stress at the effort it takes to manage possessions: cleaning, storing, organizing, choosing and matching. These children may express dissatisfaction or even condemnation of the parent’s purchases for them. Thus, parents experience an emotional slap when expecting a “thank you.” Constant repetition of this theme leaves parents fearful and avoidant of giving. So, once again the child’s N-IWM is reinforced in the current environment. Amy’s teacher complained to the therapy team that the parents did not have the proper school supplies. Lori and James responded, “We don’t feel like buying her anything. What’s the point? She doesn’t appreciate it anyway!”
6. The Family Assumes Negative Motivations and Intentions.
If parents are unsuccessful in changing the child’s behavior, they are vulnerable to assuming that the child has negative intentions or is incapable of doing right: “He does not like me. He is a totally bad kid. He just did that to get under my skin. He is just trying to make me mad.” Once parents assume negative motivations behind their children’s behaviors, all parental interactions will eventually be tainted by these beliefs. Children with a N-IWM naturally assume negative parenting motivations. And negative parenting motivations do not correspond with parents giving good things. Children become fearful when their external world does not match their internal world. So they act as if their parents are bad in order to match the N-IWM and harmonize their external and internal worlds.
Corey’s Family
Rebecca liked cooking for her family. She took pride in the quality of the food. Corey yelled at her for “trying to kill him with this slop” and spat out his first bites. Food was not an issue for him at school or at friends’ houses. Rebecca could never please him. He consistently disliked her cooking. She expressed her hurt and offered to cook any meal he wanted. Rebecca reported, “I cannot make this child happy. He doesn’t like me.” One day, Rebecca set food in front of Fred, her biological child, with a smile and pat on the back. When she gave Corey his food, she avoided eye contact and made no attempt to engage him. She was protecting herself from the anticipated rejection and thereby once again inadvertently reinforcing Corey’s N-IWM.
WHAT IS THE TRAUMA LENS PARADIGM SHIFT?
Shifting from the Familiar to the New Model, How the Elements Change
Now, let’s make the shift to a new paradigm, where the child and maladaptive behaviors are viewed through the trauma lens. We will adjust traditional elements of the parenting paradigm in making this shift. If we fail to make this shift, the traditional style will remain a barrier to effective parenting as well as to effective therapeutic interventions.
Old: All human problems respond to behavioral interventions.
New: Trauma damage must be healed before consistent behavior change can be expected.
Much behavior is driven by a perceived need to feel safe. Humans are more fundamentally motivated to be less afraid than to be happy. As we have seen, children with a N-IWM will behave in such fashion as to bring their belief system into their world. Strict behavioral approaches bring out the N-IWM in bold relief. They do not bring about favorable change, but they do clearly identify those behaviors in need of change.
Parents cannot always address every problematic behavior. Sometimes we as parents are powerless to promote positive behavior change in our children. It requires great emotional strength and support from others in order to simply be sad about our children’s misbehaviors—instead of becoming angry or demoralized—while waiting for the slow process of positive change to unfold.
Brandon’s Family
When Bob created the behavior chart, he understood how to “structure” Brandon toward greater success. He felt good about his ability to address each behavior to shape and mold his son into the man he could become. Brandon’s past was just something to be overcome. The problem was how to motivate him to make better choices.
Brandon knew he was different from other kids. They seemed to get more fun stuff and did not argue with adults like he did. He constantly had a feeling that something bad was about to happen. He was excited about the behavior modification chart and promptly earned the first reward. But something vague inside told him that bad things were coming. Bob kept talking about how successful Brandon could be as he grew up and kept accomplishing bigger and bigger tasks.
Brandon began to feel weak and scared of failing, sometimes becoming hopeless. He did not recognize that this feeling was identical to the fear he used to feel years ago as a tiny boy who could not keep himself safe. With each “success” Brandon then became more fearful. Accordingly, the fear would diminish substantially if Brandon stopped trying to meet expectations. Bob raised his voice when asking Brandon why he gave up on working for his next reward. Brandon could not recognize within himself nor articulate to Bob that he was fearful of being controlled with prizes and that he felt like a slave having to knuckle under in order to get scraps. Losing a reward comes easily to someone who already feels like a failure.
Brandon did not like feeling weak or like a slave. So he used his anger to be strong and in control again. So what if he didn’t earn the stupid reward that his untrustworthy dad might not give him anyway? It’s better to feel strong and in control without the reward, than weak and vulnerable while trying for success.
Unrestrained behaviorism, when applied to a child with a N-IWM, often leads to “consequences after consequences.” By midsummer the family was sacrificing game nights and outings, because Brandon needed consequences for raiding the freezer and eating all the ice cream. Bob saw this as Brandon choosing bad behavior. The family responded to him with blame and resentment. But Brandon already knew he was a “bad kid” and he knew how to handle shaming. Family life became organized around providing negative reinforcement (ignoring) or punishment for Brandon’s problematic behaviors. There was little time or energy left for nurturing relationships. But nurture needs to occur independently of poor behaviors. When the goal is healing the trauma damage, nurturing activities and connections remain the high priority even during episodes of poor behavior. The hurt must be healed before the child can effectively make good choices. The parental relationship is the “tool” for healing the trauma.
Training in trauma-informed parenting helped Bob and Deena to use the trauma lens to reframe Brandon’s behaviors. They could see that he had different “parts”—a healthy part that wanted to love his parents and a hurt part that was always afraid. They used some new tools that helped them to be sad rather than angry about his behaviors and reframe them as attempts to feel less afraid. They did not feel “perfect” as parents then, but felt great relief at discovering new ways to understand and engage Brandon.
As the parents changed in their approach, Brandon initially grew angry more easily than ever. He redoubled his efforts to provoke anger in Bob and Deena. Their expression of sadness for his hurt infuriated him. He insisted that he had no such part and was choosing to get the consequence, which—by the way—didn’t faze him at all. But his parents persisted in expressing sadness and their hope that he would “feel” the weakness. Each time he made a healthy choice, they celebrated the choice as evidence of his healing and predicted that good choices would become progressively easier for him. To Bob’s great surprise, one day Brandon commented that a consequence “sucked” and expressed pleasure that his hurt “baby part” was healing.
By highlighting the N-IWM with empathy and sadness for the child’s early trauma, parents can provide an alternate experience of self. Poor behavior previously understood by Brandon and his parents as “I am bad but strong” is viewed through the trauma lens as “I am a good kid with a hurt part.” While this paradigm is initially irritating to the child, it provides a framework for long-term growth. As stated before, it’s as though behavioral interventions
