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Developmental Trauma

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Developmental trauma is a breakthrough term with roots in both developmental psychology and traumatology. Developmental trauma is inflicted on infants and children unconsciously and most often without malicious intent by adult caregivers who are unaware of children’s social and emotional needs. Infants and children require energetic attunement, skin-to-skin and eye-to-eye contact, kind and comforting words, protection and safety from their mother during gestation, birth and the first years of life.

Unfortunately, most parents have not been educated about children’s social and emotional needs and lack skills for supporting their child emotionally when they become upset. They also never fully experienced emotional attunement with their parents when they were children. This makes it difficult for them to respond to their needs for nurturing, protection, safety and guidance in timely and appropriate ways. They also do not correlate their deficiencies in their own parenting experiences with their own day-to-day struggles to effectively parent their own children. 

Here is a word picture to help you understand what these terms look like in real time. The inspiration for this word picture comes from a 1986 NOVA film, “Life’s First Feelings,” illustrating the results of a research investigation into the important biological and social functions emotions serve in the early development of a child’s personality (NOVA, 2000).

Early in the film, chief investigator Dr. Edward Tronick describes an interactive dance of communication that he observes between an infant about the age of 5 months and his mother. In this dance, the infant is sitting in a carrying seat and the mother is standing in front of him. She is instructed to interact with her child for several minutes while being videotaped. Sometimes she puts her face too close to her son, and he fusses, looks stressed, withdraws, and looks at his hands.

Then she backs away and again comes in close several times. Sometimes she makes sounds, wipes the drool off his chin, and waves her hands close to his face. When the boy becomes overly stimulated and gets a little upset, he withdraws and soothes himself by breaking eye contact and looking at his hands. Then he looks back at his mother and smiles really big in an effort to reengage with her.

This part of Tronick’s experiment is an excellent illustration of the infant–mother dance of communication. The next part of the experiment, however, contains something that would not be done today because we now understand that it causes experiences of shock, trauma, and stress in infant research subjects.

Tronick does a short “cold mother” experiment in which he asks the mother to keep a blank face and not respond to her child’s attempts to engage with her. It is obvious after the previous playful exchanges with his mother that the infant does not anticipate her withdrawal. At first he looks surprised and then he smiles really big at her in an attempt to draw her in. When she stays stony-faced, he looks off to one side and again peers at his hands. Then he looks back at his disengaged mother’s face and smiles and tries to reengage with her.

When he sees she is still not responding to him, this causes a series of things to happen very fast—so quickly that they are almost invisible. First the pupils in the boy’s eyes dilate, then his eyes bulge, and his face becomes blank. Then he has what looks like a severe hiccup, and finally he vomits a little bit.

Tronick does not comment about the look of terror on the infant’s face, the change in his eyes, or his hiccup. He does remark about the child’s “loss of bodily fluids” and then shifts the focus. An announcer in the background asks the question, “If this response occurs in the laboratory, what happens when infants are emotionally deprived over long periods of time?”

This short video segment illustrates four important points. The first point is the difference between developmental shock, trauma and stress. This process begins in the first part of the experiment when the invasive mother over-stimulates her child. He shows signs of developmental stress and then flees his mother’s overstimulating behavior by looking at his hands and self-soothing, at which point he then attempts to reengage with his mother.

He first shows signs of disorientation during the cold mother experiment when he is unable to reengage her in their dance. Then he quickly drops into a state of developmental shock that is visible in the dilation of his pupils, his bulging eyes, his blank facial expression, his hiccupping, and finally his vomiting. The experiment becomes a shattering experience for this small boy who dissociates and becomes immobile.

The second point the video illustrates is the immense power of the interactive dance between the child and mother, and what happens to the child when the mother disengages from it. The third point it illustrates is how few resources this child has to cope with a mother’s disengagement and how rapidly this causes him to move from stress into trauma. Then he attempts to re-regulate himself by looking at his hands and then into shock when his mother does not respond to his efforts to engage.

The fourth point is that this video segment demonstrates is the sequences of state-shifting from developmental stress, into developmental trauma, and then into developmental shock; from higher-order brain functions to more primitive defensive responses contained in the limbic system and reptilian brain; and from newer parts of the autonomic nervous system to the older. These are the primary components of what we call the trauma continuum, which we describe briefly in the next section.

