Thriving Past Childhood Trauma

How do parents (people) get over childhood trauma?

This exchange happened on a facebook page. Details have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent:

Parent: It's sad from the child's point of view. People forget to feel for the children; it makes the child feel forgotten (I have been a Forgotten Child myself).

Linda: It's not sad for the kids involved, either. It's soul-crushing.

As you know.

Parent: Very true. After a while it's simply sad because anything more than sad would be irreversible.

Linda: I'm not sure I know what you mean...

What is reversible?...

Parent: Well, there's sad, and there's hopeless. If you can keep yourself at an even level of sad, you can live through that. You may not live through hopeless.

Linda: I don't think the dichotomy is that clean. It isn't 'sad' versus 'hopeless.' For a couple of reasons...

If you can touch the fury, you might be able to process the sadness more easily because it won't be trying to stand in for much more powerful emotions. When you meet the rage, the sadness won't feel like 'if I start crying I won't stop for 9 years.'

...and, I think more importantly:

It is hopeless. Not for the future, but to alter the past. No one can go back to have a better childhood than they had, or the parents they needed, or to get the help they needed, or to feel that they were seen or accepted then.

What they do have, in the way of hope for the future is multi-faceted:

It is over and can't keep happening: the children are no longer children and no longer need those people's approval.

The past does not dictate the future. What has happened has happened, but it is over... the last three tosses of a coin coming up heads has no effect at all on the next toss of the same coin. The odds are about strings of events, but the past events do not affect the pure odds of the next event. The coin has exactly 50% chance of being heads again. The threads we draw from one event to another are narratives we construct, not a continuous string of causes-and-effects. We can make new choices, go down new roads, think new thoughts. Now the child knows.

Now the child knows exactly what went wrong and exactly what it feels like and exactly why doing anything like that to anyone, ever, is not okay. This is not possible to avoid until the child knows.

Multiple Penalty

Scenario: Pulled over for doing 15 over the limit in a park zone. Groan... This ticket is going to be big. So embarrassing, kids in the car.

Result: Pay the fine, complain to friends about overzealous cops, move on.

Scenario: Kid get hauled into the principal's office over some playground scuffle. Not sure who started, it, both kids get detention and a note sent home.

Result: Parent reads the note, sends child to room to think about what he's done, goes online and asks if other parents think he should also lose access to all electronics for the evening.

Announce-and-Wait

...effective ways of getting them into the car, out of the house, to get dressed...

Every couple of hours I read a post of Facebook wherein parents describe the explanations they give their kids for why diapers need to be changed, or we all need to go outside, or it's time to leave the park, or go to school, or get out of bed, or go to bed, or put on shoes, or pack up for dance class... or whatever.

“You want to go to class...”

“If you don't, your bum will get sore...”

“It's good for your body to be out in the sunlight, moving around...”

“Besides, you like the seaside...”

Translation: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah bum blah blah blah.”

One of the recommended techniques to improve not only a child's vocabulary but also their ability to think for life is to chatter away at them about what is going on, what things are called, their descriptions, how they function, etc. Pointing out the world and describing it theoretically gives kids the mental framework they need to assemble their thoughts in order to understand what is going on around them...

...which is all well and good, up to a point.

That point is where parents are trying to convince them that a parent's ideas of what should happen next is a super great idea that all sane children will leap to agree with.

Is this where I mention that kids (especially little kids, but let's be honest: people of all ages) are not noted for their sanity?

Even after decades of study in marketing and the science of influencing people, adults struggle to convince other adults to switch to Pepsi or wear their seatbelts... and yet we expect to talk a busy toddler into changing activities while they're doing what they want to do. This is not rational.

And, more importantly, it doesn't work. Pretty much ever.

No child is going to be sold on the 'fun' of cleaning up their room, or putting the dishes in the sink, or going outside when they are happily exploring the texture of the carpet.

What Actually Works, Ever (not 100%, because, see above, re: sanity)

Get the child's attention.

Announce.

Wait.

Wait a little while longer.

Get the child's attention

When they're busy experimenting with the light and shadow on the tile by the door, their minds are not open to what else is going on... so to them, dad chattering away in the background is like talk radio in a different language that you can hear from someone's passing car.

Get down on the child's level, in front of the child so you are within sight. Touch the child gently. Wait until they make eye contact.

Announce

Just say what is coming up, with the first direction you need them to follow:

'Shoes on, we're going to the grocery store.'

'Time for a diaper change, meet me over there...'

'Get what you need for skating lessons.'

Wait

Simple enough. Hard to do. It helps to sit still and not say anything at all. Adding words or movement at this point is distracting from what you've just said is going to happen, and suggests that it isn't, actually... It suggests that something has happened to make that go away (because things do that all the time –I'm talking to you In-5-minutes-we-will-leave-where-mummy-is-talking-to-friends, and we don't go anywhere for 23 minutes!)

Things are moving inside where you can't see them. Gears are shifting, and because they are little and have hardly any practice, it takes a while. Watch their face ponder what you've said, and wait while it's integrated into their world in there.

They want to get along, they want to be part of the big world. They want to be clean and happy and fed and have a variety of experiences. They just don't want to be rushed.

They really don't want to be convinced.

Just wait. Just watch.

Say The Right Thing First

“How do I find the right words to explain ______ to my ____ -year-old?”

The question comes up frequently, on parenting lists, in groups, at events. Implied in this question is, often, “How do I fit the words and concepts into my child's head so s/he will know everything necessary on the subject at 20 without overwhelming them now or leaving anything out?”

My short answer is 'you don't.'

The slightly longer answer is 'you don't all at once.'

Amongst my friends and family we have what apparently is quite a unique conversational style. As far as I can tell it's uncommon to revisit a conversation that's been had already-- for any reason--at a later date. I find this quite bizarre.

Many a topic-opener in conversations with a very long-time friend is 'remember we were talking about blah blah blah a few years/months/days/hours/minutes ago?' We restart conversations, kind of in the middle, as new information is discovered, new thoughts or ideas are formed or found out there in the world, or just because we're not satisfied with our understanding or expression of our thoughts on the subject.

Since this was a normal kind of conversation for my kids to be around for, whether or not they were listening, there was always a strong underlying reality in our world: the subject is not closed, no one has had the final word on the topic, and there are many reasons to re-visit the issue.

So, instead of feeling like I had to explain sex and death and taxes and drugs and etiquette and tact versus lying, or whatever, once and for all... I always knew the conversation was developing. Developing because the thumbnail answer any 3yo can absorb at a time isn't ever going to be the way the same child will comprehend the subject at 8 or 13 or 22 (or 48 or 77...) and that means the discussion continues more or less where it left off the next time there is some reason to talk about it.

Reasons for restarting a conversation:

• I saw in the news
• that movie we just watched
• a story book we are reading
• someone else was talking about it and mentioned a new way (to me) to think about it
• I stumbled upon new information online
• someone else was talking about it and said ______
• your friend is dealing with the same thing now
• another death in the social circle or celebrity media
• I was thinking about what you, I, or they said the last time we talked
• it seemed like the conversation ended abruptly because of some kind of interruption, and we aren't finished with it... so, as I was saying . . . .