The years of research on the brain have taught us that human beings are the most incredible, vulnerable, high maintenance creatures on the planet.It takes years to grow a child into a competent, capable, loving, contributing adult; or not.We know that the human brain has not completed its growth for executive functioning until the 25th year of life.We are more fragile than we realize and more resilient in our ability to grow beyond our traumas.Our basic survival needs for food, shelter, water, some type of medical care and education are minimally met for the most part, at least in the United States.One of the basic building blocks for a humane human is not met well world-wide.Children's emotional needs aren't even on the radar screen.We don't understand the impact of stress, trauma and fear-based parenting practices on the emotionally vulnerable child.I could give you all kinds of statistics but you can look them up; suffice it to say you can check out the news every day and find evidence that we are not doing very well in our relationships; children bullying children; adults bullying adults.In order to connect in relationships we have to be in a calm place so we can feel empathy, compassion, love, and set healthy limits and boundaries.The fear receptor of our brain helps us survive.It is called the amygdale.We are born to be on the look out for what might hurt us.We are also born to be in relationships.Another part of our brain that is supposed to help us calm down is called the hypothalmus.If we can't calm ourselves down our short-term memory (the hippocampus) gets suppressed and our thinking gets confused and distorted.It makes it difficult to connect to our centers of emotional and social control (the cortex).From a calmer more rational place we can reach out and care for another.But when we are stressed we feel angry, hostile and frustrated.Our amygdala is triggered and cannot be calmed by the hippocampus which slams the door temporarily on our cortex.The stress chemicals are gearing the body up to freeze, fight, or run.We are engaged in disconnecting from others because in that moment they are perceived as the enemy.Stress takes us out of relationship with each other.Stress takes us into fear.It is a wonder we don't do more awful things to each other.Our ability to regulate stress is established through our neurophysiological regulatory system.This system is established in the first year of life and research shows it begins in the womb.Our ability to regulate ourselves is critical for healthy attachment.When we are conceived, the bodymind system of the fetus and that of the mother is intricately connected through the placenta.What the mother feels for good or ill is felt in the developing fetus.After birth other caregivers are interconnected in an invisible world of neurophysiology that the baby feels and reacts to.A child's ability to learn to self-regulate is dependent on these relationships which happen at a felt-sense in the body.When a child becomes stressed and cries and someone comes and regulates him or her, over time and through repetition they learn how to regulate themselves.On the other hand if a child becomes dysregulated and no one comes, or they come in an angry way or variations on this theme the child does not get the experience necessary to learn self-regulate."Infants in well-regulated parental systems become effective self regulators in the face of stress as young children separate from the caregiver." (Sroufe, L.Alan.Emotional Development.New York. Cambridge University Press, 1995).Allan Schore states that the ability to develop attachment is dependent on the state of regulation.Without regulation a child cannot develop attachment and a parent figure cannot bond.The jury is no longer out on nature vs.Nurture.Our genetic endowment can be influenced by environmental factors and vice versa.Environments and experiences change the biology of the brain for good or ill.We all have a combination of both.What children need in early development is heart-felt attention, time-in, presence, talking, singing, smiling, joy; heart-felt affection like holding, rocking, kissing, carrying and staying attuned to the child's needs to know when they are hungry, wet, need soothing, holding, eye contact, and just being there for them.Early childhood experiences wire the brain in a way that later helps or hurts (or a mix) the development of social and emotional intelligence.An example of this is from my childhood.My parents divorce was final in August and I was born in September.I was breech and as was common in those days my mother was given twilight sleep.It is a combination of morphine and scopolamine which together provide childbirth without pain or without the memory of pain.A mother can't be fully present in the birth experience.It was found to depress the baby's central nervous system, at times inhibiting breathing.In the 1970's its use was halted.My early beginning was that the most important person was there but not consciously.The unspoken message was that I had to do everything all by myself.How interesting that pattern repeated itself over the course of my childhood.I learned that my dad, Nannie, great grandmother and grandfather were there and excited to meet me but I was behind the glass and alone.The drug induced dis-connection from my mother was only the precursor of the disconnections that were to come.I do believe that after that difficult start I had experiences where I felt loved and cared for by my mother but as her stress and depression grew so did the gap between us.Love, for me, meant I love you but leave me along.Words I heard too frequently.She told me one time that she read to us when we were children.I have no memories of her doing that.I am grateful that she gave me life and the resources of reading; it is a gift that keeps on giving (though it is a solitary experience).We know that children who are read to become good readers.I am a voracious reader which has been an ongoing source of comfort, inspiration and growth for me.So much of who we are is learned.I find comfort in knowing who this gift came from because for so long I could only see the pain and sadness between us.As I have connected to that sadness and pain a veil has lifted and I saw this gift.As I choose to accept this gift from my mother my body feels lightness and a sense of gratitude.We receive both positive and negative conditioning from our parents.I've been so stuck in the negative conditioning I couldn't see there was some positives.This is a more realistic 'truth' that gives me a 'felt sense' of balance.Not that the positives erase the negatives but that my bodymind system is validated that both exist within me.I am free to validate and acknowledge both.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Parenting, Fear and Relationship
