Tag: brain development

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART THREE): ‘GROUPTHINK’ and ‘GROUPFEEL’

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Day two of the ‘frozen pipes’ saga.  As most readers know, I live in southeastern Arizona with the Mexican-American border wall (actually two fences here) in my back yard.  This is about as far south as I can go and still remain in the Western U.S.  Having been mostly raised on an Alaskan mountain homestead, and having spent much of my adult life around Fargo, North Dakota, I know ‘life in the north’.  But here?

As I mentioned, most of us in this rural area have no insulation in our houses and only the flimsiest of single-pane windows.  Last night our temperatures dropped to 5 degrees above with a windchill of minus 20.  Because of the lessons I thought I learned yesterday (as I mentioned in Part One) I was all geared up last night before I went to bed to do things RIGHT.

I thought about it and decided that rather than tax the hot water heater (and its corresponding gas bill) that it would probably be ‘good enough’ if I just left my cold water faucets running enough to keep them from freezing.  OK, but then comes the part I didn’t anticipate — along with some more DUMB LUCK.

My cold water was still running out of my faucets this morning — but!!!  I’m not sure how my luck allowed this to happen, but both of my sinks were filled within a quarter inch of their brim as the sewer lines appear to be frozen.

I did not anticipate THAT, and boy am I glad I didn’t wake up to completely flooded floors!

So, where is the problem?  In thinking about it, I really don’t know.  I don’t know if these frozen lines are ONLY MINE or if they are frozen just in this trailer court my house sits in the middle of or if they are frozen in this entire unincorporated little town of 700 people.  I COULD ask someone, but I am much more aligned personally with the ‘wait and see’ solution.

Meanwhile I notice the town itself is eerily quiet this morning.  Because over 98% of the town has connections in Mexico, I imagine that many families (if they are having problems in their homes similar to mine) simply packed up and headed south to their family there.

I know the poverty on THAT side of the border is far worse than it is on this side, but I also understand that even if all of the town’s water and sewer lines are frozen ‘down south’ that wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference to these people.  I have watched these families over the 11 years I have lived among them and know that BEING TOGETHER is their best solution to everything — good or bad.

And here I am, Ms. White Chick (not sure at 59 that I’m still a chick, but??) alone in my house wondering — thinking — about all of this.

Of course my children living in Fargo know cold (as I well remember it) far worse than ours here.  But they EXPECT the cold up there and are far better prepared in every way to cope with the problems it does and can create.  At this point in my life  ‘down south’ is where I choose to be — alone or not!

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This all has me thinking about how likely it seems to me that bonds that connect members of our social species evolved within environments where we directly and immediately NEEDED ONE ANOTHER.  Most importantly, WE KNEW THIS FACT!

In today’s very urban America it seems that perhaps many of us do not live lives where our need for one another IN THE BIG PICTURE remains on our mental ‘front burner’.  In thinking about the growing gaps in the world between those that HAVE more than they need materially in contrast to those that DO NOT HAVE enough of what they need, I also think (wonder about) the fact that what is true in the United States is equally true around the globe.

For the most part the wealth-gap planet wide exists between those in the NORTH versus those in the SOUTH.  This is demographically very true in the United States at the same time it is true around the globe with the economic well-being and lack of well-being split that exists between humans who live in the Northern hemisphere versus those that live in the Southern hemisphere.

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I am not a Scholar so I am not mentally prepared to contemplate the answers to the many questions I find myself asking about ‘life’ — particularly human life.  Due to the way my body-brain was changed in its physiological development due to severe, extreme, chronic terrible abuse and trauma from the time of my birth, I already DO KNOW that the way my OWN right and left brain hemispheres do not collect, process, store or contemplate any information in a ‘normal or ordinary’ way (like it is meant to and does with people who benefited from safe and secure attachment relationships in their earliest body-brain formative years).

I mention this because I can FEEL my own questioning in MY BODY.  My questioning exists probably primarily in my right brain hemisphere, fed by my feelings that my body feeds to my right brain — but my questions seem to lie mostly in some unseen vast deep ocean ‘over there’ where my rational, logical, linear, sequential, verbal language-based LEFT brain hemisphere can’t get to them!

Even this experience of WONDERING can be an extremely intense and difficult to regulate emotional state.  WONDERING — connected to HOPE on the one end and to FEAR and awareness of the unknown on the other.

