What I Learned, Part 1

I have been having the most productive week ever.  Tasks that have cried out to me for months - finished!  I'm feeling pretty great... with a smidge of "blog guilt" thrown in.  Sorry I've abandoned you.

In reviewing what I learned at the House Calls Counseling conference, I found lots of lessons worth sharing.  It's going to have to be done in parts.


Part One...  Brains.

When a baby is born, his brain is formed but not yet fully developed.  The brain develops bottom up - simplest to most complex functions.  Thus, a newborn's brain can transmit signals regarding body functions, but the brain can't yet reason how to pull toast out of the toaster.

When a baby has negative experiences over & over & over (e.g. cries but his needs are never met in response), it changes his brain.  Physically, his body is impacted.

Here is a photo that compares a normal 3-year-old's brain to one of a 3-year-old who endured extreme early childhood neglect. 
The neglected child's brain is shockingly smaller.

Cortisol is a stress hormone.  Think "fight or flight reflex."  When a child experiences stress, it causes an increase in the cortisol in their body.  When the child experiences repetitive stress (neglect), their body decides that it needs more cortisol, and starts producing it on a continuous basis.  The child's body physically is programmed to function in "fight or flight" mode all.the.time.  Regardless of how the child may appear to outsiders, on the inside, he's living in the right side of his brain (emotion/reaction, not logic/reasoning).

Also - The last part of the brain to develop is the pre-frontal cortex - which controls a person's ability to reason.  A person needs to be able to access that part of the brain in order to make logical decisions.

Imagine this.... I'm typing when suddenly a spider sits down beside her (we've been practicing nursery rhymes) appears by my head.  I scream & jump up because my "fight or flight mode" kicks in.  But then I chill & kill the spider because my brain quickly moves into "logic mode."

When a child's brain has not developed normally, it physically cannot get into "logic mode" (left brain hemisphere).  He cannot feel safe.  At the sign of a trigger, he goes back to only functioning from "emotion mode" (right brain hemisphere).  He cannot reason.  Physically cannot.

Soooooo....  the big question we ask this child

"WHY did you do that?"

is not relative.  The truth is: He does not know why he did it.

The flow of information does not happen between the emotion & logic sides of the brain.

The emotion side rules.

So what should a parent do?

I think Billy Kaplan of House Calls said this:

"Trying to get at the truth only hurts you. 

Get to the child's experience of what happened."

Basically, this parent's job becomes helping their child understand his own experience...

"If what you say is true, what does that mean?"

I'm skipping so much good stuff, but G just woke up, and I have to hit PUBLISH. 

The right hemisphere of my brain HAS to hit PUBLISH.

Please note that I'm not trying to tell you anything in particular regarding my family here.  Just sharing some learning that I found fascinating.  Hope you enjoyed my super-simpled-down version.