1. Repairing trauma and stress
Transforming lives
Anne R. Gearity, PhD LICSW

2. This morning Thinking about children, development and learning.
Dealing with stress and trauma? And why do trauma effects persist?
Supporting children compromised by trauma.

3. 1. Young children’s development and learning.

4. learning and regulation
Development starts with stimulation regulation= waking and sleeping

5. development is also about imagination... and aspiration
Let me grow up!

6. “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”
― Louise Glück

7. Developmental tasks Security Exploration Mastery
These tasks begin in infancy and repeat throughout childhood and through adolescence.

8. Security emerges from early care
Security emerges from early care. Young babies need predictable, reliable care — and while this need lessens as children get older, it is the core of development.
Attachment is turned on in moments of distress — no matter what age you are. Parents and primary caregivers become internalized — taken in — as the feeling of being safe and sound.
Security

9. Security includes learning self regulation*
a process that requires adult help
Self regulation
Guided self regulation
Dyadic regulation
Child participation
Caregiver regulation
Sroufe
* dsyregulation always requires adult help

10. Exploration
Ideas
Name Surname
Space
Rules

11. . . Exploration has two parts:
Knowing there is a safe base to return to .
Active company:
We can do this...
Yes, i can!!!!

12. Exploration includes finding my own mind
Importance of knowing my own feelings, thoughts, desires, intentions, beliefs (mentalizing)
Behaviors are complex communication — especially in early childhood, or when children (and adults are stressed); behaviors signal to myself, and to others that something is happening.
Most children do not do something on purpose, but for a purpose. It is our job to figure what that purpose is... so that they can learn (negotiation, socialization).

13. And mastery and finding that important “homeostasis”— for myself
early mastery is about feelings and behavior...
...and with others

14. A balancing act
Mastery is often about precarious balancing — and always includes “back and forth” Mayes learning.
Children can manage new experiences when their lives feel relatively stable.

15. Importance of patience...and realistic expectations
2020
Vulputate Cras

16. 2. Stress...and trauma

17. ...is compromised by adverse childhood experiences. easy...
... chronic stress early in life can permanently reprogram the stress response, activate inflammatory pathways and increase vulnerability to various diseases.
Dr. Eriksson and his colleagues observed that, more than six decades after the war, those who had been evacuated still showed elevated baseline levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, compared to a control group.
Finland saved these children from the war. Did it hurt them in the process? , NY Times

18. Stress
Center for the developing child, harvard

19. Stress threatens relational trust.
Stress that persists creates both a sense of immediate danger (fear) or anticipated danger (anxiety).
Stress arousal consumes energy. When fear dominate, learning motivation and attention/retention is impaired.
Stress increases vigilance —and disturbs perception and memory (memories/ intense emotions. a surge of norepinephrine.
Young children are more vulnerable to stress because they can’t use words/ in their bodies.
Stress threatens relational trust.
"tunneling in on the urgent...
At the expense of the important."
Scarcity, 2013

20. How stress is expressed...

21. Learning brain vs. fear brain

22. Trauma always happens to the child. and overwhelms his/ her resources
Trauma always happens to the child...and overwhelms his/ her resources. It is an event. What persists are trauma effects.
Trauma events and effects can be exacerbated— or mediated— by family and cultural context.
Culture at its best: beliefs, rituals and practices that protect our children. Sharon Henry Blythe
Family and cultural “risks”: when adults are also traumatized, unable to protect or “re-cover”.
Trauma and culture

23. Children — especially young children— always need adult help to manage stress.
“We are gregarious social animals. The homeostatic imperative seeks stability for itself and those near and dear.” Demasio, 2018
Who do we hold “near and dear”? The challenge of under-protected children.

24. 3. How do we help?? Supporting children and their families.

25. What is trauma- sensitive* work?
*it is much more than love...

26. The importance of support—
to jumpstart developmental energy and delight.
Learning makes you feel better.

27. Time with engaged adults

28. Trauma effects and repair
Powerless
Regain power— connect
Confused
Make sense
Passive
Active
Fear etc.
Positive emotions
Disrupted time/place.
Restored time, place

29. Antidote to trauma and stress: listen/ make sense narratives
To heal trauma = change the meaning of the story.
Move from behaviors to words that restore power.
Power of cultural narratives that can organize and empower.

30. Bridging time, space and feelings.
Real experiences repair the feeling of safety.
Therapeutic interventions must always be kind, even when correction is necessary. Distressed children perceive danger even when it isn’t intentional.
Our job — to see the child’s experience as the starting point, and help the child cross that bridge to our (safer) experience.

31. Behavior always involves perception and intention
Maecenas faucibus
What a child does -- and what his behavior is telling you about him-- are part of a "package". It is unfair to only respond to what you see vs. what he intended.
Amet Ipsum

32. How stress is managed...with support
When we provide supportive company, stress can transformed into active and useful energy. That is what children and families need.

33. Supporting children’s ideas...
The power of my own mind
Restorative practices can only work when others’ are willing to validate your experience first.
Supporting children’s ideas...

34. Helping children when parents aren’t available.

35. “Understanding where you are going, and why, is critical to ensuring that all feet are marching in the right direction.”
Northwest Area Foundation report, 2011