Seeds For The Soul

Too much or not enough?

The next topic in our trauma series is going to talk about physical affection/touch. Touch plays a major role in infancy as to how we begin to trust, feel safe, feel secure, and feel loved. There have been many debates on how much holding our children is too much, or not enough.

Research suggests that children who experience less physical affection/touch have developmental delays. They learn significantly slower than a child who experiences more physical affection/touch. Think about that. Even as an adult, we perform significantly better when we have someone else’s support. A hug when we are sad, someone cheering us on through difficulties, and a massage that decreases stress.

I don’t know about you, but I remember having my first son and ALL the “advice” that I began to receive on how to raise him. “You shouldn’t do this,” “You should do this.” All of it came to me without me asking not one single question. As a first time mom, my automatic response was “Don’t tell me how to raise my child.” LOL.

While I do believe people have the best intentions, I also believe that they are only going off of their experiences. The problem with that is, our experiences are only a limited view. Every child is different.

Out of all the unsolicited advice I received, a very common one was, “holding children can make them spoiled.” The theory is, if you are always holding them, they will constantly want to be held. Now this can become an issue during the toddler stage. However, toddlers still need much affection. The difference is that the type of touch and affection changes as they become more independent. Let’s stick to infants for now.

From birth to 1 year, our children do the most amount of development. During this time, they begin to see and experience the world around them for the first time. A lot of this experience is done through touch. Skin to skin contact with their parents gives them a feeling of safety and security. Certain scents are stored in their memory as “oh that’s mommy or daddy.” We as their parents introduce them to all of the first things they will ever know. Contrary to some beliefs, you CANNOT spoil an infant. They need constant attention to grow emotionally, physically, and intellectually.

My husband and I have a 10 month old. The touch and affection he needs now is different from when he was first born. Now as he becomes more independent, his need to be held has slightly decreased. We still show him signs of affection and touch by giving him lots of hugs and kisses, helping him up if he falls down, holding his hand to help him walk, and rocking him to sleep. Especially during this teething stage! He needs extra soothing LOL.

Some of the impairments that come from lack of physical affection are:

• Sensorimotor development problems
• Hypersensitivity to physical contact
• Somatization
• Increased medical problems
• Problems with coordination and balance

Studies have shown that kids who receive more physical affection release more oxytocin. Oxytocin is a chemical the brain releases that causes happiness. It’s a feel good hormone. When it is released, you store the things that caused that chemical to release as good memories. Bonding that releases oxytocin will increase a child’s socio-emotional development, or how they form bonds later in life. Children who receive more physical affection also develop better coping skills, are healthier, and learn new skills quicker.

Now think about your childhood. What types of physical interactions did you have with your parents or other adults? This will help you determine why you may struggle with building bonds or cringing when someone comes in for a hug. It can be a source to the root of some of your trust issues, insecurities, and even not feeling loved. If you received more negative touch then positive, it could be the basis on why you stay away from getting close to anyone. Just a few things to ponder on your way to growth and healing!

Be blessed until next time

Ash

“Enhancing Development Through the Sense of Touch.” Urban Child Institute, http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/articles/research-to-policy/research/enhancing-development-through-the-sense-of-touch.

“Tutorial 7 · Recognizing and Addressing Trauma in Infants, Young Children, and Their Families.” Trauma Signs and Symptoms, http://www.ecmhc.org/tutorials/trauma/mod3_1.html.

DISCLAIMER: This is by no means a way to justify behavior that has hurt people. This writing came about to me to try to break some of the ideals that surround this subject as a means of clarity and understanding. I am not an expert. I do however have experiences that I believe may help someone else get free! That is my goal. To help change some of our perspectives that may have been misinformed. I believe by having difficult conversations, we can change the trajectory of topics that have held us bound to one set idea. Please feel free to message me with any questions. I’m always open to learning more and growing more!

If there’s one thing I hear people say, time and time again, it’s “They are supposed to be a Christian, they shouldn’t act that way.” A lot of the time, this is followed by something a Christ follower did that was outside the man made ideal of what a Christ follower should look like. I say man made because a lot of the reasonings behind why a Christ follower shouldn’t behave in certain ways, is NOT biblical. These standards and stereotypes were created based on what we saw from the experiences we have had in our lives. Those experiences will mold what we believe a Christ follower to be. For example, if you go to a church where there isn’t much vulnerability into our human weaknesses, then it can appear that Christ followers don’t have downfalls just like anyone else. When we hide our weaknesses instead of embracing them, we teach people that with God you don’t have any problems. FAR from true. I want to take this opportunity to break some of those ideals that have separated us and caused conflict for so long.

Let me start with this. Christ followers are not exempt from sinful behavior. Romans 3:23 says “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”. When you chose to follow Christ, that does not mean you are exempt from sinning or doing things outside of Godly character.

