Trauma and Resilience: A Parenting Perspective Kenneth Barish, Ph.D.

Trauma and Resilience:A Parenting Perspective

Kenneth Barish, Ph.D.

Thomas Cole: The Voyage of Life

“Joyousness and wonder are the characteristic emotions of childhood”

“Duh?”

Emotions and Emotional Development

Emotions are not just feelings.

Emotions are complex, multi-

dimensional, biological

and psychological processes that rapidly

organize thought and action in the

service of goals or “concerns”

essential to our physical survival

and psychological well-being.

Emotions focus our attention, direct our thought and imagination, evoke memories, and prepare us for action.

Every emotion is evoked by a characteristic appraisal (or appreciation) of events.

Interest, for example, is evoked by novelty.

Anger is evoked by feeling thwarted or injured.

Every emotion evokes a unique

subjective experience (our “feelings”), a

characteristic pattern of physiological

activity, and typical facial, postural, and

vocal expressions.

Every emotion is associated with a characteristic action tendency.

Interest motivates exploration.

Anger motivates attack.

Fear motivates escape.

Shame motivates concealment.

Our experience of any emotion

includes an appraisal of our coping potential.

In normal development, children construct increasingly complex emotional appraisals and more

flexible action tendencies.

Children develop emotion “scripts” and beliefs that become the foundation of their personality and

character.

Positive emotions promote openness inthought and behavior. Negative emotions

narrow thought and action.

Positive emotions support exploration,creativity, and learning, and the building

of social relationships that becomeresources in conditions of adversity.

Emotion is also our essential language in talking with children.

Interest

SEEKING (Panksepp)

“intense interest” “engaged curiosity” “eager anticipation”

“wanting”

“Interest is the only emotion that can sustain

long term constructive or creative endeavors.”

Sylvan Tomkins

As parents, our enthusiastic responsiveness to our children’s interests is the surest way to engage them in some form of meaningful dialogue or interaction, and a

first principle of strengthening family relationships.

Pride and Shame

Children experience feelings of shame when they suffer any social rejection; when they are unable to learn; when they are defeated in competition; when they are bullied, insulted, or taunted; and when they seek acceptance and approval from admired adults but are, instead, subjected to

criticism, scorn, neglect, or abuse.

When children tell us that they are anxious, they are often anxious about the possibility of

feeling ashamed.

“He dissed me.”

“Shame is the pathogen that causes violence just as specifically as the

tubercle bacillus causes tuberculosis, except that in the case of violence, it is

an emotion, not a microbe.”

James Gilligan

A child’s expectation of feeling proud or ashamed decisively influences her choices - those situations she actively seeks and those she avoids. Shame -our emotional response to exclusion and failure - lowers aspirations. Pride - our emotional response

to acceptance and success - raises aspirations.

The evolutionary psychologist Glenn Weisfeld succinctly explains, “We anticipate pride and shame at every turn and shape our behavior

accordingly.”

Especially, children want their parents to share in their pride and to be proud of them.

Our children’s feeling - their inner certainty - that we are proud of them is an essential good feeling, an anchor that sustains them in moments of discouragement, aloneness,

and defeat.

Positive Expectations

Psychological health, in childhood and throughout life, depends on our ability to hold

onto positive emotions and, especially, positive expectations.

Positive expectations keep kids on the right track. Positive expectations for their futures help

children and adolescents work hard and make good decisions in the present.

Children with positive expectations will also more readily accept their parents’ discipline, because

they will understand the need for it.

A bad feeling that does not go away

Every child, no matter how angry and discouraged, no matter how defiant, secretive, or

unmotivated she may seem to be, at the same time wants her parents’ approval, wants to do well, and

wants to be accepted by her peers.

The solution to the emotional and behavior problems of childhood begins with this fact.

Principles of Therapeutic Intervention

“Positiveness”

Repair

Proactive Problem Solving

Positiveness

All parents delight in the emergence of their young child’s developing skills.

In the daily life of many families, positiveness has been eroded.