I don’t expect that our species made huge progress toward survival by being stuck very often in the state of simply WONDERING.  WONDERING when the next big animal was going to pounce, or when the next rival tribe was going to appear for a competitive slaughter, or wondering where the herbs needed to heal MIGHT be — or wondering how to stay warm in the north, or wondering how to even care for a newborn — NOPE!  Minimal survival benefit to being stuck in the wondering stage UNLESS it can stimulate thinking toward a positive solution.

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BUT, for our species thinking ALONE probably had little to do with our mutual survival as a species unless the thoughts of the ONE were shared with the MANY.  I believe we are designed for this GROUPTHINK.  If I add here a fact that is primarily left out of the Western worldview way of thinking, and that is that FEELINGS are also a form of thinking without words, I would also say that GROUPFEEL is just as important as GROUPTHINK.  In fact, if feelings are left out of the equation for survival, we suffer from our own LEFT-RIGHT brain hemisphere split that in itself creates a form of poverty for humans individually and collectively.

When I feel-think this morning about the probable evacuation of many of my neighbors over the southern border as they seek to be among those closest to them right now in this rare cold spell and the problems it is causing, I am the one out-of-place in being alone.  As I think about the global economic North-South split I think about the cultural worldview differences that seem to mean that so many in the north are alienated from feeling-thinking unity in their own body as they are split off from feeling-thinking in GROUP.

That means to me that the true values that matter most are abundant within the economic poverty of the Southern arm of the human species, while these most important GROUPTHINK (groupfeel) connections are far more likely to be shattered into tiny fragments in the North.

If I think about HUMANS being HUMANS’ most important resource, it isn’t the isolated materialistic disconnected (even in one’s own body between feelings and ‘thoughts’ — body and mind) Northern (European-rooted-‘Western’-thinking) arm of our species that has kept this resource at the center of their lives, their value systems and their civilization.  If I connect my feeling thoughts with my word thoughts I know that being ‘a part’ (which is the foundational assumption in the mechanistic Western worldview) leaves us being apart from one another in profound ways that do not happen among members of our species who have NEVER truly adopted the Western worldview.

I can sit here alone, heating large pans of water to pour down my drain in hopes I can thaw frozen sewer lines IF they are frozen only at MY source, my house, all I want to.  At the same time my heart-of-hearts would much rather be ‘over the border’ in a different land so that I could be ‘a part’ of a much larger connected community.  I would rather be sitting in a tiny adobe house crammed with all ages of people from babies to old people joshing around in a sea of warmth, humor and community as we together pass time while a mutual solution is found to all problems one moment to the next using GROUPTHINK that INCLUDES GROUPFEEL

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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+DISORGANIZED-DISORIENTED INSECURE ATTACHMENT – 2 ARTICLE LINKS

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This article provides an excellent, clear and informative description of the purpose of attachment systems and of the variations that can be noted in the attachment patterns of infants:

Explaining Disorganized Attachment:  Clues from Research on Mild-to-Moderately Undernourished Children in Chile

By Everett Waters and Marta Valenzuela — in J. Solomon & C. George (Eds). Attachment Disorganization. (1999) New York: Guilford Press  [See Table of Contents for this book]

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And – and interesting study on the early research toward the ‘disorganized/disoriented’ insecure attachment category:

“This study reanalyzed the attachment relationships of a sample of 12-month-old maltreated and nonmaltreated infants using the Main and Solomon (in press) classification system for disorganized/disoriented (Type D) attachments. As predicted, we found a preponderance of disorganized/disoriented attachments in the maltreatment group (82%). In contrast, only 19% of the demographically matched Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) comparison group exhibited such Type D relationships.”

Disorganized/disoriented attachment relationships in maltreated infants.

Carlson, Vicki; Cicchetti, Dante; Barnett, Douglas; Braunwald, Karen

Developmental Psychology, Vol 25(4), Jul 1989, 525-531.

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+24 HOURS LATER – MORE BAD NEWS FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN

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I just wrote a post on about the wonderful results the Healthy Families project has been generating for at risk children in New York: +NEW YORK’S ‘HEALTHY FAMILIES’ PROGRAM — GREAT FINDINGS! However a day later this distressing news comes through from the Prevent Child Abuse New York blog:

Governor Cuomo’s Budget Proposal Eliminates Funding for Healthy Families New York

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed state budget eliminates funding for one of New York’s most cost-effective and cost-savings programs, Healthy Families New York home visiting. This proposal would dismantle a program that has a proven record of preventing child abuse and also would make New York ineligible for federal grants that would improve the lives of more of our states’ most vulnerable children and families.

Healthy Families New York (HFNY) serves at-risk pregnant and new mothers in 38 of the state’s highest need communities. Cost savings begin immediately with healthier babies delivered, and continue for years with fewer incidents of child abuse, lower child welfare costs, and greater success in school leading to less need for special education services.

