Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the
repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.
Written By Jane Ellen Stevens
Nadine Burke Harris: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime was originally published @ ACEs Too High » Jane Ellen Stevens and has been syndicated with permission.
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Why not focus on prevention rather than how to treat those who have already been harmed!!? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! The REAL problem is society’s ignorance and acceptance of child abuse/neglect. Adults who are around, witness, or commit child abuse/neglect/trauma do nothing about it. Adults don’t report it, parents won’t accept responsibility or blame and society doesn’t force parents accept it, there is no punishment for those who ignore, enable, or commit child abuse/neglect, and parents scream and cry about their “right to raise their child how they wish” while making crucial parenting mistakes that permanently harm their child and no one does anything about it.
Nadine Burke Harris, you say that there is something that was “missing” when you were trying to diagnose someone with ADHD etc………..YES you ARE missing something! It is the parents/caregivers who are the problem. Children are being drugged at epidemic levels ONLY to pacify the abusive or neglectful parents and NOT to actually help the child because the child is sent right back into the unhealthy environment that caused the behavioral problems in the first place. Children act out their aggression and anxiety and their home-life environment (their parents) is the key. It’s ridiculous to continue to focus on treating those who are harmed while millions more are being harmed every day simply because of irresponsible and inept parents raising children with their own dysfunctions which are passed on from generation to generation and this type of abuse/neglect, from mild to severe, is completely ignored.
The anti-bullying campaign now labels abuse/neglected children as “bullies” and teaches other children to ignore them just like adults ignore and enable child abuse/neglect. This is a very dangerous lesson to be teaching children who will grow up to be insensitive and desensitized to child abuse/neglect. We are creating another entire generation of ignorance and tolerance of child abuse/neglect.
Duh, taking away the stress, trauma, abuse, neglect away and you will prevent millions of cases of mental illness. Focusing on better parenting is the key. PERIOD.
Parents are experts at hiding and protecting their dysfunctions, disorders, abuse, neglect, and mental illness. All parents think that they are perfect, even the abusive and neglectful ones. “Parental Arrogance” is what I call it and it is the biggest obstacle to teaching better parenting which will prevent most problems in our world caused from mental illness, dysfunction, and disorders. Once we start holding parents responsible, once we start INSISTING on better parenting, we will prevent most mental illnesses, disorders, and dysfunctions.
I agree that the greatest issue affecting America today is the nationwide crisis of a dysfunctional family unit. It’s the root of problems faced in education, as well. Parents are not performing the essential parenting duties for their children. Many parents are neglecting essential needs of children.
All of these need to happen before a child starts school:
1) Many parents are not starting their children off on the right foot with a set bedtime and reading/talking/playing with their children each day. This investment of time spent with the child is essential.
2) Many parents are not properly nourishing their children to build a healthy brain so the child can learn. Fast food and prepackaged food is not nourishment.
The list of what is essential for children years zero-five is exhaustive. Children are not getting what they need within the family. Period.
I encourage parents to learn more about what is “essential” by accessing excellent articles on-line, in parenting magazines, etc.
Thank you for sharing! So true and I would love to talk about what as a Nation we can do! I have so much respect for you for speaking out!
I don’t recall the speaker saying whether or not this was a problem that has surfaced in the last 10,20,30, 40 or 50 years.
In retrospect, I feel the change in our society over the past 50 years, with the female leaving the home to accept employment outside the home has done more to damage the family structure than improve it. Not to say the male can or should not be the homemaker, but just saying one big difference in the past 50 years is that women are no longer “stay at home” parents for the most part, lending itself to a decline/changes in child rearing/nurturing during the formative years.
The answers to these problems are not simple yet some of the solutions are right inside of our homes and/or places of worship. Society has allowed social media to rear our offspring, yet we wonder why the children don’t behave or adjust as we did 50 years ago. Social media takes up more time than should be legally allowed, leading to inactivity of the youth, activity which could help work off some of the anxiety, stress and tension of the day. Such classes as physical education, home economics, and/or nutritional education are not considered to be classes that will result in high paying careers, yet we pay big bucks to medicate ourselves for the lack of these basic courses of instruction during the formative years.
A return to a morality based society, one that believes and practices treating others as you would have them treat you just might prove to be a simple solution to all the pressure and/or violent behavior our children experience. Another measure would be to ban any programs that glorify violent and/or sexually deviant behavior in television viewed by young people. Over the years, the level of such deviant behavior has been increasing so much so that parents have been made to believe this sort of entertainment is harmless, yet we now are seeing the result that say differently. Where is our moral compass?
I’m sure there will be other comments, some who may agree, and some who may not agree, and that’s okay.