Ep 65: Blocked Care

[00:00:00] Speaker A: On today's episode, we're talking to Les Harris, a Utah foster care clinical support specialist and LCSW about blocked care and how it affects foster parents. This is Fostering Conversations with Utah Foster Care, where we have insightful conversations about parenting for bio foster, adoptive or blended families to better understand the experiences we all face as families. Welcome to Fostering Conversations. I'm your host, Amy Smith. Today we have Les Harris, who works for Utah Foster Care, as the clinical support specialist and also is an lcsw. Welcome, Les. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Thank you. Happy to be here today. [00:00:46] Speaker A: We're excited to be talking about blocked care. Blocked care really affects foster parents, but it affects all parents. So will you give us the dumbed down version of what blocked care is? [00:00:58] Speaker B: Well, it's one of those terms that's relatively recent in the trauma informed literature, even though we know it's been around forever. So it's often used, as you said, in foster care, adoptive care, and in parenting in general. And it refers to the chronic stress that often comes with working with children with difficult emotions and behaviors and forces the parent then to shut down emotionally and almost stop caring about the child. In other words, words, they no longer find joy in parenting. And that's one of the most common outcomes where foster and adoptive parents, when they get pushed emotionally, their own parenting response system starts to shut down and the next thing they know, they don't even want to be around the child. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:49] Speaker B: And so that's the basic definition, but there's so much more to it in the context of why does that happen, what do I do about it when it happens, and so on and so forth. So we'll probably get into more of that as we go. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I know that when I started fostering I had never heard that term, and it was very interesting to me to learn about it from you and from different classes and things that I went to as a foster parent to understand that. So maybe we can just start by talking about what are some of the reasons why a parent might be facing blocked care? [00:02:23] Speaker B: Yes, I think that's important because once we have a bit of awareness about the underlying causes and why it's happening, then it gives me at least some information I can use to change some things about my approach to parenting, some of the most difficult children that we'll ever encounter. So let me go back. I'm going to get back to basics, talk a little bit about the idea that all humans are born with an instinct. As we get older, particularly, you can even see this in young children, but particularly as we start to Get a certain age, we start to. Nurturing instinct starts to kick in. You can still see it with young children, but by the time you're mid adolescence and going into adult, I'm driven to care for or nurture, if you will, the young. And so I use as my most common example, when anyone goes to the grocery store and there's a toddler or infant in the cart in front of them, we are drawn to engage with that infant. We try to make them smile, we play peekaboo. We try to engage them in some nurturing interaction. And so that instinct is pretty strong in all of us. And so if you look at that idea that we have this instinct to nurture our young, which I call the parenting response system, that by the time we become parents, is so strong, we actually love being around kids. And let's all agree that kids can drive us crazy from time to time, even under the healthiest and most happy of circumstances. Right? Right. We understand that there are challenges to parenting. There are challenges to caring for children in foster care and adoptive care. We're going to agree on that. But doesn't change the fact that internal drive nurture our young isn't powerful. And in the end, after the turmoil and some of the challenges diminish, we kind of feel joy about being a parent. We love being around our kids, and we have. We almost default back to the goodness of being a parent and the goodness of our children. So that parenting instinct, that parent response system, gets suppressed when we have chronic stress, exposure to trauma over and over again without relief. And all of a sudden you start to shut down emotionally towards that child. And when I say you lose the joy of parenting, that suppression, that suppression of the parent response system. And that's why over the years, I've been doing this 36 years, I can tell you that comments such as, I hate this child or I don't want to be around this child anymore, I don't like this child. And even parents who will report, I purposely stay away from the home longer than necessary avoid being around the child, that tells me there is blocked care happening. So that's the underlying foundation of why blocked care happens and how it continues, unless we, of course, learn ways to mitigate that. [00:05:44] Speaker A: And I think from my experience, I've absolutely experienced block care. I didn't know what it was, like I said, until I became educated as a foster parent, but I've experienced it towards biological and adoptive children. And so I think it's interesting. Blocked care is specific to a child. Right. It's not just you shut down as a parent. I can't parent any of them. It's no one out of my 20 children I can't parent currently, but the other 19 I'm just fine with. [00:06:10] Speaker B: And it, yes, it can be child specific and yes, it can happen to children who are born into the home. It doesn't matter how the child gets there. If they are pushing those emotional buttons and overwhelming you emotionally, it starts to suppress your parenting response system. So yes, absolutely true. And often that's one of the things that, I guess the byproducts of blocked care. Not only am I have I lost the pleasure of being around a child or maybe multiple children, I start to feel guilty about it. What's wrong with me? I start to shame myself. I'm a bad person. I'm a bad parent because. Because I'm experiencing these thoughts and feelings in association with a particular child. