Progress Report on NR for July

I realized it was time for an update on our NR progress. We are closing in on a year of doing NR with Violet, and almost 6 months of Maddie doing it.
Back in April I talked about all the progress we had made, and discussed at length where we had come from. There is no need to repeat, you can check back a few posts and see where we were back in August of 2012. In May, we took our first trip since about 2 months after we came home from China with Violet. The last experience was very rough. It was very stressful and I cried a LOT (outside influence on our family, not from our little family unit).  Since that time, we had not taken any trip (back to that place or any other place) because, frankly, Violet could NOT have handled it. We were grasping by our fingernails to get through each day in our home environment with a schedule she knew and people she knew. The thought of going on a trip, on a plane, to visit people we didn’t know, to follow a different schedule, in a different time zone, with different food, was simply not reasonable.

By March this year we had seen such amazing changes with Violet, that we felt brave enough to plan a trip in May. We told Violet about 2 weeks before the trip that we were going, and almost immediately we started to see some backsliding and anxiety. She didn’t relate it specifically back to the trip, because I don’t think her language was that evolved yet, but it clearly started right after telling her about the trip. I made a book with pictures showing our suitcases, our house, a plane, the airport, the people she would see in VT, and then us coming back and our Kitties waiting for us. The end page said, “Mama Comes Home, Baba Comes home, Maddie Comes home, and Violet comes home. We all come home together.” After about a week or so of daily reading this book MANY times, and making her repeat after me every line on the last page, she seemed to calm back down again. Two days before the trip she started to get excited!

The flight was GREAT- Maddie is an amazing traveler, and Violet absolutely held her own in the “stellar passenger” role as well! There was a bit of concern a few times, but I would say 90-95% of the flight was absolutely smooth! Well, then we arrived in VT. And the days continued to be smooth….and the nights…. The third evening there, after getting back to our friend’s house past bedtime, she had a mini rage, but came out of it pretty quickly. She met a LOT of new people in a very short period of time, and she handled it like a pro!! She was calm, she was quiet, she did not get anxious and she did not hurt her sister or others! We said, “just wait until we get home…”

So we flew home a few days later, and the first day back was SMOOTH. We thought, HOLY COW, we MADE IT! The next day we had an NR evaluation and both girls were pretty rambunctious- it was a bit rough, I think Violet was nervous because Maddie was so wound up.

Well…the next 4 weeks were pretty rough…. Lots of regression, lots of rages again, hitting, not sliding ALL the way back, but certainly more than we’d seen in quite some time. We kept blaming the trip thinking, “Ah! PAYBACK!!!” Finally after a month we thought, wait a minute…we think this is the new patterns…. Part of NR is doing what are called “Patterns”- these work as the sort of “input” to the brain, then other movement is the “output.” So for example, there is one pattern that basically sort of mimics tummy crawling, so in that case, the pattern is the input, and the tummy crawling is the “output.” You are doing the movements to show the brain how it’s done, then the kids do it and the brain knows how to do it. Anyway, we had started what some people refer to as “The FETALS.” These are fetal patterns that mimic what a baby does in the womb. MOST kids have no problem with fetals and actually love them- they are often mimicking a time when kids were safe and comfy inside Mama’s tummy. But for kids who had trauma in the womb (parental stress, difficult pregnancy, abuse, etc.), Fetals can be ROUGH because it touches on that part of the brain that developed while their little developing bodies were swimming in a sea of cortisol. (Stress produces cortisol, which acts like battery acid to a developing brain. Parental stress during pregnancy causes the release of cortisol, which affects the developing baby.) Violet happens to be one of those 10% of kids who has not enjoyed fetals. To DO them, she does not mind. We call them “baby patterns”. They were developed after a 5 year study followed by a 21 year study of looking at fetuses through ultrasound videos. Pretty astounding. We recently went to the science museum where they have fetuses in formaldehyde from the first few weeks of conception, through delivery. Yes, a fetus for nearly every week of preganancy. It’s sad to know these babies were all still born or died in the womb (a few of them are actually still in the womb, so it would appear the mother and unborn child died), but provides an amazing view into a developing baby. What a contribution. Maddie LOVES to see this exhibit when we go to the museum. What we noticed the last time we went, was that quite a few of these babies are in the exact positions as the “fetal patterns” that we do! Although we knew as “fact” that we were mimicking movements of a fetus, it is really astounding to actually see the baby, in utero or in the position they would have been in, in that same position. Right down to the last detail in fact, of their little thumbs tucked into their hands!