“We are dismayed that the Governor proposes ending the Healthy Families New York program, given the proven outcomes for children and the potential for significant additional federal funding for the state,” said Christine Deyss, Executive Director of Prevent Child Abuse New York. “This action would undo 16 years of work to develop one of the best state systems for early childhood home visiting in the country.”

A seven-year randomized trial evaluation of HFNY demonstrates:

  • Low birth weight deliveries are reduced.
  • Children’s preventive health care is improved.
  • Physical abuse is reduced and parents’ use of non-violent discipline increased.
  • Parents at the highest risk have fewer founded cases of abuse and neglect.
  • Fewer children need special education or repeat a grade.
  • More children do well on standardized test and are in gifted programs.

The average annual cost to provide HFNY services to a family is about $4,600. For low birth weight babies, additional medical costs in the first year of life range from $25,000 to $90,000, primarily paid by Medicaid and state sponsored insurance plans. The average annual cost to the state for foster care for a child who has been abused is more than $24,000; total federal, state and local expenditures on child welfare services in our state are approximately $2.7 billion. Special education services more than double the cost of a child’s education.

For families who had prior histories of child abuse or neglect, the program generated a return of more than $3 for every dollar spent in seven years, due to reduced involvement with the child welfare system and other government programs.

Prevent Child Abuse New York brought Healthy Families New York to the state, and we’ll continue to fight to keep the program going. We need all the help we can get! Please join our movement to reinstate funding for HFNY. You can start by signing up for our e-newsletters and action alerts so you can stay up-to-date on the latest developments in what will surely be a long and difficult struggle on behalf of New York’s most vulnerable children.

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This is exactly what I have been posting about!  As if we should EVER have to beg for help for our nation’s children by assigning a dollar value to their lives — as if they are objects with price tags attached!!

See series:

WE the U.S. and the WORLD

AND – OH OUR POOR BABIES!!!

Veteran Suicides Outnumber US Military Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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My good guess is that we must have a SELF to be able to THINK. What are some of the identifiable developmental processes involved that allow the thinking self to appear?  We know that degrees of secure versus insecure attachment can be clearly measured by the time an infant is one year old.  The next stage of infant development that can be identified when it ‘comes online’ is what is called ‘self-recognition’ – which happens for our close primate relatives just as it does for human infants.

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— SELF RECOGNITION IN APES (video) [Especially note the point where the ‘little guy’ returns to his mother for the safe-secure attachment HUG!  At about at the 2:50 mark]

“Scientists believe self-recognition is essential for our survival.  We can live in large groups because we recognize similar features of our own in others.  We can tell friend from foe.  But is self-recognition uniquely human?  Show a monkey a mirror and it thinks its another monkey.  It attacks.  But how will our closer relatives, the great apes, react when faced with their own image?

“This three-year-old Chimpanzee has never seen a mirror before.  He’s not sure what to make of it.  Erect fur is usually a sign of fear or anger.  But his fear is soon replaced by curiosity.

“When chimps see themselves in mirrors the first time they naturally assume it’s another chimp the way a human being who has never seen their self before does, and begin to play with mirror image.”

“Soon this chimp will know it’s looking at it’s self, just like these older chimps.  They know exactly what mirrors do.

“This chimp appears to know that’s her tongue and those are her teeth.

“Chimpanzees seem to have a concept of a bodily self that allows them to look into a mirror and say, “THAT image is equivalent to THIS body.

“But how can we prove that humans and chimpanzees really identify the figure in the mirror as themselves?  Psychologists set a Wellman Test for this.  It’s called the Mark Test.  A researcher marks a child’s cheek.  The child then looks in a mirror.  He moves his hand up to the mark.  He recognizes himself.  By age two, half of all children can recognize their self.  Soon, they all do.

“So, can our ape cousins pass this test?  A keeper places a mark on a female orangutan.  Next, they put her in front of a mirror.  She has seen her reflection before, but this time she recognizes that something has changed.  Her hand goes to the mark.  All the great apes, gorillas, orangutans, chimps and bonobos, pass the mark test by a certain age.”

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— Sense of self and the “mark test” – infant and chimpanzee results (video)

– SELF RECOGNITION DEVELOPMENT (video)

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Here are some reading links to very early research that sought to clarify any link between infant maltreatment as it impacts the security or insecurity of infant attachment and an infant’s ability to first self-recognize.   After scanning through this information and other related research I quickly came to understand that researchers didn’t find that the quality of secure versus insecure attachment determines the developmental-maturational timeline along which any infant comes to self-recognize itself in the various mirror image ‘Mark Tests’, but it does effect the quality and nature of this first visual self-recognition by an infant.