The years of research on the brain have taught us that human beings are the most incredible, vulnerable, high maintenance creatures on the planet.It takes years to grow a child into a competent, capable, loving, contributing adult; or not.We know that the human brain has not completed its growth for executive functioning until the 25th year of life.We are more fragile than we realize and more resilient in our ability to grow beyond our traumas.Our basic survival needs for food, shelter, water, some type of medical care and education are minimally met for the most part, at least in the United States.One of the basic building blocks for a humane human is not met well world-wide.Children's emotional needs aren't even on the radar screen.We don't understand the impact of stress, trauma and fear-based parenting practices on the emotionally vulnerable child.I could give you all kinds of statistics but you can look them up; suffice it to say you can check out the news every day and find evidence that we are not doing very well in our relationships; children bullying children; adults bullying adults.In order to connect in relationships we have to be in a calm place so we can feel empathy, compassion, love, and set healthy limits and boundaries.The fear receptor of our brain helps us survive.It is called the amygdale.We are born to be on the look out for what might hurt us.We are also born to be in relationships.Another part of our brain that is supposed to help us calm down is called the hypothalmus.If we can't calm ourselves down our short-term memory (the hippocampus) gets suppressed and our thinking gets confused and distorted.It makes it difficult to connect to our centers of emotional and social control (the cortex).From a calmer more rational place we can reach out and care for another.But when we are stressed we feel angry, hostile and frustrated.Our amygdala is triggered and cannot be calmed by the hippocampus which slams the door temporarily on our cortex.The stress chemicals are gearing the body up to freeze, fight, or run.We are engaged in disconnecting from others because in that moment they are perceived as the enemy.Stress takes us out of relationship with each other.Stress takes us into fear.It is a wonder we don't do more awful things to each other.Our ability to regulate stress is established through our neurophysiological regulatory system.This system is established in the first year of life and research shows it begins in the womb.Our ability to regulate ourselves is critical for healthy attachment.When we are conceived, the bodymind system of the fetus and that of the mother is intricately connected through the placenta.What the mother feels for good or ill is felt in the developing fetus.After birth other caregivers are interconnected in an invisible world of neurophysiology that the baby feels and reacts to.A child's ability to learn to self-regulate is dependent on these relationships which happen at a felt-sense in the body.When a child becomes stressed and cries and someone comes and regulates him or her, over time and through repetition they learn how to regulate themselves.On the other hand if a child becomes dysregulated and no one comes, or they come in an angry way or variations on this theme the child does not get the experience necessary to learn self-regulate."Infants in well-regulated parental systems become effective self regulators in the face of stress as young children separate from the caregiver." (Sroufe, L.Alan.Emotional Development.New York. Cambridge University Press, 1995).Allan Schore states that the ability to develop attachment is dependent on the state of regulation.Without regulation a child cannot develop attachment and a parent figure cannot bond.The jury is no longer out on nature vs.Nurture.Our genetic endowment can be influenced by environmental factors and vice versa.Environments and experiences change the biology of the brain for good or ill.We all have a combination of both.What children need in early development is heart-felt attention, time-in, presence, talking, singing, smiling, joy; heart-felt affection like holding, rocking, kissing, carrying and staying attuned to the child's needs to know when they are hungry, wet, need soothing, holding, eye contact, and just being there for them.Early childhood experiences wire the brain in a way that later helps or hurts (or a mix) the development of social and emotional intelligence.An example of this is from my childhood.My parents divorce was final in August and I was born in September.I was breech and as was common in those days my mother was given twilight sleep.It is a combination of morphine and scopolamine which together provide childbirth without pain or without the memory of pain.A mother can't be fully present in the birth experience.It was found to depress the baby's central nervous system, at times inhibiting breathing.In the 1970's its use was halted.My early beginning was that the most important person was there but not consciously.The unspoken message was that I had to do everything all by myself.How interesting that pattern repeated itself over the course of my childhood.I learned that my dad, Nannie, great grandmother and grandfather were there and excited to meet me but I was behind the glass and alone.The drug induced dis-connection from my mother was only the precursor of the disconnections that were to come.I do believe that after that difficult start I had experiences where I felt loved and cared for by my mother but as her stress and depression grew so did the gap between us.Love, for me, meant I love you but leave me along.Words I heard too frequently.She told me one time that she read to us when we were children.I have no memories of her doing that.I am grateful that she gave me life and the resources of reading; it is a gift that keeps on giving (though it is a solitary experience).We know that children who are read to become good readers.I am a voracious reader which has been an ongoing source of comfort, inspiration and growth for me.So much of who we are is learned.I find comfort in knowing who this gift came from because for so long I could only see the pain and sadness between us.As I have connected to that sadness and pain a veil has lifted and I saw this gift.As I choose to accept this gift from my mother my body feels lightness and a sense of gratitude.We receive both positive and negative conditioning from our parents.I've been so stuck in the negative conditioning I couldn't see there was some positives.This is a more realistic 'truth' that gives me a 'felt sense' of balance.Not that the positives erase the negatives but that my bodymind system is validated that both exist within me.I am free to validate and acknowledge both.
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