There is a high standard that has been set for someone that follows Christ. Why is this? Maybe because of the way relationship with Christ has been depicted, visualized, or taught to us. We look to leaders of the church, movies, and just plain ole people that say they follow Christ as our examples. We, if not careful, can put the people who follow Christ on a pedestal and forget they are flawed just like anyone else. So when they do something outside of what a Christian “should look like,” they are then casted into the fiery furnace of judgment. You can’t possibly follow Christ if you ___________. Fill in the blank.

While this is how people have judged Christ followers, Christ followers have also placed judgment by saying things such as “Your going to hell if__________. Fill in the blank. SPOILER ALERT: No one can decide if you are going to heaven or hell. That is God’s job alone and both statements are not justified nor how God wants us to treat one another.

The idea of “Christianity” is one of perfection. We follow Christ, not because we are perfect, but because we need someone that will help us in our imperfections.

I believe that a good portion of people who follow Christ, have really misrepresented him. This has caused people to be left broken, shattered and wanting nothing to do with Christ. Not because of Christ, but because of the way “his people” represented him. That hurts my heart. Let me apologize on behalf of Christ followers. Your hurt matters! Being one who has served in church for 10 years, I have seen firsthand just how easy it is for a Christ follower to be off the mark. I myself have been off the mark. Again, we are all flawed human beings! However, it is important to recognize where we go wrong and get it right. It is the Holy Spirit within us that helps us recognize where we go wrong so we can get it right. BUBBLE BURST ALERT: Not everyone with a title or representing Christ is being led by the spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the difference!

Knowing God personally has and is what keeps me staying in relationship with him. He is so much more than what you hear or see. Once we get our own relationship with him, it changes the game completely. Now we don’t have to go off of what someone else says or does but we can gain our own knowledge and understanding of who he is.

We live in a society where a lot of the time we don’t research for ourselves. We form ideals and opinions off what we see or hear others do. The best thing you will ever do for yourself is study, research, and gain your own understanding. I believe if we did this more often, we can change the standard that wasn’t even created by God in the first place. The best example of following Christ, is Christ himself.

When we decide to follow Christ that doesn’t mean we magically change overnight. We then start the process of growth and change mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Think about how long we have lived without him and lived in our own character, our own justifications, and made decisions with no thought to how they would affect our lives or others. To think that those qualities and characteristics just disappear is not realistic. It takes time for God to work out your own fleshly characteristics and develop his characteristics within you. This is a lifelong journey! Also, some of the characteristics we have before Christ do not go away at all. Say what? I know crazy right? We fight against those old characteristics once we do have Christ because then he shows us a better way of handling situations. For instance, while we may want to cuss someone out, we CHOSE not to because that will feed more fuel to the fire then if we take a minute and figure out how to actually communicate our feelings. While we are learning more effective ways, however, you may cuss a person or two out lol. The difference with Christ is that we become accountable to the behaviors and actions that tear down instead of building people up. God created us to have community. He created us to love and heal. Think of Christ like an accountability partner. He is stronger than us and helps us to do things in a loving way that will cause connection and not disfunction and separation.

If you think about a lot of the things going on in our world today, most of it is causing separation. That is NOT God’s plan for us! He loves us ALL the same! He doesn’t put distinctions between people, people do. We like to blame Satan for a lot of things. The truth is, most of the time Satan doesn’t have to do anything. He sits back and watches us destroy each other.

Let’s talk about the process of following Christ.

Once we decide to live for God, the refining process begins. Just like gold is tried in the fire to get the impurities out, as happens with us.

Well what are those fire experiences for us? Those are the situations and circumstances that happen in our lives that drive out our ungodly character. This happens so we can recognize and acknowledge the areas we need to change. Over time, trial and error, we are able to start changing how we once handled things into the way God would want us to handle things. This can be a very trying time in our walk with God. We can be hard on ourselves when we act outside of how we now want to act. That’s ok! It’s all a part of the process. Even if we don’t handle everything with the right mind frame and we let our flesh get the best of us, God will give us grace and the ability to recognize how we could have handled that better and change it for the next time.

When it is your sincere desire to grow and change how you once dealt with life situations, God will bless you to do that. That doesn’t mean it will be easy! One situation at a time. Keep asking God to help you and he will do just that! Don’t focus on where you went wrong but continue pursuing that which refines you! With time the old characteristics and things you knew to be your response, will change.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].

Trust the process-Trust the plan-Trust the transformation!

Be blessed until next time

Ash

DISCLAIMER: These points of trauma will be the very basics. These subjects can go so much deeper. I am just giving you a basis to start you in the right direction.

Trauma that stems from childhood comes from one of the 6 domains of development that we learn as infants through our teenage years. The next 6 posts will be on each of these domains and what happens when improperly developed in us as children.

The 6 domains are: Attachment, physical affection, affect regulation, behavioral control, cognition , and self regulation.

