Dismantle
- It’s a privilege to be able to share with you, thank you, Dr. Shah for the opportunity
- Our goal here is not to train a church full of counselors, but all of us are responsible for the kids God has entrusted to our church family.
- Whether by God’s grace, they have avoided trauma, or they have suffered some traumatic events, we as adults play a critical role in helping kids work through issues before the world convinces them they are traumatized beyond recovery o Very real effort to dismantle the family on the part of enemies of the US, especially those behind major social media platforms that reinforce this message. ▪ Underlying truth – this is an attack from the Enemy. As soon as children existed in the world, the Enemy attacked their family through the kids.
- We want to help provide a framework for both us as adults and our kids. If it is trauma, let’s get help. If it isn’t, let’s not perpetuate victimhood.
- Physiological changes – Ryan o Trauma changes not only the way your brain operates, but the way it develops
- Increased production of epinephrine and norepinephrine, resulting in increased sympathetic nervous system activity; location of fight/flight/freeze response ▪ Results in an inability to moderate the response
- Increased levels of certain neurotransmitters, which may result in emotional blunting, memory impairment, and pain reduction (De Bellis & Zisk, 2014)
- Can permanently alter how people deal with their environment on a daily basis ▪ Helping kids process is critical to their mental health and long-term well-being
- Studies of kids suffering from PTSD show atrophy in various parts of the brain associated with logic and memory, resulting in deceleration of brain development or a reduction in overall brain volume. (Sweeney & Lowen, p. 106)
- Trauma may cause limbic system abnormalities, specifically in the amygdala (readies the body for action) and hippocampus (processes and stores memory). This results in the brain responding to stimuli before the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, can assess the situation. ▪ Often, kids and teens who have endured trauma display hypervigilance, immediately going into a fight/flight/freeze response at inappropriate times.
- Flinching when touched, aggression, excessive crying at inappropriate times, not the normal kid crying.
- These are all signs to watch for. Their absence indicates that this might be a difficult situation, but not a traumatic one.
- Whether they are your kids, teens, or children here in our church family, we have to understand that their circumstances and their perception of those circumstances can affect how their brain is developing and performing.
- Verbal processing – Elizabeth
- This can be a challenge because children are still learning language, language skills, and how to express themselves. When they are exposed to trauma, this developmental aspect greatly affects how they respond.
- Trauma negatively affects these skills.
- Children become unable to express in words what they have been through
- Van der Kolk – speechless terror
- Decreased activity in the Broca’s area (language/speech)
- Increased activity in the limbic system (emotional response)
- Suggests as they are reliving their trauma, they have a difficult time, sometimes an impossible time, verbalizing their experience.
- Memories as stored as somatic sensations and images rather than words. This is a way the brain naturally protects itself.
- Build up SaM – this is what Cara and her team do
- This is also a good grid to determine level of severity of trauma
- Examples – How can we help them? ■ May not come out and say there’s an issue but you notice a shift in behavior – daughter starts skipping meals or your son decides he’s not going to play his favorite sport this season. It’s up to us to determine why.
- Putting a high alert on something that doesn’t deserve a high alert
- They are too easily willing to relive this – maybe it wasn’t as traumatic as you think it was
- Emotions outpace their logic – can they articulate
- Don’t make your child a victim if they aren’t one, but if they are, find help.
- Our job is to help the kids and teens in our lives move from dysfunction to resilience and lead them through the difficult season in life. Ultimately, we should be pointing them to Jesus Christ – setting their minds on things above (Col. 3:2)
- Integration of hemispheres – Ryan o Working with kids and teens should focus on integrating the two hemispheres of the brain ▪ Left brain – logic and reason
- Right brain – emotion and feeling
- When you ask kids to recount traumatic events, they are speaking from the left side, but need to access the right because trauma is stored primarily as feelings instead of words.
- However, enduring trauma can cause lasting damage and dysfunction to the corpus callosum, the link between the two hemispheres of the brain
- Because of this, the “bridge is out”; it can be difficult or even impossible for children and teens to tell you directly about what they have gone through
- This can cause frustration from parents and adults who adopt the “why won’t you talk about it?” approach. ▪ It’s not just that your kids or teens don’t want to. At times, they literally cannot put into words what they have experienced or are feeling.
- In order to “repair the bridge”, adults must engage kids and teens where they are, speak their language – play: ▪ Do something they love to do together.
- Color a picture
- Play a game
- Play a sport
- Engaging them in a physical activity helps them access the right hemisphere, processing emotions related to the trauma and helping them go from dysfunction to resilience
- We do this at Clearview in our Clearview Kids ministries by providing moments of active play ● Game time in Awana, group games in Blaze Kids, Sports Camp
- In Illuminate, this looks like group games and at time, crazy activities. Sometimes, it’s not an object lesson. Sometimes teens just need to play crazy games together because it helps them work through deeper issues.
- Providing opportunities to do that in an environment where they are surrounded by believers helps them move from dysfunction to resiliency and protects them from the lies of the world. o “Broken”, “damaged”, “this experience is your identity now”, “no hope for your family”
- Bottom-up integration – Elizabeth o As we work with our kids and teenagers, it’s important to begin with low brain areas and move to higher brain function. ▪ Change the way they regulate core functions which probably can’t be done by words and language alone
- Meeting them where they are, but not allowing them to stay there. Gentle push from dysfunction to resiliency.
- Trauma stunts their development, but we are called to help them recover lost ground and catch up
- Redirection – diffuse inappropriate alarm response / lower brain function often results in the fight/flight/freeze response and can be displayed in acting out, excessive tantrums, or emotional responses that do not fit the situation
- Kids = tantrums / Teenagers = acting out in school, picking on siblings
- Not discrediting their feelings, but diffusing them
- Break them out of that moment to focus on a different task
- This process allows us to work through the immediate symptom while addressing the underlying cause ▪ Iceberg image
- Symptoms – aggression, lack of focus, lying
- Underlying Causes – insecurity, rage, intrusive thoughts
- Expecting them to properly relate what has been improperly done to them. This is difficult for adults, nearly impossible for children and teens.
- Here’s how we can help children and adolescents with this at Clearview: ▪ Safe and supportive environment
- Listen and validate
- Show a balance between mercy and truth. (Mercy – honoring feeling; truth – perception vs. reality)
- Meet them with mercy and lead them with truth
- Compassion in the things that we do.
- Closing – Ryan
- 1 Timothy 5:1-2 – “Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.
- The path from dysfunction to resiliency is one that we don’t walk alone.
- All of this is possible through Jesus. The ultimate dysfunction is sin. And the ultimate resiliency is a relationship with Christ. Are you saved? Are your kids?