By definition, developmental shock, trauma, and stress are inflicted on infants and children unconsciously and most often without malicious intent by adult caregivers who are unaware of children’s social and emotional needs. Infants and children require energetic attunement; skin-to-skin, eye-to-eye, and right brain-to-right brain contact; kind and comforting words; and protection and safety during gestation, birth, and the first 3 years of life. Most adults, including many mental health professionals, have not been educated about these needs, and many lacked these personal experiences of emotional attunement when they were children. Adults also do not correlate these developmental deficits with the day-to-day struggles they experience in their lives. Consequently, they are unaware when they are shocking, traumatizing, or stressing their own children and are not able to recognize the symptoms of developmental shock, trauma, or stress in themselves, their children or others.

The authors of the new DSM-V edition, due for release in 2012, are considering the inclusion of Developmental Trauma Disorder as a new diagnostic category (van der Kolk, (2009).[1] Many traumatologists use the term “Complex Trauma” to describe experiences of multiple and/or chronic and prolonged experiences of chronic interpersonal trauma in the context of inadequate caregiving systems that delay development. This new diagnostic category would encapsulate diagnoses such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, PTSD, conduct disorder, phobic anxiety, reactive attachment disorder and separation anxiety.

Researchers in children's mental health have typically focused on more extreme traumatic events of an interpersonal nature that involve sexual or physical abuse, war, community violence that happen early in life. These experiences often occur within the child’s care giving system and include physical, emotional, and educational neglect and child maltreatment beginning in early childhood.

Developmental trauma is caused by seemingly “ordinary,” “normal” or “subtle” daily events that involve relational and energetic disconnects between children their mothers that are either too long or too frequent. Unfortunately, most adults do not recognize or perceive these relational disconnects as traumatic, but see them as “normal” because they “happen to everyone.” 

Early traumatic experiences, anchored in these “ordinary” events, hard-wire children’s brains and nervous systems for a life built around trauma. The primary goal becomes avoiding anything that might trigger the memory of an experience involving developmental trauma and the underlying emotional stress associated with it. When children are unable to avoid these triggers, they react by trying to flee or fight. This is the most common cause of hyperactive behavior in children.

Our definition ofdevelopmental trauma recognizes the chronic effects of subtle emotional events that draw no attention from adult caregivers and provide no relief for children’s symptoms. We believe that many who are using the term “developmental trauma” are actually referring to developmental shock and that they are not discriminating between shock and trauma. Events involving shock are much easier for mental health and medical professionals to recognize because the causative events associated with it are often extreme enough to draw their attention. 

[1] van der Kolk, B. & R. Pynoos (2009). “Proposal to include developmental trauma disorder diagnosis for children and adolescents in DSM-V” http://www.traumacenter.org/announcements/DTD_NCTSN_official_submission_to_DSM_V_Final_Version.pdf

[2] NOVA Video Series (2000). Life’s First Feelings. Boston, MA: WGBH.

 

  

TIME-IN TECHNIQUES FOR CHILDREN

Janae B. Weinhold, Ph.D. 

When children show signs of emotional upseat, they really need the help of caring adults to calm and quiet themselves. Common symptoms of emotional upset in young children include hitting, crying, throwing, withdrawing, bullying and oppositional behaviors. The most important thing to remember in these situations is that emotionally upset children have some problem that they are not able to resolve within themselves. They need adults to both help them identify the problem and to help them fix it. In this context, the idea of “discipline” is not a useful or helpful place from which to begin. A more effective approach begins with an attitude of “what does this child need and how can I help meet this need?” 

The first step in helping a young child return to calm, harmonious behavior is supporting them both emotionally and energetically. Adults who are bonded to a child are the most effective in doing this, as children will attune only to adult caregivers who they trust will meet their needs. The most effective tool for reestablishing this connection is known as time-in. This involves placing children physically on or near to an adult for a period of time and providing calming words and sounds, empathetic facial signals, touch and firm but loving limits. 