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So how would a parent, if they're listening or had heard of this before, how do you know it's blocked care versus I don't actually know what the alternative would be. Depression, maybe, or other things like how do you know it's actually blocked care or does it matter? [00:07:13] Speaker B: I can tell you that the progression of learning for and helping foster parents kind of get through some of these difficulties was we had terminology such as foster care burnout and things like that in the past. And we would have training sessions how to prevent foster parent burnout. Now, burnout is clearly something that happens or one of the things that happens because of blocked care. So blocked care is more universal, meaning becomes more biologically based because it actually changes the way my genetic material is transmitting information to my system. I don't want to get too technical, but it's very, very brain based. Once my brain goes into a protective mode, which is essentially what it is, the whole concept is my brain is trying to protect me from something that I think is either threatening or overwhelming or stressful. And that's different than burnout, which is I'm just exhausted from doing so much by spending so much time and energy, something I get burned out. This is actual suppression. Okay, interesting. [00:08:27] Speaker A: I didn't realize that. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that becomes, I think probably, I don't want to say dangerous, but certainly more chronic and probably harder to resolve. And so we talk about, and we, over the years, we've talked about foster parents self care, do your exercise, read books, go relax, take vacations, and all the things that help with burnout. But the truth is, how do you restore that instinct? Right. How do you get back to parenting response system, to being active enough where I love to be around my child again. That's a hard, that's a harder issue. [00:09:09] Speaker A: So how would somebody know if that if they're like, yeah, this is actual burnout and I need to do something or I just need to go have a break and I'll be fine again. [00:09:18] Speaker B: So the typical burnout or foster care, caring for the caregiver was another title we used. Meaning if you do those strategies where I go and let's say I just have a friend and I go buy a Coke from Swig every once a week with them and it helps me take a break and that seems to be enough, enough and it seems to restore my confidence and I'm able to kind of be, feel rejuvenated enough to get through the week until I have those opportunities. And maybe you're doing other things like relaxation, reading good books, listening to some soothing music in between. But the truth is, if that's sustaining you, then typically it's not quite blocked care. So it's a deeper seated, brain based response to caring for challenging children. [00:10:10] Speaker A: You essentially can't just snap out of it or grab a drink to, to relieve yourself. Yeah, not an alcoholic drink, but okay, perfect. Let's focus on the blocked care. What would be your first suggestions to somebody if they are feeling like, you know, I might be experiencing blocked care? What would be the first thing that you would recommend somebody to do? [00:10:34] Speaker B: Okay, so in, at the risk of saying let's go back to self care and I'm telling you I've changed my attitude about self care because that's just another thing you have to do. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:10:44] Speaker B: All of a sudden I'm going to add it to the list of the demands that I'm already experiencing and by itself then has a detrimental rather than beneficial effect. So I'm not a fan of saying schedule in a daily routine and schedule in this and exercise and diet and all that. Although we will say definitively those are all good for people, all of those things help. But if I think that's going to be my cure, if you will, for what I'm experiencing, that it's just another thing. And now I become more overwhelmed sometimes. So having said that, we got to go back to how do I connect with this child or children? How do I feel the joy with this child again? So we, we're actually trying to reactivate that parenting response system, which is probably. [00:11:35] Speaker A: The last thing you want to do if you're experiencing block. [00:11:38] Speaker B: See, and that's why it becomes harder to manage blocked care. Because the very thing I need to do is what I'm avoiding. The person involved in that relationship is the one that's really activating my stress response system. But it still doesn't take away from how critical it is to find ways to reconnect in joyful ways with the child. Now. And I'm going to refer to the book or one of the books that really is cutting edge in terms of blocked care, and it's called Brain Based parenting. It's by Dr. Daniel Hughes and Jonathan Bayless. And essentially they talk about not only components of blocked care and how it happened, but they talk about a systemic approach to helping you restore some of those connections with the child. And the acronym they use is pace, which stands for playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. But the truth is, those four things, those four words are our ways to connect with the child. So let's just start off by playfulness. Let's just start there. And I think the danger is, we think, oh, man, I've