Each of these areas of development are the beginning to how we deal with others and ourselves throughout life.

They will help us get to the root of so many of our insecurities, defense mechanisms, and poor coping skills that we have adapted to survive from the lack of what we didn’t receive as children.

The goal is healing and finding healthier ways to handle the circumstances, people, and situations that arise in our lives now.

This is NOT, however, a means to place blame on those that may have failed us in our eyes. The Bible tells us that we are all born in sin and shaped in inequity. That means that all of us have faults and we must keep in mind that those who raised us did the best they could with what they knew and sometimes how they were taught.

Their issues even stem back to their childhood, so on and so forth.

We can use this a means to receive healing.

So let’s talk about Attachment.

Attachment can be defined as the emotional bond that forms between infant and caregiver. If we have a poor sense of emotional regulation in our adult lives, we can probably link it back to an attachment issue. This is where we form how to deal with our emotions. If we are always told as a child, “oh get over it, your fine”, “your being over dramatic”, “stop your crying.” Those things will cause us to feel like our feelings don’t matter. This plays out in our adult life by us now losing the capability to be vulnerable with our feelings because we were taught to not deal with our emotions.

Attachment bonds guide an individual’s feelings, thoughts, and expectations in relationships.

For instance, when we grow up in a house of chaos and fighting, we too will chose relationships that bread these behaviors. We will chose abusive spouses and be involved in situations with violence because it is what we know to be “normal”.

Another example is a child that experiences neglect and little positive attention. This leads to either overly looking for attention in negative ways such as, promiscuity or bullying.

Some of the things that come from attachment issues are: difficulty trusting others, being uncertain about the reliability/predictability of others, social isolation, difficulty seeking help, being clingy, and having difficulty with separation.

Do you struggle in any of these areas? I know I do. I have a real hard time asking for help. I usually justify it with “why? So it can be thrown back in my face?” This, however, is just a defense mechanism to shield myself from rejection. Another thing I struggle with is trusting people. Honestly, my trust issues stem from and attachment issue. What causes us to trust someone? Usually we trust people we can count on. So if you have experienced several let downs it can be hard to trust people. We can combat this though by remembering that people are flawed. Not everyone is going to let you down and even the ones that have, didn’t always do it intentionally.

To better understand why our parents raised us how they did or how we raise our children like we do, let’s looks at the different parenting styles.

There are 4 different styles of parenting. They are authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved.

This will give us a basis of which style our parents modeled and what we model to our children.

So how do we recognize how to heal attachment issues and create healthy attachment bonds in our children?

The first step is always ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

We must first identify the problem or the root of the problem. You can’t change something you don’t first recognize as an issue. Maybe you don’t recognize it because it has just become a part of who you are. Maybe no one ever showed you a different way. By healing ourselves first, it will make the path to creating healthy attachment bonds in our children easier. I said easier, not easy, right?

For instance, one thing that I have recognized in my own life, is the value of quality time spent. As we discussed if time spent is missing, children will seek it in more negative ways. One way healthy attachment is formed is by spending heartfelt quality time with our children. Let me say this, quality over quantity. It doesn’t have to be lengthy or overdone but it is in a plethora of little moments like reading a book or giving them your undivided attention when they are excited to show you something. If that is something we lacked growing up, we can change that with our own children.

As discussed in the last post, we are breaking cycles or patterns!

When we as parents are under stress, we can tend to shoo our kids away. “Give me a minute “, “not right now”, “I’ll check it out later” and later never comes. We have to be intentional in doing what is best for our children, even when we “don’t feel like it.” Intentional on showing them the best way possible. That doesn’t mean perfection. It simply means you give it your all everyday and if you have a moment where maybe you handled a situation wrong, take a second, apologize if you have to, and keep going. We are going to make mistakes! Let me burst a bubble, it’s OK TO APOLOGIZE TO YOUR KIDS! We sometimes hurt them. I believe we think that just because they are kids they don’t have feelings or because we are the adults we don’t have to apologize. WRONG!

It’s also important to have your own time alone. To unwind, destress, and gain back mental stability. This will help us do our job as parents more effectively.

We need positive outlets and sometimes extra help from other resources. For me it’s my faith. God has shown me so much about what I didn’t receive and what I need to change for my children. Therapy is also a good option. It’s good to talk to someone who doesn’t know you at all and is unbiased to your situation. They can help you work through it if you can’t on your own.

So I challenge you to look back and see where you might not have received the healthy attachment bond you needed. Look at the issues above and ask yourself if you struggle in any of those areas. If so you can now acknowledge that and start creating a healthier way to teach your own kids. One day and one step at a time!

Be blessed until next time!

Ash

“Tutorial 7 · Recognizing and Addressing Trauma in Infants, Young Children, and Their Families.” Trauma Signs and Symptoms, http://www.ecmhc.org/tutorials/trauma/mod3_1.html.