To download a four-page .pdf file describing age-appropriate Time-In techniques to use with children, click here.

To watch a movie of Janae's Smart Start Conference PowerPoint presentation, Promoting Positive Mental Health in Children, click here. (it takes a bit to load up, so be patient)

Developmental Trauma: Recognizing the Symptoms in Children

Identifying the symptoms of developmental trauma in children can be difficult because they are more subtle and therefore often invisible to the untrained. In infants, symptoms of developmental trauma include a panicked look in the infant’s eyes, a frantic searching for the mother’s face, repeated nonverbal attempts to engage the mother in some way, inconsolable crying, retching and vomiting--all of which are signs of deep emotional distress. 

It is possible to look at the faces of very young children and immediately grasp what is happening in their inner world. Those with mothers who are attentive and attuned to their needs look happy and secure, while others show anxiety, uncertainty and may even look depressed and act withdrawn. 

After age three, developmental trauma appears as difficulties with the give-and-take aspect of relationship. Children may have difficulty sharing or may cling to adult caregivers. These children get caught in their struggle to have "enough" of something, which is often a sign that their early bonding needs have not been met. In both younger and older children, the predominant behavioral symptoms of developmental trauma are hypervigilance and emotional overwhelm.

Symptoms of developmental trauma in children also can be identified through biochemical markers such as increased cortisol levels. A large number of scientific studies indicate that developmental trauma causes difficulties in learning effective coping skills, attention and other kinds of learning problems, impaired immune systems and difficulties in engaging in meaningful social relationships. 

Developmental traumas also create hyper-sensitivity to the loss of the energetic connection with the primary caregiver, particularly their mothers. These situational sensitivities create relational "triggers" that gradually wire the child’s psyche, brain and nervous system to anticipate and cope with stress. Developmental trauma is the primary cause of the the avoidant and anxious/ambivalent forms of insecure bonding sometimes referred to as “disturbed attachment.” 

 As children get older, there are often sufficient behavioral criteria visible for making mental health diagnosis for “Reactive Attachment Disorder” (RAD). The RAD diagnosis has two different varieties: the Inhibited Type, in which the child withdraws and "acts in," which correlates with the avoidant form of insecure bonding; and the Disinhibited Type, in which the child "acts out," which correlates with the anxious/ambivalent form of insecure bonding. 

If the DSM-V to be released in 2012 adopts the Developmental Trauma Disorder diagnosis, it will likely encapsulate RAD and other childhood diagnostic categories such as bipolar disorder, ADHA, PTSD, conduct disorder, phobic anxiety, reactive attachment disorder and separation anxiety. This new category would still not address the subtle kinds of relational trauma that we focus on. 

 At a behavioral level, the most common symptom of Developmental Trauma in children is hyperactive, out of control behaviors that repeatedly test the limits of the adult caregivers. This testing of limits is the primary way that children determine who is in charge in their environment—the adults or the children. Limit-testing is a actually way that children show adult caregivers that they do not feel safe and that they are wanting them to set and enforce limits. Unfortunately, much of this is perceived as "misbehavior" and adult go into punishment mode.

When children do not feel safe, they learn a myriad of ways to take charge of their environment. They use aggressive, demanding, oppositional and defiant behaviors designed to intimidate and control the weak or ambivalent adults around them.

The most effective route is setting clear limits and then providing consequences that help reinforce the limits. The more consistently limits are enforced, the more that children feel safe. When children feel safe and relinquish control of their environment, they are free to learn and grow. Children who live in consistently unsafe environments may continue to grow physically, but socially and emotionally they will be delayed in their development.

When adults do not explain the rules for behavior and social interactions and the consequences for breaking these rules, children do not feel safe. They only feel safe with rules that protect them from harm and when there are consequences in place for those who violate the rules. In fact, children’s “misbehavior” is really a way of forcing adults to set limits. 

Here's a checklist of more specific behaviors that indicate the presence of developmental trauma that you can print out.