got to single out a child. I have to look for opportunities to engage in those joyful exchanges. And that's going to last for 15 minutes, a half an hour. And what if it's just not pleasant? What if it's just not going well? So I try to break it down into very simple concepts. And if. And I know many of our listeners have likely read Dr. Perry's book, what Happened to you? [00:13:19] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:13:20] Speaker B: With Oprah Winfrey. And one of the stories, he talks about a boy that had a trauma and he was at a checkout counter. He. He just said something to the checker that he needed to release in that moment. And there was empathy exchanged. And unfortunately, the dad thought, oh, now he's starting to open up about this trauma. And so he kept pushing him. And that was just overwhelming for the child. And I think it was five or six at the time. And so what I learned from that and from other experiences is we have these short windows of opportunity with children and when they're ready for a positive experience, a joyful exchange with the parent, that's when I move in. And maybe it lasts 30 seconds. [00:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:10] Speaker B: That they are open and receptive to that and then they're done and you move out. But you look for those. Dr. Perry called them doses. I would look for the doses as well, that, oh, it looks like the child is available, looks like they're engaged in a way that would allow me to maybe have a positive experience, play a quick game, tell a funny story. Do something that you express that connection with positive. And so there's your dose. You get in and then you can almost say, and I know parents are good at this. You almost know when the child is done, like they disengage. And so you stay available just in case. But. And don't. You just. Don't walk away. But you certainly be. Become available. See where the child's going to go. If they just run off and want to go play, you're done with that dose, look for another dose later in the day. [00:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I think one of the trickiest things for me, at least as a parent, is every kid is so different. And there's. I have kids that I vibe really well with and we have the same type of playful activity or banter. And then other kids where it's okay, we don't play the same way. And this is tricky. And so I think as a parent, we have to be very sensitive, which is hard, especially for opinionated people like me to do it their way and do what they find playful, not what we find playful. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Exactly. And I think that's part of the acceptance piece. So you have a playfulness is the first one. Acceptance, meaning I have to accept that what I may think or believe is going to be helpful isn't. And that maybe the child is bringing something that I need to pay attention to that I can then expand on. Don't enter a relationship with the child as though here's what I expect you to do or how I expect you to respond to these interactions. Except that the child is going to offer themselves in a way that may not always match and be okay with that. And. [00:16:17] Speaker A: Because that's where people that have that personality are really blessed. Because I don't have that personality. Yeah. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's one of the hard parts is. And I remember that three of my four children were really quite affectionate. They liked to give you hugs at night. And I had one daughter that didn't. Now, I could personalize that, of course, and say, you don't love me because you're not hugging me in the same way that your siblings do. But if I turn that around and accept that that's who she is and why would I force her to do things that were not part of her nature? I accepted her for who she is and then just celebrated the things that the other ones, perhaps the characteristics the others didn't have and made it work really well for her. Yeah. So I think that's the acceptance part is probably one of the harder realities of parenting. Is sometimes I have a notion in my head about how I want this child to respond, how I want them to act, how the thoughts and behaviors that they should be producing in any given circumstance. But then they don't, and then I want to correct that. But anyway, so if you start with the idea, and I think this really is critical to understanding the process here, it's not about making changes quickly because that's unrealistic. It's about small, incremental changes over time that can make a difference. Because children in our world right now particularly do not get enough positive interactions with their parents. They don't, but they get tons of negative interactions. But we can walk around our house all day long and point out all the things they're doing wrong or that we don't like. When are we going to get around to acknowledging there are some good things? And so if a child sitting quietly on a couch, reading a book, maybe I ought to spend time with the child and ask them questions about the book and engage them and connect with them during those positive interactions instead of every time they, I walk by the room and say, stop hitting your sister. Quit writing on the wall. 100% of the time, we're pointing that stuff out. We walk by the good stuff all day long, right? [00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:41] Speaker B: And so when I say to connect with them in those playful, positive ways, it's trying to force parents to pay attention to the fact this child is ready for me to engage them in those things. They. And they need me to engage them in those moments. And if we can laugh and have fun and as I said, even for just a brief period of time, and we do that consistently over time, that's reinforcing the connection in a more positive way. