Currently, there’s little we can do to change a child’s genes, temperament or brain processing speed, but we can make a difference in their caregiving and social environment. Many of the traumatised children I’ve worked with who have made progress report having had contact with at least one supportive adult: a teacher who took a special interest in them, a neighbour, an aunt, even a school bus driver. Even the smallest gesture can sometimes make the difference to a child whose brain is hungry for affection. (查看原文)
Because new situations are inherently stressful, and because youth who have been through trauma often come from homes in which chaos and unpredictability appear “normal” to them, they may respond with fear to what is actually a calm and safe situation.
Attempting to take control of what they believe is the inevitable return of chaos, they appear to “provoke” it in order to make things feel more comfortable and predictable. Thus, the “honeymoon” period in foster care will end as the child behaves defiantly and destructively in order to prompt familiar screaming and harsh discipline. Like everyone else, they feel more comfortable with what is “familiar.”
As one family therapist famously put it, we tend to prefer the “certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.” This response to trau... (查看原文)
Then I ended with, "Part of what we learned is that every day in school, Peter learns things from all of you. He watches how you do things, he learns from playing with each of you and he learns from just being your friend. So thank you for helping Peter. And thanks for letting me come and talk about the brain."
It was a short and simple talk. I tried to take an unknown--Peter--and make him less frightening to these children. And over time, their natural goodness emerged. No longer an odd and scary boy, Peter became popular--so popular, in fact, that his peers would argue over who got to sit next to him, who got to be his partner, who got to be in his group. The brightest and strongest children in his class took a special interest in him and their leadership made all the difference. They i... (查看原文)
作者: [美] 布鲁斯·D.佩里, [美] 迈亚·塞拉维茨 副标题: 一个儿童精神科医师的诊疗笔记 原作名: The Boy who was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook isbn: 7568929728 书名: 登天之梯 (原书第3版) 页数: 342 译者:曾早垒 定价: 56.00元 出版社: 重庆大学出版社 出版年: 2021-10 装帧: 平装