Download DT checklist

For more information on For more information on healing the personal aspects of developmental trauma, view the five segments we've posted about it our YouTube channel theweinholds, view the five segments we've posted about it our YouTube channel theweinholds.

http://www.youtube.com/user/theweinholds

Reference

van der Kolk, B. & R. Pynoos, Proposal to include a developmental trauma disorder diagnosis for children and adolescents in DSM-V

http://www.traumacenter.org/announcements/DTD_NCTSN_official_submission_to_DSM_V_Final_Version.pdf

Caring for Yourself: Meeting Your Own Social & Emotional Needs

Self-Care: A Key to Good Mental Health

Self-care means honoring and respecting the miraculous woman that you are.

Self-care means learning to listen with the ear of a dedicated mother to your own physical, emotional, spiritual, and relationship needs, and then taking full responsibility for getting them met.

Self-care means taking 100% responsibility for creating an environment that nurtures your physical, emotional, and spiritual selves.

Self-care strengthens your resiliency, which can reduce susceptibility to burnout. Self-care is not just a matter of making healthy lifestyle choices. It also includes self-compassion, having healthy boundaries, being attuned to your needs, and staying true to your values. Self-neglect takes a toll on your health, relationships, and your effectiveness.

Why self-care is an issue:
Many adults never learned how to take care of themselves because of childhood abuse; childhood neglect; family dysfunctions such as alcoholism, illness and delayed social and emotional development in adult caregivers that impairs the emotional intelligence of both children and adults.

The Four Essentials of Self-Care

1. Social and Emotional Intelligence

This form of intelligence involves learning a set of skills that include:

Self awareness: involves understanding and identifying feelings; knowing when one's feelings shift; understanding the difference between thinking, feeling and acting; and understanding that one's actions have consequences in terms of others' feelings.

Emotional self-regulation: expressing and managing strong feelings, controlling impulses and using anger constructively.

Self-motivation: the ability to imagine yourself doing something and setting goals and to persevere towards these goals with optimism and hope, even in the face of setbacks

Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s behavior and impulses, to maintain focus and stay on task even if there are other more enticing alternatives available. Self-regulation impacts not just how children get along with one another but also how they can focus and learn in the classroom.

Social interactions & empathy: Empathy is the ability to put yourself "in someone else's shoes" and to accurately read and comprehend emotional states in others. It also involves being able to receive someone's perspective and being able to show that you care.

Relationship management: This is the ability to establish and sustain relationships, to resolve conflicts, to cooperate socially and to learn collaboratively.

Each of these skills develops in sequence and builds on one another.
First children learn to understand and recognize their own feelings. Next they learn to give language to those feelings, and then they learn that others have feelings and to empathize with them. As children grow older, they learn to manage their emotions, to shake off feelings of anxiety, sadness, or frustration and to delay gratification in order to achieve a goal.

As adults, those skills determine whether a person becomes a mediocre salesman or a successful one who can read the emotional response of a prospective client.
These skills help athletes persevere until they win their gold medals.
They help spouses empathize with one another to de-escalate arguments
They help people avoid injuring others because they can understand how such actions would cause pain.

Self-regulation is the capacity to control one’s impulses both to stop doing something that is unnecessary (even if one wants to continue doing it), and to start doing something that is needed (even if one does not want to do it).

This ability to inhibit one response and to enact another on-demand is a skill used in thinking as well as social interactions. The child who does not have self-regulation at 5 years of age is the child who cannot follow the teacher’s directions at age 6 or who cannot plan how to solve a problem at age 7. The child without self-regulation of emotions at age 4 will not be able to control his temper at 5 and will have negative peer interactions at age 7.

3. Brain Development and Self-Regulation

New studies demonstrate that there is a physiological basis for the development of self-regulation. Brain research shows that self-regulation is linked to maturation of the prefrontal cortex area of the brain, which occurs during the preschool years. So, what causes this part of the brain to mature??

There is a lot of research being conducted on the prefrontal cortex part of the brain. Brain researcher Paul MacLean refers to the left pre-frontal cortex as the "vault of heaven," "angel lobes” or “holy tissue.” He believes that this area has a special purpose, that which makes us human.

