To think that we can’t bring children up without traumatising them?

[YourRubyHiker]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how hard it is to raise children without leaving some kind of emotional mark on them — even when we’re trying our absolute best. And I have been trying my best and miserably failing.

We all have moments when we shout, say no to things that feel important to them, or get too caught up in our own thoughts to really listen, maybe compare them unknowingly or uphold them to an unrealistic standard. Even small things can stick with children in ways we don’t realise.

It makes me wonder… are we meant to aim for “no trauma” at all, or is that unrealistic? Maybe part of being human is that everyone gets shaped (and sometimes strengthened) by the rough edges of their experiences?

Someone once said we’re built by our trauma and if you took all of it away, we might not even be the same people. I find that idea both comforting and a bit sad at the same time.

What do you think? Is it possible to bring up children without causing any trauma? I desperately wish my children stick around when they grow up but sometimes I wonder if what I’m doing is really enough.

You’ll know then that the theory base around ACEs is subject to significant challenge and isn’t accepted by many researchers who have suggested that discourse does more harm than good.

This.
I don't think anyone grows up without some kind of negative emotion from their childhood, there are so many things that happen to us, parents cannot keep us safe from every little thing.
All they can do is make sure the house is safe, that there's a listening ear available, and that they guide their child the best they can.

Your grandmother’s comment was pretty crass. It betrayed how important she thought thinness was.

I’ve always had the instinct not to comment on people’s appearances in front of my children, simply because I know they drink in absolutely everything you say and take it to heart. Not until later did I read more about parenting and understand the more specific logic of why it’s bad to say something like that.

I think if you have the emotional
intelligence to think about what you model to your children, you will avoid traumatising them. (And here’s hoping nobody else does it for you.)

Indeed. Further research necessary. However, it is still a proposed idea, and I wouldn’t rule it out as a concept completely.

Much if not most of our development is from childhood, so childhood development is very important…

Exactly. My parents wanted us to be independent- smart, plucky, able to cure our own boredom and explore the world. They had both been basically neglected as children in a very average 1950s family sort of way and wanted us to have the best of that whilst also being showered with love.

it seemed like an idilic childhood for them but it was lonely for me. I needed more help and support to navigate school, friendships and life skills which I didn’t pick to as easily as others because I wasn’t naturally plucky or resilient.

they didn't do anything wrong. But that (very average in the 70s) childhood didn’t work for me, and didn’t make me feel secure. It has had lasting negative impacts.

that’s how I know any of us could be behaving in a Way that causes our children not-quite-trauma-but-we-don’t-know-the-word.

I don't agree at all. All experiences shape us as people, but that doesn't make everything which was a little bit negative trauma. To suggest it does really devalues the term trauma IMO and makes light of those genuinely traumatic experiences eh childhood sexual abuse.
I remember moments from childhood where I was told off by my dad, or affected by my mum's emotions and stress, or laughed at by peers. But 100% overall I know I was loved and cared for, and my parents would've done anything to keep me safe and well. I don't feel traumatised by those things, though they must've been absorbed into my psyche and had an impact somehow. That is, I have never been affected by them to the degree I imagine trauma to affect people, like PTSD, depression, severely low self-esteem.
I suppose trauma is subjective, like pain. What one person is traumatised by others might not be.

Honestly? Today both of my kids had massive melt downs. One was because I won’t let her ruin her brothers game. She’s younger and have been really difficult with her older brother. He was building Lego and she would just come and grab it to destroy it. He asked her to walk away nicely, I asked her to stop and explained why it’s not nice to behave this way. I gave her her own Lego. She just laughed in our face whilst continuing to destroy what my son built. He cried, he rebuilt it. I lost it though. She’s only 3. I’ve never seen her so upset. Did it stop her from doing the same thing an hour later? No, not at all.
My son had a meltdown after… totally unrelated. He was making dinner for all of us. he’s 8…. It was the first time I heard him say “why am I so dumb?!” Whilst hitting his head. He was so upset. It really hurt me. I never told him he was dumb. If anything I always tell him to say nice things about himself, always praise him for his efforts, always take a positive spin. Idk. Maybe I’m overthinking things.

No, I don't think it's possible to bring kids up without trauma. It takes little to upset them when they're small because they're understanding of situations isn't there and adults are huge to them. A lot of toddler tantrums are just that they need time to process their emotions and make sense of them in my opinion. It takes energy to grow too and not many parents appreciate that their child could be having a tantrum in the supermarket because they're recovering from some trauma or other and just can't right now. But hey, it's the same as in the adult world really, we're all traumatized all the time really, from a larger male boss, from interactions when we weren't in full form or energy etc. We learn from experience I guess

I don’t think it’s about ruling it out, but taking it with a huge pinch of salt. It’s based on a huge data set which has been subject to all kinds of analysis - some of which suggested key events that contributed to poorer outcomes in adulthood. Different analysis of the same data set suggested there’s an amount of adversity needed in childhood for children to develop grit in adulthood. Different perspectives on the same thing.