When Violet does her “baby patterns”- she is always happy. Never fusses, usually giggles a bit, or lays calmly while we do them. So what a shock to realize it was it was actually the fetal patterns causing this regression!!! We called our practitioner immediately (as she had advised us to do if we saw any regression) and we stopped Fetals for about a week. Within 4 days, all signs of regression were GONE. It was amazing. We have since started up with fetals again, but at a much slower pace than before, and it’s going MUCH smoother!
Now Maddie has been doing NR for almost 6 months as well. The key issues we wanted to address with NR for her were not as significant as those we wanted to address with Violet, and as a result the results and improvements I would say are “softer” or less visible. We are seeing some changes, but it can take the brain more than 7 months to show a change that has happened, so we will continue to see how this benefits her. I will say that her writing has definitely seen an improvement, and her level of frustration when writing Chinese characters has significantly decreased. She can sit down and do a page of characters (homework) now and not get frustrated after the first few. She has more confidence about her writing and THAT is a clear benefit of NR as well which we are REALLY happy to see. She has always had the skills, but not the confidence that she HAS those skills. It’s great to see them sync up, and makes her a happier girl.

Another benefit we have seen is her overall confidence and sense of security seems to be increasing. This was another key area we wanted to address and it’s a very “wishy washy” sort of thing to measure, so we really have to go with our gut here to determine if we are or are not seeing improvements. I’ll share a little story to give you an example of how it’s it improved.

Maddie has always been a very “sweet” and sensitive girl- everyone around us tells us that, teachers, friends, etc. However, her kindness and sweetness has another side- she is very sensitive about the idea that something she did would hurt someone else. Even an accidental “bonk” to someone makes her feel awful and she would cry over the idea that she hurt someone. Further, to ask her to apologize was a challenge. She was so mortified at the idea of hurting someone, and apologizing seemed to feel to her like she was willfully acknowledging she did something to hurt someone else…even when it was something so simple like an accidental bonk. So she had a VERY hard time to apologize. Of course as parents we always pushed her to right a wrong, and apologize, but it has NEVER gotten easier for her. Just a month or two ago, she and her sister were playing, and she bonked into Violet accidentally, and she said “Oh sorry Min, are you okay?” It sounds so minor, but she has NEVER voluntarily acknowledged that she caused pain or sorrow to anyone before this, and never without a tremendous amount of emotion flooding from her. Jeremy and I were both just blown away! We have since heard her apologize without prompting on other occasions as well- it’s not every time, but it’s far more often, which is simply astounding. She is learning that hurting someone (even accidentally), means you made a mistake, but it does not make you an inherently bad person, which is how she seemed to view it before. That comes back to the sense of safety and security, and seeing that improve is wonderful.

She still has some ways to go, but we are absolutely seeing small improvements with her as well.

Violet especially, is more and more the sweet happy child that we knew was there, hiding behind the scared little child. She gives hugs, she makes more eye contact, and she is FUNNY! What a sense of humor she has! She woke up early a few days ago and walked into our room with her blanket- from bed I looked down and said “Violet, are you wearing shoes?” (it was about 5:30 in the morning) She just looked and said “yeah” in that sort of “valley girl” attitude way like “YEAH-uuuhhhh”- like “uh, I was sleeping, wasn’t I? OF COURSE I was wearing shoes…” it was so funny…! And last week, at the attachment therapists office, she had some nuts and was calling them Peanuts- I told her, No honey, those are cashews… and she looked at me and said “EAT SHOE? Tissue? EAT SHOE???” and starts laughing! I said, No eat shoe, CASHEW!! But she thought eat shoe was so hysterical… The attachment therapist was impressed, she said that wordplay jokes like that are really more like 5-6 year old developmental level!

So all in all, life is good here. We are super busy getting our tummy crawling and such in every day, but I sure would not trade a minute of it for all the improvements we have seen with our girls. In fact, Maddie has even been making up songs about Tummy crawling lately, and they all start “We love tummy crawling…” I never expected to hear them say ‘we LOVE tummy crawling’- maybe “we TOLERATE tummy crawling”, but I’ll take it! It’s hard work….if you’ve never tried it, get down on the floor and give it a try. These kids are getting buff while building brains….That’s why we always say: Why Neuro?

STRONG BRAINS!

STRONG BODIES!

STRONG HEARTS!

You Bethcya!  Neuro Parents are known as "Warrior Parents" because of all the work that we put into helping our kids heal- but we recently realized the Kids are absolutely "Warrior kids" too- Violet corrected me and said, "No, Warrior PRINCESS."  Right you are my dear...

We are so proud of our Warrior Princesses, they work hard!