Importantly, researchers did discover that the quality of attachment and degrees of maltreatment an infant has received DOES affect the emotional reaction an infant experiences and displays in response to its recognition of its own self in a mirror.

My next post will also present research that shows two other factors that ALSO appear to affect an infant’s emotional reaction to its first self-recognition that happens for all but a very few infants between the age 15 months and 2 years.  I believe both of these factors can be directly influenced by an infant’s experience of maltreatment that happen in CONJUNCTION with unsafe and insecure early infant-caregiver interactions.

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“…[This empirical study]  considered the interaction between affect and cognition, focusing on both security of attachment and the emergence of visual self-recognition (Schneider-Rosen and Cicchetti, 1984).  The sample consisted of 37 infants, all from families of low SES [socioeconomic status].  Of the infants, 18 had been maltreated while living in their natural homes, while 19 infants comprised the comparison group.  The infants ranged in age from 18 months to 20 months.  The mother-infant dyads were observed in the Strange Situation procedure, and infants were administered the standard mirror-and-rouge paradigm (Lewis and Brooks-Gunn, 1979) to assess visual self-recognition.

“It was found that 12 (67%) of the maltreated infants were classified as insecure…whereas 6 (33%) were classified as secure.  In contrast, 5 (26%) of the 19 matched comparison infants were classified as insecure…whereas 14 (74%) were classified as secure….

“An interesting pattern of findings emerged with regard to the interaction between maltreatment, quality of attachment, and visual self-recognition.  There were no differences in the number of maltreated and comparison infants who were able to recognize themselves.  For the group as a whole, infants who manifested visual self-recognition were significantly more likely to be securely attached to their caregivers.  A different pattern of results was revealed, however, when the maltreated and comparison infant groups wee analyzed separately.  Of the comparison infants who recognized themselves, 90% were classified as secure…  In contrast, there was no significant relationship between visual self-recognition and security of attachment for the maltreated infants.  Of those maltreated infants who recognized themselves (N=5), three were insecurely attached and two were securely attached to their caregivers.  These findings suggest that the effects of maltreatment may be sufficiently potent to disrupt the expected relationship between quality of attachment and visual self-recognition. The process by which maltreatment might have such an effect, however, has yet to be determined.”

— Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions (Foundations of Human Behavior) by Richard J. Gelles and Jane Lancaster (Dec 31, 1987) — (above is from pages 288-289)

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“Examined the association among child maltreatment, socioeconomic status (SES), visual self-recognition, and emotional responses to mirror images. Children were assessed cross-sectionally at 18, 24, and 30 mo. The nonmaltreated children spanned 2 SES groups (lower and middle), and the maltreated children came from the lower SES. Maltreated children did not differ from the lower- or middle-SES comparison children in the development of visual self-recognition. Differences between the samples were observed in the quality of affective reactions to mirror self-images. Hierarchical loglinear modeling was used to test for associations among the variables of self-recognition, age, SES, maltreatment, and affective reactions to mirror images (positive, negative, and neutral, as well as coy affective responses). Results are discussed in terms of the complex interactions among these variables, indicating that the ontogenesis of self-knowledge is determined by multiple interrelated influences.”  (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)  [bold type and underline added]

Early self-knowledge and emotional development: Visual self-recognition and affective reactions to mirror self-images in maltreated and non-maltreated toddlers.

Schneider-Rosen, Karen; Cicchetti, Dante

Developmental Psychology, Vol 27(3), May 1991, 471-478.

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

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I readily admit this:  My thinking today is happening in wide circles and loops, not unlike the course a high-flying kite might take as it sours, dips and changes directions erratically as it’s caught in strong and unstable wind currents.  This matters especially today because the trail I am trying to follow is exactly about HOW I THINK!

While at this moment I WANT to think about what I WANTED to think about, at the same time I am distracted by the fact that even though I live down south here in the U.S. on the Mexican border line, I also live at nearly a 5000 foot elevation.  This simply means that when the temperature drastically drops here at night – because I and many others in this region have NO insulation in our houses – our water pipes are at great risk of freezing.

Mine are frozen!

As I think about thinking about thinking I understand that I am the only one to blame for my frozen pipes.  I am the only person who lives in this house.  I looked online yesterday and saw our forecast for night temps down to 11°.  But I ‘forgot’ to pay attention to what I needed to do last night:  Leave my faucets open to allow water to move through my pipes all night.  I doubt they would be frozen now if I had NOT neglected to take that precaution.