Sharing Positive Feelings

Toward the end of the first year of life, children begin to look to others to share a positive feeling.

A toddler will smile, for example, while he is exploring a room, and he looks toward his parent.

Parents then instinctively respond to their child’s smile with smiles of their own.

Robert Emde, who first studied these interactions, refers to this behavior as “positive affect sharing.”

Van Gogh: First Steps

Teenage mothers rarely respond in this way with their children.

Positive affect sharing is deeply rewarding to both

children and parents. But it is not a “reward” in the narrow sense of the word. When we return a child’s first smiles or reach out our arms to catch her as she takes her first steps, we are not attempting to shape

or reinforce our child’s behavior. We have, however, strengthened something more important. We have strengthened her inner expectation of a

joyful and encouraging response to her own instinctive expressions of enjoyment and pride.

Moments of mutual joy and delight between parents and infants may

directly promote brain development in infancy.

Express enthusiastic interest in your child’s interests, even if these are not

the interests you would choose.

If we look hard enough, we will find, in every child, some interest and a desire to do well.

When parents respond with animated, enthusiastic interest in their child’s interests, most children

soon begin to show more enthusiasm and emotional aliveness - and, often, less

stubbornness.

These positive interactions seem to operate as a protective factor in children’s emotional lives, to

confer some degree of immunity against the effects of emotional distress.

What if he’s only interested in watching television and playing video games?

Answer:Watch and play with him

Then, find the source of his discouragement and frustration.

Children are not “lazy.”

Interactive play is to children’s social development what talking with children is to their vocabulary

development and what exercise is to their physical development.

Be generous with your praise

Generous praise does not create “praise junkies.”

Psychological Nutrition

More Ways to Be Positive

Focus on their Strengths

A Growth Mindset (Carol Dweck)

A Language of Becoming (Ellen Wachtel)

Encouragement (Listen for the “great sound” or the

creative idea)

More Ways to Be Positive

Acknowledge Increments of Progress (Alan Kazdin)

Share Personal Stories (Marshall Duke)

Positive Coaching (Jim Thompson)

Repair

The lives of children, of course, are not all about positive emotions.

In the daily life of every child, there will be moments of frustration and worry – moments of failure, of

exclusion, of ridicule and humiliation. Many of these experiences (especially when kids are bullied or have

difficulty learning to read) evoke in children a profound feeling of shame.

 In every family, there will be moments of anger and

misunderstanding.

We now know that the repair of these moments is essential to children’s

emotional health.

Repair is essential to all of our relationships - our relationship with our children and the

health of our marriages.

As parents, we are, unwittingly, too critical of our children.

Persistent criticism breeds resentment and defiance, is destructive of a child’s

initiative and self-confidence, and undermines her motivation and sense of

purpose.

We need to prevent the buildup of these damaging attitudes in the minds of our

children.

When children respond poorly to criticism, with defensiveness or withdrawal, parents

often say, “He is too sensitive.”

Perhaps.

But we are all sensitive to criticism. And he may not be overly sensitive; rather, we may

have been too critical and not sensitive enough.

Why are parents so often critical of their children?

For every criticism, there is an equal and opposite defiant reaction.

When a critical family atmosphere persists, all therapeutic efforts are

likely to fail.

Alternatives and Antidotes

The antidotes to criticism - simple in theory, but at times difficult in practice -

are patient listening, recognition and praise for a child’s efforts, and a proactive

approach to resolving recurrent problematic situations.

Tell him what is right about what he is saying or doing before you

tell him what is wrong.

Ten Minutes at Bedtime

Often, when parents put aside time to listen and talk with their children, they report immediate improvement in their

child’s mood and behavior.

Proactive Problem Solving

Step 1: Take a Step BackDon’t React

Step 2: Place the Problem Before Your Child

Step 3: Enlist Your Child’s Ideas

Step 4: Develop a Plan

Step 5: Express Appreciation and Praise

Kennneth Barish, Ph.D.

Contact:

280 North Central Ave.Hartsdale, NY 10530

[email protected]

www.kennethbarish.com