Psychologically, this part of the brain is considered the Seat of the Self—the conscious, reflective personality of an individual. Self-psychology includes concepts such as self-actualization, self-awareness, self-development, self-control, self-esteem and self-disclosure. From a developmental perspective, the Self is associated with the emergence of an ego that is ultimately surrendered to a higher power or transpersonal force. This phenomenon often marks a spiritual transition from self-service to the service of others.

Developmental psychologist Alan Schore’s theory describes how the exchange of positive emotions between infants and their caregivers create a safe environment that stimulates the development of the orbito-frontal portion of right prefrontal cortex of the brain.

The orbito-frontal regions are not functional at birth, but develop gradually through a process of imprinting and reach a critical period of maturation by around the age of nine months. This part of the brain is involved in emotional control. By this same time, children have developed their internal working models of reality. This is critical information for parents, as it affirms the importance of their parenting during their child’s first year. If this part of the brain does not develop during its sensitive period, children will lack the ability to regulate their emotions. This loss is the most far-reaching effect of early developmental trauma.

Eckhard Hess’ developmental research also indicates that two months marks a critical milestone in the development of the occipital cortex in infants’ brains that dramatically increases their social and emotional capacities. For the first time, they can fully see their parents and make direct eye contact. The mother’s emotionally expressive face becomes the most potent visual stimulus in infant’s environments, and their intense interest in her face, especially her eyes, leads them to track them and to engage in periods of intense mutual gazing. The large pupils in infants’ eyes act as a nonverbal communication device and that elicits care-giving responses in adults.

2. Coping With Trauma & Compassion Fatigue:

Compassion Fatigue is the emotional residue of exposure to working with suffering people, particularly those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events. Professionals who work with suffering people must contend with not only the normal stress or dissatisfaction of work, but also with their own emotional and personal empathy for those who are suffering.

Compassion Fatigue is a form of vicarious trauma that you absorb through the eyes and ears of your clients. It can be thought of as secondary post-traumatic stress. It is a state of tension and preoccupation with the individual or cumulative trauma of clients as manifested by re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoiding or numbing of reminders of the event and persistent anxiety and arousal.

The human costs associated with compassion fatigue include impaired job performance, more mistakes, drops in morale drops and conflictual personal relationships. The home lives and mental health of compassion-fatigued employees start to deteriorate and eventually cause an overall decline in general health.

4. Practical Tools for Self-care

Self-care seems to be instinctual in nature - except with human beings. One downside of our highly developed human brains is that faulty learning can override instinct. Thus, we humans are capable of learning behaviors that go against self-care and are even self-destructive. Counseling usually involves helping clients learn how to take care of themselves - physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in relationships.

Relax: Throughout the day, take "mini-breaks". Sit down and get comfortable. Slowly take in a deep breath; hold it; and then exhale very slowly. At the same time, let your shoulder muscles droop, smile, and say something positive like, "I am r-e-l-a-x-e-d." Be sure to get sufficient rest at night.

Practice Acceptance: Many people get distressed over things they won't let themselves accept. Often, these are things that can't be changed, for example someone else's feelings or beliefs. If something unjust bothers you, that is different. If you act in a responsible way, the chances are you will manage that stress effectively.

Problems-solve Situations Internally: Ask yourself what real impact the stressful situation will have on you in a day or in a week, and see if you can let the negative thoughts go. Think through whether the situation is your problem or the other person's. If it is yours, approach it calmly and firmly. If it is the other person's, there is not much you can do about it. Rather than condemning yourself with hindsight thinking like, "I should have...," think about what you can learn from the error and plan for the future. Watch out for perfectionism -- set realistic and attainable goals. Remember: everyone makes errors. Be careful of procrastination -- practice breaking tasks into smaller units to make it manageable, and practice prioritizing to get things done.

Get Organized: Develop a realistic schedule of daily activities that includes time for work, sleep, relationships, and recreation. Use a daily "thing to do " list. Improve your physical surroundings by cleaning your house and straightening up your office. Use your time and energy efficiently.

Exercise: Physical activity has always provided relief from stress. In the past, daily work was largely physical. Now that physical exertion is no longer a requirement for earning a living, we don't get rid of stress so easily. It accumulates very quickly. We need to develop a regular exercise program to reduce the effects of stress before it becomes distress. Try aerobics, walking, jogging, dancing, or swimming.

