MADETOBELONG Becoming a Trauma-Sensitive and Engaged Faith Community - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

MADETOBELONG

Becoming a Trauma-Sensitive and Engaged Faith Community

Webinar Recordings, Slides & Handouts:

americaskidsbelong.org/trauma-informed

Until May 6th Suggested Donation $25

NEWLY ADDED! Zoom Trauma Q & A with Lindy & Krista

Questions from Weeks 1 & 2: Friday, April 17, 11 am central Questions from Weeks 3 & 4: Friday, May 1, 11 am central Watch for Registration Link in Your Follow Up Email from today!

Hurt by Neglect and Abuse. Healed through Attachment.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Attachment

Trust = Attachment

Bonding physically and emotionally to caregiver for needs to be met.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Baby Cries Caregiver Responds Baby’s Needs are Met Baby Learns Trust & Self Worth

Depending on how and when a caregiver responds to a baby’s cry will impact the infant’s ability to trust and realize “I can trust. My voice matters.”

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Baby Cries Caregiver Does NOT Respond Baby’s Needs are Unmet Baby Learns Fear & Distrust

“I can’t trust. My voice doesn’t matter.”

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Attachment Theory

1930’s research by Bowlby & Ainsworth called Strange Situation Attachment is either SECURE or INSECURE

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Attachment Theory

Emotional Development Relational Development Physical Development Brain Development

ATTACHMENT

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Attachment Theory

If you experienced and built secure attachment, you can comfortably demonstrate the following: I can ask for help and communicate my needs, because I learned my voice matters.

• I can let my parent/spouse know I need encouragement, a hug, etc.
• I am aware of and recognize my strengths AND weaknesses.
• I can try new things and take risks.
• I can give AND receive in relationship. (i.e. compliments, care, comfort,

confrontation)

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Attachment Theory

The following may be more likely for someone with an insecure attachment style:

• I never ask for help. I know how to take care of myself. (survival skills)
• My parent/spouse may encourage me, but I won’t ask for it, I may even dismiss it.
• I tend to only recognize my strengths or only recognize my weaknesses.
• I need to control everything in order to feel safe.
• I’m really good at taking care of everyone else at the expense of my own needs.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Relationship Strategies: What’s Your Love Style?

Milan & Kay Yerkovich authors of How We Love “Our experiences growing up, good and bad, leave a lasting imprint in our souls that determine our beliefs and expectations about how to give love and receive love.”

How We Love

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Love Style: The Secure Connector

As a child...

• My parents were attentive and tuned in to my needs
• I learned to trust and was comfortable needing others
• I learned respect by parental interactions and the way they taught me to respect
• thers
• My emotions (fear, sadness, shame, anger) were allowed in my home

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Love Style: The Avoider

As a child...

• My parents were unable to tune into my feelings
• Very little, if any, physical affection and emotional connection from my parents
• Independence pleased my parents
• I heard phrases like “don’t cry” or “don’t cause a scene”
• Tasks, politeness, and a strong work ethic were of utmost importance
• When I was upset, I rarely received comfort

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Love Style: The Pleaser

As a child...

• My parent(s) was overly protective, worried, angry, anxious, and/or critical
• I learned to comfort and appease my parent
• I absorbed tension and internalized the feelings of others
• I was rescued and/or sheltered from stressful situations
• I felt abandoned or experienced separation from a parent
• I avoided expressing anger or frustration

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Love Style: Vacillator

As a child...

• I received sporadic and unpredictable connection in my home
• Unspoken message: “Be available/need me when I feel like parenting”
• I experienced periods of abandonment
• At times, my parents truly connected with me, but it was very inconsistent
• I grew hyper attuned to signs of connection and abandonment
• Unspoken message: “Survive on your own when I don’t feel like parenting”
• I learned to exaggerate my feelings to be noticed and maintain contact

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Love Style: Chaotic

As a child...

• My home environment was chaotic, unpredictable, and often scary
• My parent(s) struggled with numerous addictions, mental illnesses, or was absent
• I learned to survive by either fighting back OR becoming invisible
• I learned to control others OR be controlled
• I reenacted, through “play”, the things I saw, heard, or experienced
• I felt depressed or anxious most of the time
• I would dissociate as a way to cope or escape my current reality
• I experienced some kind of abuse or trauma whether inside or outside my home

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

How Can You Help

We will parent or care for children the same way we were parented…unless we are mindful to change our relational strategies. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12: 13

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

How Can You Help

Explore Your Own Attachment

We believe that in order to be the best versions of ourselves and the healthiest adults for children who have experienced trauma (or any child for that matter), we MUST be able to look at our own stuff and do heart work. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your

• wn eye?You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you

will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Take the Love Style Quiz for Yourself: www.howwelove.com/love-style-quiz

As a adult...

• I am self-sufficient and overly independent
• I prefer to avoid vulnerability, neediness, and emotions
• My emotional life is underdeveloped - “I just don’t have feelings”
• I appear distant and unengaged
• I comfort myself in nonrelational ways: exercise, work, food, shopping, alcohol, etc.
• I describe my childhood as “fine” and have very few memories of it
• I dislike the question, “What are you feeling?” or “How do you feel about that?”