You can’t really stop the ‘trauma’ or experiences which shape them

did anyone just watch 24 hours in police custody tonight?

that mum knew there was something ‘wrong’….they were on the CAMHS list but nobody intervened. It’s a shocking case….but he had been left to it on games/internet. Kept his ASD calm etc. what a monster he was and nobody knew

I’d be interested to know what sort of experiences you had. From what I’ve read, trauma does depend on the particular sensitivities of the child being activated by the parental behaviour, so I think you’re right that the behaviour can be subtle and yet still traumatic.

But there are still various categories that the behaviours tend to fall into. Like love being conditional on good behaviour or success. Or love being conditional on the child NOT outshining the parent. Or the parent dismissing the child’s feelings as inconvenient. I wonder if any of your experiences fell into that kind of category.

I hope not. I think if your children feel secure and loved, then saying no to them, explaining why the answer is no, isn’t going to cause them trauma.

I grew up in a house with a lot of shouting though and I’ve never shouted at my children, neither has their dad.

We have also always told them that if they feel like we’re not listening enough and haven’t realised how important something is to them, then to tell us and we will sit down and make real time rather than it being rushed over.

When we have upset our children, we talked about it and have apologised where necessary. Our parents would never have apologised because they would never have been able to show they were wrong or be vulnerable or sorry. They just never saw us as people that could be impacted by it.

We have two children, one much more sensitive that’s the other and they have required very .different parenting

These are things we do because of our own ‘trauma’, from shouty parents, being physically abused, never being listened to, feeling utterly powerless etc. We never wanted our children to feel like we did growing up.

Our children aren’t traumatised by their childhood.

Old fashioned I know but I first read this poem years ago and it has stuck at the back of my mind

On Joy and Sorrow
Kahlil Gibran
1883 –
1931

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the self same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed

OP that sounds really tough.
But don't forget you are preparing them to live out in the real world
You're teaching them to respect each other and being positive for your DS.
I'm sure they will turn out fine.

I haven’t really got that far yet! Maybe in the next few weeks 😄

Your daughter I would have just removed from the situation after explaining why. 3yo is little but that's how they learn. She shouldn't have had the opportunity to destroy it again, that's not fair on your son.

Your 8yo is cooking dinner for you all? I mean, I think most 8yos would think they were dumb at this unless they had a lot of help?!

You can never avoid trauma or suffering. It's a human condition. It's better to teach resilience and resourcefulness, coping skills.

I did remove her. She was pleading to let her go and she will sit next to her brother a keep her hands to herself. She is very very advanced for her age. She knew she was lying just to get out and do it again. She was cross with her brother for playing on his own.

My 8 year old loves to do things for us. He is the one to wake up early in the morning just to make cereal for his sister and coffee for me. He has OCD and I wonder if there are other things at play, he won’t let me show or help him in any way. Literally I can’t touch anything or he will blow up. I can explain, I can show him a video if I must. But I can never ever intervene.

All kids need some grit in the oyster, to build their resilience. Setbacks and unpleasant experiences shouldn't be equated to trauma, though. My childhood was tough in many ways and has left its mark, but I don't think trauma is a helpful term in understanding the impact.

If anyone had an absolutely idyllic childhood, they'd be woefully unprepared for adult life. You need some sadness to be able to recognise happiness. You can of course avoid shouting at children, making live conditional and so on, but you can't prevent things like grandparents or pets dying, or accidents or friends falling out. Things happen in life. You can help them build resilience, but you can't control or prevent everything bad, you just do your best.

I feel shaped by my parents and by my experiences of childhood but I wouldn't say they traumatised me. I feel fine about my childhood, even though they divorced etc. Loads of happy times.

However, I was completely traumatised by a horrendous broken engagement in my 20s and, twenty years later, I still see the effects of that in my personality, thoughts and behaviour.

I was a shouty impatient mum. They’re adults now but I lie awake sometimes with churning mum guilt going over the ways I wasn’t perfect.

It’s ironic that what sticks with them is never the same thing - it’s often small transgressions that siblings or visiting cousins made that I didn’t admonish. They felt the injustice and it stayed with them. I don’t remember or recall those incidents at all!!

At the end of the day you just do your best. It’s the balance of your love and input over many years that counts in the end.

Have you been watching Wayward on netflix, by chance?

Have you ever explored whether your reaction to the broken engagement was part informed by your experiences in childhood?

I think rather than repeating our parents 'mistakes' we parent the way we would have liked to be parented.

So that means trying to avoid the things our parents did that impacted us most negatively becomes the building blocks for our parenting approach. I think this can create a cyclical effect - my parents were typical 'benign neglect' 70s parents, I've been an 'over-invested/sensitive' parent in response to their deficiencies, my kids, maybe as a backlash to my parenting, are actually pretty no-nonsense/firm boundaries types and will no doubt parent like this in the future. But the constant thing in all these scenarios is that all of us were/are trying to do our best in the circumstances given to us and (as long as we're not talking about abuse or true neglect) as adults we should be careful framing every unpleasant childhood experience as 'trauma' which can then cause us to fixate on specific events, giving them greater power over our adult lives and relationships than they really deserve.