Reduce Emergency Time: If you frequently check your watch or worry about what you do with your time, learn to take things a bit slower. Allow plenty of time to get things done. Plan your schedule ahead of time. Recognize that you can only do so much in a given period. Practice the notion of "pace, not race".

Disarm Yourself: Every situation in life does not require you to be competitive. Adjust your approach to an event according to its demands. You don't have to raise your voice in a simple discussion. Playing tennis with a friend does not have to be an Olympic trial. Leave behind you your "weapons" of shouting, having the last word, putting someone else down, and blaming.

Create Quiet Time: Balance your family, social, and work demands with special private times. Hobbies are good antidotes for daily pressures. Unwind by taking a quiet stroll, soaking in a hot bath, watching a sunset, or listening to calming music.

Pay Attention to Your Addictive Habits: Eat sensibly -- a balanced diet will provide all the necessary energy you will need during the day. Avoid nonprescription drugs and avoid alcohol use -- you need to be mentally and physically alert to deal with stress. Be mindful of the effects of excessive caffeine and sugar on nervousness. Put out the cigarettes -- they restrict blood circulation and affect the stress response.

Talk to Friends: Friends can be good medicine. Daily doses of conversation, regular social engagements, and occasional sharing of deep feelings and thoughts can reduce stress quite nicely.

Self-care practices won't stop self-criticism or perfectionism, compensate for behaviors that foster burnout and undermine self-care such as defining yourself by the good you do for others, operating from an exaggerated sense of responsibility and difficulty tolerating discord.

Training: Promoting Positive Mental Health in Children

Janae B. Weinhold

This training is for those working with young children, particularly those in early childhood education and the childcare profession. It synthesizes a broad spectrum of information, resources, programs and services related to fostering positive mental health in children. There is ann emphasis throughout the training on how to attune with young children in ways that not only meet their social and emotional needs, but also prevent experiences of developmental shock, trauma and stress.

Interest in children’s mental health parallels a dramatic increase in the number of young children being identified as violent, defiant, hyperactive and suffering from an array of what appear to be mental health–related problems.

Many, if not most, of these children are being given these negative labels and diagnoses erroneously. In fact, these “problem” children are profoundly gifted and, therefore, do not fit into the outdated childcare and educational structures in which they find themselves. “Misbehavior” is often their way of communicating that they need something different.

Because of a lack of awareness in the adults who care for them, some of these highly advanced children are experiencing a lot of developmental trauma at home and in childcare and schools. You will find more information about how to promote positive mental health in children in the topics listed to the right. The links below take you to other web sites where you can learn more about the needs of these “new children.”

Please contact Janae for information about presenting a training:

Janae B. Weinhold, Ph.D. LPC

117 Lady Slipper Trail 

Swannanoa, NC 28778

Phone: (828) 686-1890

email: janaeb@weinholds.org

Does Your Child Show Symptoms Of Developmental Trauma?

Janae B. Weinhold, Ph.D.

Prenatal/One Year

Directions: If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 0 and 5 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Premature birth
_____ Prolonged labor
_____ Birth induced and/or accelerated with the use of Pitocin
_____ Born with cord around the neck
_____ Caesarian birth
_____ Prolonged separation after birth due to medical problems
_____ Medical problems at birth (jaundice, Rh factor)
_____ Weak crying response
_____ Low birth weight (under 5 pounds)
_____ Surgical procedures (circumcision)

Directions: If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 5 and 10 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs (prescription or illicit)
_____ Colic, rageful or inconsolable crying
_____ Recurring earaches
_____ Weak contact in eye-following response
_____ Resistance to close face-to-face contact by averting gaze
_____ Resists smiles and attempts to establish reciprocal interactions
_____ Passive, lifeless and non-responsive to adult attempts to engage
_____ Stiffening and resistance to cuddling and close holding
_____ Arches back and pushes away from adults
_____ Dislikes or avoids being held and/or touched

_____ TOTAL

Interpretation:

50 – 70 Low risk of Developmental Trauma©
71 – 90 Moderate risk of Developmental Trauma©
90+ High risk of Developmental Trauma©