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah, is. I don't know if you would know, but are there statistics showing that blocked care has become more problematic as in this generation versus previous generations? I wonder if there's stats on that or not. I don't know. It's just. [00:19:27] Speaker B: I don't know of any research or statistics around that. However, because of my experience, and this is anecdotal, of course, but over my career, I've started in child welfare 36 years ago. This stuff was present from the very beginning with our foster parents. We just didn't have the name for it. We didn't understand it like we do today. And as we started, and the progression was, we started to really figure out the effects of trauma on children and their brain function and how that impacts their social, emotional, cognitive, physical development. But based on what we learned about the effects of trauma on children. It was a natural leap to say, wait a second, isn't that same thing happening to the caregivers because of the difficulties and the almost the trauma that you experience as caregivers for when you're caring for difficult children? [00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that just would be interesting just because you mentioned kids don't get as much positive reinforcement. And I just wonder if just from the advances in technology and all of the things that we have going on now, it's like I almost always have a TV on in my house or the teenagers have phones or I'm on a phone or my. It's just there's so much distraction now that you look up from your phone because they're fighting, but when they're quiet, you're like, oh good, I can be busy. So it's just, I think it is harder to notice the good and good things that kids are doing. [00:20:55] Speaker B: And again, without I make a blanket statement like that, without necessarily saying there's research to back it up, I just use base it on observation and just the sense that it. Almost anywhere I go, I see parents who are on devices and kids on devices. I don't see the interactions. But boy, if that child is doing something negative, the phone gets put down and I'm all over that child. Right. I see that play out over and over again. [00:21:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:26] Speaker B: And so the same concept exists that man, if we're only giving them negative interactions, then the way I get your attention is producing more negative interactions. [00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And I know for myself, if I'm on a phone and I get alerted to something annoying, I'm zero to a hundred. It's not, oh, what happened, it's immediate. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Yep, yep, chaos. [00:21:50] Speaker A: Something I would love to chat about is the shame or the, the guilt that can come along to parents that maybe are experiencing blocked care. Foster parenting is difficult. It's. I read a beautiful post today by someone that talked about, yeah, people claim I'm just a babysitter. No, I'm not a babysitter. I just jumped head in to a stranger's kid that I'm taking care of. I'm loving them, feeding them, providing for them, trying to get their mental health in order. Like the things that foster parents do I think are truly unbelievable. And I just, I fear and I, I assume that if foster parents or traditional, any types of parents are experiencing blocked care, it can be very shameful or very guilt ridden. I think you said at the beginning, would you just touch on that maybe a little bit. [00:22:34] Speaker B: And it again, just From a very simple understanding, any parent who messes up with a child and feels shame and guilt for doing so is a standard operating procedure for most parents. Right. Oh, I said something wrong. I did something wrong, and I feel guilty and shameful for that. And most parents will experience that in their lifetime under the or every day. Yeah. Just an every everyday kind of thing. Oh, I said something wrong, I did something wrong. I wasn't as attentive as I needed to be. And we are our own worst enemies. And so the one concept that I try to reinforce, and I say try because it's so difficult to not blame yourself. Right. It is. It is almost seemingly impossible to depersonalize the behavior from yourself. Meaning if I understand. If I truly understand trauma and the effects that has had on this child that's been placed in my home, and to some extent, even the most difficult children that were born into your own. The truth is, that's not about me. It really is not about me. And how do I separate that concept? This child is just like me, allowing their brain to do the job of protection for them. Right. So when they feel threatened, when they feel stressed, when they feel overwhelmed, when they have slight changes in routines, you name it, that protective response produces emotions that therefore produce behaviors. And what they've learned from the earliest of moments is that's what helped me feel safe. It worked for me because it did help me feel safe by producing these behaviors that felt protective to me. Okay. And so now they come into a new home that by itself is overwhelming, and they're producing the very behaviors that have worked for them long before they came to your house. And now you're saying, stop doing that. And they don't. [00:24:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Because it doesn't work anymore. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:24:45] Speaker B: Outside the context of that adversity, it doesn't work. Right. And so here they are in your home, producing these behaviors, pushing you to get into your protective response. And now you're doing something wrong. No, your brain's doing exactly the same thing as the child's protecting you. There's nothing wrong with you that you shouldn't feel shameful or guilty about. That it's your brain doing its job. [00:25:16] Speaker A: So it's a good thing in a sense. [00:25:18] Speaker B: It can be, you know, in the context. Basic safety and protection. Absolutely. But because our parenting instinct needs to remain intact for us to be good parents. I use that term subjectively because. But the truth is, in order for us to be effective parents, we still need that parent response system to be very active. And so the behavior of A child is something that is causing you to become protective yourself. That's not about you. It's not about who you are as. [00:25:54] Speaker A: A person, which is really hard to accept as a parent. [00:25:57] Speaker B: I think that is. I think if we look at it the way I'm trying to describe, and I can't under emphasize this, is you are powerless, at least to change the behavior immediately, for sure. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:16] Speaker B: And so that powerlessness makes you feel weak, makes you feel like you're not effective. It makes you doubt yourself, when in reality, what it means is the child is engaging in those protective responses. Your job is to say, okay, that's what you're doing. I know what you're doing. I need to continue to parent you and connect to you in ways that will help you feel more safe in the future so that you no longer have to produce these protective responses. And so it's not about you. I can't say that enough. [00:26:54] Speaker A: I know it comes back to that acceptance, which is so hard, at least for me and probably for a lot of parents. [00:27:00] Speaker B: Right. And I will say that if there's anything that I've said that it makes it sound like this is an easy process, then I apologize. The truth is, I believe the hardest thing parents can do when they're caring for difficult children is not to blame themselves, not to get into blocked care. It's hard, absolutely. One of the most difficult things, because you're fighting against your own brain, in a sense, to try to restore that parenting response system. So, yes, it is hard work. And that's why earlier I said, you got to break it down into small doses. You got to look for those windows of opportunity. You got to get in, you got to get out, get in, get out. Do that consistently over time and learn to love the child again, which you can, because it's not as though that goes away. That parenting response system does not disappear. It just gets to suppress. So if you can learn to lift the weight off that suppression and learn to love the child again, which you can. That's what I'm talking about. But it takes time. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I could honestly talk about this for a long time. I think that I feel very connected to it. I'm like, yes, I am a very feisty parent, and acceptance is hard for me. And I have five very different personalities in my house. And so I could probably talk about this for a really long time. But unfortunately, it's already time for us to wrap up. I would think. I would think one really important thing would be if people are experiencing blocked care or even burnout seeking therapy would be a beautiful way to work through and to specifically share the exact concerns and struggles they're having. What type of therapist would be best for people to reach out to? [00:28:59] Speaker B: Okay, so a couple of things I will say the motivation for forming the clinical program at Utah Foster Care is for this purpose. Meaning you have clinicians in all five regions that can act in that role as a therapist to help families who are going through the block care and other issues that they need to address. So I would offer to any foster and even adoptive parent to seek out the therapist in your region, set up appointments and rely on that support because we can get you through this. And that's most often what I recommend, because that's what we do now, which is different than it was five years ago. We didn't offer this. So that I will say blocked care was one of the reasons why we wanted to make sure that our foster parents had the opportunity to have somebody to talk to in a clinical way. [00:29:53] Speaker A: Which is an amazing resource. [00:29:55] Speaker B: Yes. So use the resource is what I would say. [00:29:59] Speaker A: And then if there are families that are listening that aren't part of Utah foster care outside of the state or just a traditional non foster family, what type of therapist could they reach out to that would be most effective? [00:30:10] Speaker B: Generally speaking, there's so many modalities, I don't want to get complicated here. However, I would find somebody that does specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy. It's proven time and again to be some of the most effective therapy for individuals. So you go in and it essentially helps you make sense of your thoughts, feelings and emotions and how that leads to the behavioral outcomes. And so you start to make those connections that I think are consistent with recognizing that block care is a suppression of that response system. And because it causes certain emotions, I act out on those in certain ways. So if you can get somebody that's good at helping you figure that out, that would be the best. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Okay. I love that. I think this is a amazing topic that so many foster parents can relate to and all parents in general. So thank you so much for joining us today, Les, and sharing all your knowledge. [00:31:08] Speaker B: Happy to do it anytime. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to Fostering Conversations. I'm your host, Amy Smith. We'll see you next time. This has been Fostering Conversations with Utah Foster Care. Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to utahfostercare.org we'll see you next time.