Trauma exercises for young adoptees

I am using these exercises to relieve my own stress and "soft trauma" of adopting a child from Russia. I also am adapting these exercises for my son who is 6 years old. I have done the TREs about 10 times for myself now and wow, can't believe the relief I feel. It's like an after massage "glow" that last for a couple of days until I do the next exercise. This is helping me be a better person and calmer parent. I believe that my son also carries within his body the trauma of his early beginnings of being separated from his birthmother and being in an orphanage for 6 months. I am adapting the exercises to keep my son's attention. I am trying some creative ways to do this: - naming the exercises "swaying tree", "flamingo" "waterfall" - adding tempo by counting by the days of the week/months, singing twinkle,twinkle, little star, reciting a bible verse; -using 6 beads and a bowl to count down the exercises. -using a visual timer on the last two (longest) exercises so he knows how much longer the exercise will be. The first time I did these with my son, it was a bit chaotic because he didn't know what to expect. The second time, he did start to tremor (we call it wiggling) a bit and said "wow, that feels really good." It wasn't until the 3rd time that it all came together for him. His tremors were very slight, but after about 10 minutes, he said "Mom, I feel really tired." That night he fell asleep in 10 minutes---usually takes him 45 minutes because of overarousal, and he slept through the whole night! He told me in the morning that he had a really happy dream during the night. The fourth time I did the exercises, at the very end when he put his feet forward to finish the tremors, he fell asleep for 5 minutes. He was totally relaxed. We have done many therapies, but I have never seen that kind of result. For about 24-36 hours after the exercises I can tell that he is much calmer and not as anxious or angry. We are doing the exercises every other day and I am hopefull that they will systematically heal the past and the affects will be long lasting. I am sure it will take some time and we will be doing tune ups after the more intense beginning phase. When you think about trauma, it comes in so many forms that I believe these exercises have great potential of being adapted for adoptive parents and children. Rene Campagna Portland, Oregon