Amy’s Family
Lori was so happy to be a mom. She could not have loved Amy any more than she did. She was pleased to start her workday early so that she could transport her daughter to soccer practice in the evening. She worked overtime on Saturdays to pay for the expensive bike Amy wanted. If Amy needed a little “extra picking up after” from time to time, it was all worth it. After all, doing things for others demonstrates love via sacrifice. Surely, Amy will feel loved and will reciprocate. But then, why did Amy tantrum nightly and destroy property and threaten to hurt her mom? Eventually Lori had to halt all her outside interests. She spent all of her time and energy “filling Amy’s love tank.” She became exhausted, lonely and resentful. Lori began to feel like a failure. Her love was not healing Amy. Maybe Lori’s love was even making Amy worse! But thinking it not enough, Lori was determined to try to show more love to Amy every day.
Because there are books upon books written on ways to express our love, the belief that all our child needs is love will result in a burnt out, exhausted, emotionally bankrupt parent. With each new expression of love the parent strives to provide, the parent experiences rejection, failure and condemnation when the child’s behavior does not change. The impact of early trauma is present but unrecognized, rendering the child incapable of accurately understanding and feeling the loving actions. As parents repeatedly experience rejection, exhaustion and condemnation, the relationship begins the Downward Spiral, the end of which is that nobody is experiencing love in the relationship. Again, the child’s N-IWM is mirrored and reinforced.
5. The Child Will Be Filled with Gratitude.
It seems so logical that a child from a deprived environment will be thankful for a new home and family. We evaluate ourselves as parents and can realistically list all the positive opportunities and items that we can provide for a child. We naturally believe that the child will experience them as positive and be grateful to us for them.
Human communication and interaction undergird the principle of reciprocity. We give and receive. We expect to receive based on what we give. When we work hard, we should be paid well. When we provide good gifts, we should receive gratitude. But consider this analogy: Can you express gratitude to a serial killer who offers to take you to dinner? The N-IWM of traumatized children forces them to view their parents as scary and hurtful. Therefore, even when parents give them good things—like the serial killer springing for dinner—the children experience discomfort. Their N-IWM actually produces a fear reaction to the good things the parents are providing, seeing the kind gesture though a lens of suspicion and mistrust, resulting in some sort of wary, guarded response, if not an outright hostile one.
Amy’s Family
James and Lori knew that Amy had suffered years of deprivation. Their hearts ached when thinking about Amy’s missed experiences. They decided to “make up” for those years. At first it was a delight to be able to buy her all the most hip styles and brand-name clothes for which Amy expressed interest. Who could blame her for wanting so much after having so little? But Lori noticed over time that Amy’s “thank you’s” became fewer and more perfunctory. She did not take care of the clothing, tearing or staining items or giving them away on a whim. Lori became angry and reduced her spending on Amy. Amy resented this “deprivation” and, in screaming fits, also blamed Lori for her not fitting in at school.
James brought home a new toy for Amy every Friday. It would be a family thing, something they would remember later in life. Amy usually played with the toy briefly and then relegated it to the cavernous box of ignored toys. That is, if the toy were put away at all. Usually it was just left wherever it dropped. Lori always reminded Amy to thank her dad for the toy. Finally one evening Amy griped that she did not ask for the toys and they were not even the ones she wanted. She said she was just being nice by playing with them, so that Dad would not be angry with her.
The child driven by a N-IWM will commonly declare that his new bicycle is not the best bike on the market and find fatal flaws in it—“It’s not good enough to do the jumps. What a piece of crap!” The child will “fulfill the prophesy” by “accidentally” stripping bolts with excessive tightening and then complaining when the wheel falls off. Children from deprived environments may experience excessive stress at the effort it takes to manage possessions: cleaning, storing, organizing, choosing and matching. These children may express dissatisfaction or even condemnation of the parent’s purchases for them. Thus, parents experience an emotional slap when expecting a “thank you.” Constant repetition of this theme leaves parents fearful and avoidant of giving. So, once again the child’s N-IWM is reinforced in the current environment. Amy’s teacher complained to the therapy team that the parents did not have the proper school supplies. Lori and James responded, “We don’t feel like buying her anything. What’s the point? She doesn’t appreciate it anyway!”
6. The Family Assumes Negative Motivations and Intentions.
If parents are unsuccessful in changing the child’s behavior, they are vulnerable to assuming that the child has negative intentions or is incapable of doing right: “He does not like me. He is a totally bad kid. He just did that to get under my skin. He is just trying to make me mad.” Once parents assume negative motivations behind their children’s behaviors, all parental interactions will eventually be tainted by these beliefs. Children with a N-IWM naturally assume negative parenting motivations. And negative parenting motivations do not correspond with parents giving good things. Children become fearful when their external world does not match their internal world. So they act as if their parents are bad in order to match the N-IWM and harmonize their external and internal worlds.
Corey’s Family
Rebecca liked cooking for her family. She took pride in the quality of the food. Corey yelled at her for “trying to kill him with this slop” and spat out his first bites. Food was not an issue for him at school or at friends’ houses. Rebecca could never please him. He consistently disliked her cooking. She expressed her hurt and offered to cook any meal he wanted. Rebecca reported, “I cannot make this child happy. He doesn’t like me.” One day, Rebecca set food in front of Fred, her biological child, with a smile and pat on the back. When she gave Corey his food, she avoided eye contact and made no attempt to engage him. She was protecting herself from the anticipated rejection and thereby once again inadvertently reinforcing Corey’s N-IWM.
WHAT IS THE TRAUMA LENS PARADIGM SHIFT?
Shifting from the Familiar to the New Model, How the Elements Change
Now, let’s make the shift to a new paradigm, where the child and maladaptive behaviors are viewed through the trauma lens. We will adjust traditional elements of the parenting paradigm in making this shift. If we fail to make this shift, the traditional style will remain a barrier to effective parenting as well as to effective therapeutic interventions.
Old: All human problems respond to behavioral interventions.
New: Trauma damage must be healed before consistent behavior change can be expected.
Much behavior is driven by a perceived need to feel safe. Humans are more fundamentally motivated to be less afraid than to be happy. As we have seen, children with a N-IWM will behave in such fashion as to bring their belief system into their world. Strict behavioral approaches bring out the N-IWM in bold relief. They do not bring about favorable change, but they do clearly identify those behaviors in need of change.
Parents cannot always address every problematic behavior. Sometimes we as parents are powerless to promote positive behavior change in our children. It requires great emotional strength and support from others in order