Toddler: Ages One to Three years:

Directions: If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 0 and 5 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Child is not upset when left with strangers
_____ Argues and whines
_____ Has mild temper tantrums when s/he doesn’t get his/her way
_____ Regressive behaviors (prolonged bottle feeding or use of pacifier)
_____ Refusal to sleep accompanied by power struggles
_____ Refusal to eat accompanied by power struggles
_____ Child doesn’t seek out mother/primary caregiver after a separation
_____ Child refuses parent’s attempts to engage

Directions: If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 5 and 10 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Avoids looking people in the eye
_____ Resistance to efforts to containment and discipline
_____ Constantly testing adults
_____ Has severe temper tantrums either in intensity or duration when limits are set
_____ Body rigidity
_____ Resistance to holding
_____ High pain tolerance
_____ Accident prone
_____ Poor attention span
_____ Hyperactivity
_____ Has glazed, “spaced-out” look in eyes
_____ Rocking, self-comforting behaviors

_____ TOTAL

Interpretation:

60 – 80 Low risk of Developmental Trauma©
81 – 100 Moderate risk of Developmental Trauma©
101+ High risk of Developmental Trauma©

Preschooler: Ages 3 to 5 years:

Directions: If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 0 and 3 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Persistent nonsense questions and incessant chatter
_____ Lacks cause and effect thinking
_____ Is an angry child inside
_____ Unable to cry about something sad
_____ Avoids or resists physical closeness and touch
_____ Is superficially charming and engaging
_____ Overeats or undereats
_____ Gorges and/or hides food

If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 4 and 7 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Lack of eye contact on parental terms
_____ Not affectionate on parent's terms
_____ Inappropriately demanding and/or clingy
_____ Steals
_____ Lies about the obvious (crazy lying)
_____ Indiscriminately affection with strangers
_____ Cannot be trusted
_____ Is manipulative and/or controlling of people and/or situations
_____ Bossy with peers
_____ Difficulty with peer friendships
_____ Impulsive and/or hyperactive

If the following behaviors are present, rank them between 8 and 10 depending on the severity and then total this group.

_____ Cruel to animals
_____ Preoccupation with fire, blood, gore and/or violence
_____ Destructive to self, others, property
_____ Is oppositional, argumentative, defiant
_____ Has little or no conscience
_____ More disobedient towards mother than father
_____ Has little or conscience, expresses no remorse for hurting others
_____ Falls, accidents, injuries requiring visits to the emergency room

_____ TOTAL

Interpretation:

98 - 128 Low risk of Developmental Trauma
129 - 159 Moderate risk of Developmental Trauma
160+ High risk of Developmental Trauma

Meeting The Social & Emotional Needs of Children

Janae B. Weinhold

It is clear that the social and emotional needs of young children have become increasingly buried under the economic challenges, work commitments and lifestyle demands of adults. Parents, grandparents, teachers and corporate policymakers really do not understand the impact of unmet emotional needs during the first three years of life and how they relate to aggressive, violent and anti-social behaviors in preschool and school age children. While the knowledge base about children’s emotional needs for adult contact has grown tremendously in the last ten to fifteen years, very little of this information has penetrated the academic training of educators, physicians and mental health professionals. Parents and those who advise them are basically uninformed about how breaks in the bonding between children and their primary caregivers causes trauma.

The effects of this early trauma only becomes visible as children get older and begin reenacting it through violence, hyperactivity, defiance and other kinds of disturbing behavior problems.

The first three years of life are critical in a number of ways. The two most critical developmental tasks of bonding and emotional separation take place in this period, forming the matrix for all subsequent human relationships. Disturbances in either of these two tasks appear later in life first as “misbehavior,” then as difficulties with intimacy and/or autonomy in adolescent and adult relationships that are characteristic of co-dependency and counter-dependency.

During the first three years, the brain also goes through its most rapid development—a phenomenon that will never be repeated. By age three, children’s brains are “hardwired” according to the experiences they have had. If these experiences are mostly loving, safe and supportive, the brain is wired to expect positive things. If these experiences are abusive, hurtful, dangerous and unsupportive, the brain gets wired to expect negative things.

