusion policies (they took GB at 2 1/2, when she still wasn't speaking to anyone).

We have just signed up for a parents of special needs support group. Now that the girls are in self contained classes, we are also meeting parents and slowly getting to know them as we let the girls socialize a bit. Some of them we know allow things we are diametrically opposed to, and we don't feed those relationships. However, there are parents, adoptive and otherwise, that share enough of our values and concerns to make it workable.

I know you have additional concerns, but The Dad and I are 54 and 53 and the only one that grew up when we did and understands our references is the grandmother. In general, the parents we meet are from a different generation then us and are still struggling with acceptance and how to get the help they need.

 I have dealt with CPS, and with my mountains of paperwork have easily gotten rid of them. Even with MK, who was by far the most difficult child I have dealt with. I have a trail of paper work covering my a$$. I no longer worry about them. When the inevitable complaints come, my daughters' treatment teams have my back.  It worked well with my first family and I am just as meticulous this time around. Everything I know to be true is documented by respected professionals.

I deal with people who think I am crazy all.the.time. I register their reaction and move on. I do not have the time or energy to deal with those people. There have been people who have never given my kids a chance because of their disabilities and the fear those disabilities arouse in them. Parents of NT kids are frequently afraid of our kids, especially once they are school age and not so cute anymore. My kids have the additional difficulty of being varying shades of brown with white parents. As a family, we already stick out.

Support is support and if you you never leave your house, you will never find the support that may let you out of your prison. Self imposed prisons are still prisons and are no way to live.