Building strong parent-child bonds is crucial, especially during times of stress when children look to their parents for guidance and reassurance. The parallel process, children learning and improving their behaviors while their caregivers learn better parenting skills, works to help both parties. Often, caregivers in these traumatized homes have never seen what a healthy parent-child relationship looks like, so the therapist models those behaviors for them to learn from and imitate. The program uses a dyadic approach, working with BOTH caregiver and child in a relationship-based environment. “We can alter the course of society’s future.” If each generation gets a little better,” says DeWitt. “If we can get the parent to a place where they can understand their own story and how it has affected their choices and parenting style and move them towards being more present and adaptive parents to their children, we have intervened to stop the cycle. The Child First program focuses on the needs of the child while also addressing how past trauma impacts the relationships between parents or caregivers and their children. “Going back through the family tree, we can see historical trauma being passed from adult to child until it’s literally embedded in their genetic makeup,” explains DeWitt. Funded by the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, Child First works with our most vulnerable young children and their caregivers.Ĭlarissa DeWitt, Senior Clinical Director, describes intergenerational trauma as a situation where a portion of the population has experienced adversity going back for decades, to the point where the adversity is at a neurological level, affecting the development of young children’s growing brains and even influencing the expression of genes, which genes are “turned on” and which ones are “turned off”. Child First, was developed in Connecticut by Darcy Lowell, MD and Palm Beach County was the first replication of the program out of the state. However, one program is focused on using a distinctive, nationally-recognized approach: Child First. Recent studies in neuroscience seem to indicate that the brain’s default setting is to assume lack of control and that it is the “helpfulness”, solution-seeking, and resilience that are actually learned.īased on these scientific principles, all of Center for Child Counseling’s programs are trauma-informed and help to address deep-seated trauma through evidenced-based treatment approaches. Eventually, the person may stop trying to improve their situation, even when positive alternatives are presented. A person with this condition accepts a feeling of powerlessness in the face of repeated and seemingly insurmountable adverse experiences. Some family members may exhibit a behavior called “ learned helplessness”. Intergenerational trauma isn’t just a pattern of behavior that’s learned and repeated. This is called the cycle of intergenerational trauma. They bring dysfunction into the lives of their children and so it continues. When these children grow up, if their Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) remain unaddressed, they are vulnerable to repeating the patterns they learned in their own childhoods. However, for some households, the degree of dysfunction, abuse, and neglect is so extreme and relentless that it reaches traumatic levels, affecting the physical health and brain development of the young children who are surrounded by it. Because positive buffers like a supportive relationship with the remaining parent were in place, we adapted, used our resilience to bounce back, and soldiered on successfully. Most of us experienced some disruption of this process, a degree of household dysfunction or unexpected change such as a divorce or the loss of a parent.
They leave their home equipped to face the world and interact appropriately with peers, employers, and future romantic partners. Ideally, children are nurtured, supported, encouraged, and positively reinforced.
For most children, this leads to strong, healthy attachment with their parents and familial bonds that last a lifetime.
For the first years of life, up until he/she goes to school, a child experiences the world through their parents’ activities their life is mostly home-based where they are surrounded by a small group of familiar caregivers. How can we address the deep needs of children and families embroiled in intergenerational trauma?Ī child’s mental health mirrors a family’s mental health. When inadequate parenting skills and toxic environments are passed down from parent to child, a cycle of hopelessness and helplessness can ensue.