Example: The Avoider

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Here are some additional questions for self-reflection to get you started:

• Is there a love style you identify with more than the others based on your

experience as a child?

• How does your attachment style influence or affect the way you parent or

interact with the children in your life?

• Does one style describe the way you were raised or are currently raising your
• wn children?
• What emotions could you safely express in your home growing up, and how

might that impact the way you react to a child’s emotions?

We hope you choose to at least explore your own attachment style and allow others to walk alongside you in the process.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Implement Attachment Rituals

The goal is not for Sunday School teachers or church helpers to form deep attachments to children but rather, support the attachments of infants/children/teens and their foster, adoptive parents or primary caregivers. “Is it okay if I am the boss of Tim during Sunday school class?” “Is it ok for us to give Jenna some gum/snacks/fruit during kids church?” “May we drive Ryan to the theater in the church van for the concert?"

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Go Get Parents When Needed

Though it is certainly less convenient, ALWAYS be willing to get the parent if a child truly needs the emotional or relational support of their caregiver. You may have to do this for several weeks

• r months before the child no longer needs

the parent to come back.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

Recognize and Support Attachment in Teens

Teens need attachment rituals as well. What does that look like? A teen might express the need for “comfort”, but it is disguised by a “complaint.” Teens will often branch out, forming new attachments outside of primary

• caregivers. They are testing their

relational strategies.

LESSON FOUR: HEALED THROUGH ATTACHMENT

The Language of Love

Are you willing to learn a new language? See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

1 John 3:1

HEALEDTHROUGHATTACHMENT Break / Q & A

We Are

Hurt in Development Healed in Relationship & Play.

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

My feet stand on level ground; in the great congregation I will praise the LORD.

Psalm 26:12

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Child Development

Typical development Child development is the natural process of a child growing physically, intellectually, mentally, socially and emotionally and builds upon each step in the process.

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

8 Stages of Development by Erik Erikson

Infant - 18 months: Trust vs. Mistrust 18 months - 3 years: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt 3 - 5 years: Initiative vs. Guilt 5 - 13 years: Industry vs. Inferiority 13 - 21 years: Identity vs. Role Confusion 21 - 39 years: Intimacy vs. Isolation 40 - 65 years: Generativity vs. Stagnation 65 - older: Ego Integrity vs. Despair

8 Stages of Development by Erik Erikson

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Child Development

Overdeveloped “Street Skills” Child’s energy is focused on survival skills to stay safe—not schoolwork.

Underdeveloped Emotional Age Chronological Age VS Emotional Age

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Child Development

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

Center of the Developing Child, Harvard University

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Brain Development

Amygdala The “watchdog” & “alarm” system

• Filters stimulus
• Looks for threats & scans faces
• Stores memory of trauma
• Works to avoid future negative experiences

The Amygdala

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

Four general responses to an alarmed watchdog (activated amygdala) include: FIGHT FLIGHT FREEZE FAINT These are not responses you stop to think about or take time to contemplate which

• ne is a better strategy - you just DO.

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Brain Development

Prefrontal Cortex The executive functioning

• Logic & reason
• Emotional processing
• Cognition

Prefrontal Cortex

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Overdeveloped Amygdala

They have overdeveloped amygdalas, or “downstairs” brain.

• Withdrawn
• Aloof in classroom
• Seems more tired
• Hypervigilant
• Easily startled with loud noises or tone of voice

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

BUILDING OUR UNDERSTANDING

Underdeveloped Executive Functioning & Regulation

Survival Beliefs

• I have to take care of myself
• When you let people close, they hurt you
• It is not safe to trust others
• Loud noises or yelling mean pain is coming
• Alcohol and drugs mean “you’re on your own”
• If I become defiant, I can protect my mom from dad’s

abuse

• Caring hurts too much
• School is hard and overwhelming

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Be Self-Aware and Safe

Connection Contributes to Felt Safety

• Tone of Voice
• Facial Expressions
• Body language

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Be Self-Aware and Safe

Thriving Beliefs

• I don’t have to take care of myself
• When I let people close, I experience love
• It is okay to trust
• Yelling means someone is upset or getting my attention
• Defiance does not benefit me or others
• School is hard - but I am capable and can ask for help

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Create Routines & Transitions

What fires together wires together. Consistency matters.

• Consistent routines in ministry programming
• Consistent volunteers
• Time for Transitions

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Adjust Age Expectations

Chronological Age VS Emotional Age

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Correct by Using Play

According to Dr. Karyn Purvis, playfulness increases chemistry of healing and reduces chemistry of fear.

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Think Hopefully & Build Resilience

“The single most common factor for children who develop resilience is at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult.”

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

HOW CAN I HELP

Think Hopefully & Build Resilience

Brain plasticity means that the brain can change, rewire and develop over an entire lifespan.

LESSON FIVE: HEALED IN RELATIONSHIP & PLAY

Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Psalm 25:4 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful[b] one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:9-11

HEALEDINRELATIONSHIP&PLAY

Question & Answer Time

Ljohnson@amkidsbelong.org kpetty@amkidsbelong.org