During the first three years of life, children do best with a minimum number of caregivers with whom they are emotionally connected. During this critical period, children form the foundation for building all subsequent relationships. Building a child is like building a house. If the foundation is weak, not square or sitting on poor soil, it is likely that the house will have structural damage and become dangerous to inhabit. Building a child is as much a science as building a house. The field of developmental psychology has expanded exponentially during the last ten years, bringing a wealth of scientifically supported information about the needs of children during the first three years. It is time this information reach into all parts of our society.

Only when our social, economic, political, educational and health care systems grasp the significance of the emotional needs of infants and young children and the potential risks involved in not meeting them, will things begin to change. This kind of systemic change requires a paradigm shift—a bigger perspective that requires changing the rules about how our society works and a reordering of values that places the emotional needs of children at the forefront. With meeting children’s needs as a baseline for decision-making, there is the potential for stopping the flood of traumatized children who reenact their pain in violent, anti-social ways. There is also the promise of hope of a peaceful future that allows humans to cooperate with each other and to fulfill their potential.

High-Risk Kids: A Serious Social Problem

Janae B. Weinhold

In the past few years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children being identified as violent, defiant, hyperactive and suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. Teens and young children involved in school shootings have captured national attention and created a ripple of fear and anxiety that now permeates the entire country. Parents and children no longer believe that schools are safe places.

Child care providers are also reporting dramatic increases in the numbers of preschool age children being expelled from their facilities for aggressive, violent behaviors. This rise in the number of young high-risk children disturbs adults, who wonder what these children will be like as teenagers and adults. Following the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999, many parents brought children exhibiting violent and aggressive behaviors in to mental health centers around the country seeking help for them. Columbine seems to be shocking parents into awareness about the risk their of child becoming a mass murderer in the not so distant future.

There is one recurring question that these episodes of child and youth violence are generating: “Why are there so many disturbed children?” The answer is not simple. When viewed in its broadest perspective, it becomes clear that the problem is systemic and involves “culture of violence” issues, a mobile population that has destroyed the extended family infrastructure, an economic system that requires two-wage-earner families and families that are under stress from the accelerated lifestyles now considered “normal” in industrialized countries.

Social change typically begins with a disturbing problem that penetrates social awareness sufficiently to mobilize resources for diagnosing its cause and then creating responses to change it at the source. The problem of violent, aggressive, high-risk children is now penetrating social awareness and activating some preliminary responses to the problem.

Implications For Caring for Children

Janae B. Weinhold

People who work with children, particularly those of preschool age, are the first point of interventions that should involve both education and early identification of children with problems. This group includes parents, grandparents, child care providers, preschool and kindergarten teachers, public and private school officials, obstetricians and pediatricians. These early caregivers need up-to-date information concerning the psychological stages of children’s development and the social, emotional, mental, physical and spiritual needs for each stage. Children’s environments and activities need be structured around these needs and the optimal care of children must become a national priority.

Children’s caregivers must have practical training in identifying children’s earliest symptoms of bonding breaks and other kinds of emotional trauma that are typically displayed through “misbehavior.” Distressed children exhibiting problems must be identified and provided with appropriate interventions to minimize the effects of bonding-related trauma in their lives.

Prevention must become a national value. The growing costs of building facilities to incarcerate children and youth for long periods of time are rapidly making this a major budget item for states. The costs of prevention are minimal when compared to incarceration.

Bonding and the Emotional Needs of Children

Janae B. Weinhold

Children’s emotional needs initially get met through their relationships with adult caregivers via reciprocal interactions involving giving and receiving love. This reciprocal interaction is also known as bonding, an interactive process that occurs through repeated daily interactions such as feeding, changing diapers, playing, bathing, rocking and exploring. Bonding involves emotionally charged exchanges between children and those who care for them. If these emotional exchanges are love-based, the child learns to trust. If they are fear-based, the child learns to distrust.

Bonding involves specific kinds of interplay between the child and caregivers, such as eye contact, touch, holding, talking and singing and mirroring or recognizing the child’s unique qualities. Secure bonding creates feelings of safety and predictability and forms the foundation for positive mental health.