Will my pipes burst?  A fear.  I don’t know.  Where are they blocked by ice?  I don’t know.  It’s hard not to fear the worst!

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My thinking is following an overall direction of trying to ‘get a handle’ on the fact that so many of our nation’s little ones and their families are increasingly suffering from deprivations and traumas while it appears that so few are noticing – let alone taking action to help them.

Did we as a nation – DO WE as a nation – notice this problem?  Do we anticipate what the far-reaching harmful consequences will be if the suffering of our offspring is not alleviated?  Do we know (as I did with my pipes!) what a solution would be?  How is it that so many in our nation seem perfectly capable of denying and/or ignoring the growing problems not only within our own nation, but across the globe?

When I ask myself how it was that I completely ‘forgot’ what I knew I had to do to protect my house’s water pipes, I can’t really find an answer!  I just plain ‘let it go’ and here I am with trouble!  How BIG a trouble I don’t know yet.

So, I am hanging in the balance between fear of the worst consequences and hope for the best.  My hope is that even though our day temperature today isn’t supposed to be very high, that at least the stream of sunshine will somehow (magically?) unthaw those pipes without any damage occurring.

I am at the “wait and see” point.

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But, WAIT!  I just discovered that in my bathroom on the east side of my house where the sun has been shining for hours already my pipes in THERE are flowing.  WHEW!  What a grateful sigh of relief!

Now, what about the pipes on the west kitchen side of the house?  Back to the waiting…..

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Which makes me think that given the economic troubles that are so contributing especially to the problems of increasing numbers of our nation’s little ones, and given the troubles that so many millions of other people around our globe have been and are facing, how long will our species have to wait before we see the full-blown potential of GREAT HARM to show that lets us all know we denied and ignored all the warning signs while there was still time for us to avert what might amount to global disaster?

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Given that I live in  the richest country on earth – and given that I have never traveled to see the suffering that billions of other people in other places on this globe endure – I ask myself, “What part do I play in contributing to problems in our nation and around our globe and what part might I be able to play in solving these problems?”

Because this is a two-part question, I am finding I have to look at the first part before I can move forward to consider the second part.  This seems to be an important process I feel I need to undertake because I don’t believe much in DUMB LUCK!  It’s only dumb luck that my house’s east pipes seem to be OK.  I would feel much better about myself if I had done my own responsible part in preventing my pipe problems in the first place!

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In response to the work I have been doing these past days with my posts (HERE) I am coming to understand that at this point that our national and global troubles are not without solution.  Yet what appears to be needed for us all to get busy on the plus-side of solving our problems might on the one hand be the SIMPLEST thing we can do AT THE SAME TIME it might be the HARDEST!

I say this because from my own ‘point of view’, from my own ‘worldview’, what all of us need to do – is, well – DO-ABLE!  What I am learning is that we, especially in America and in the richest global nations in Europe, evidently follow a societal-cultural WESTERN worldview pattern of thought (and corresponding pattern of actions) that we CAN examine, understand, evaluate – and CHANGE!

The other part of this picture is that we certainly aren’t going to do this if we see absolutely no reason to do so!

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Thinking about the frozen water pipes I imagine that it wasn’t ‘my job’ to go door-to-door last evening and warn my neighbors about the impending problems – or to tell them about the preventative solution.

My job was within my own boundaries.

Why would I CARE if my neighbors’ pipes froze?

What if I imagine that every individual dwelling near me was actually a nation?  If I take care of my nation and let others take care of theirs – where’s the problem?

What if taking care of my own pipes somehow meant that I had to harm my neighbors’?

Without repeating any of the information presented in my recent posts, I will just say that in fact what the rich nations of this globe are doing IS harming on BIG LEVELS!

Perhaps it will only be when the harm we are doing ‘to our neighbors’ pipes’ as we ‘take care of our own’ comes around in a boomerang-effect to spill the troubles, problems and damage right back inside our own nation’s boundaries that we give a real HOOT – enough to examine our own contribution to the whole mess worldwide and to help find a solution.

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I believe this is exactly what is beginning to happen.  Ask those on the poor end of our nation’s wealth-poverty dichotomy and they will say they’ve known all along.  Ask those on the richest end, and they are most likely to deny any responsibility for anything that troubles anyone else – anywhere.

For my part, I THINK I need to understand how I THINK about all of this.  Because I am bound up in a society that so profoundly influences my THINKING, I have to THINK about those influences, too.

But for the moment I will think about changing my mind.  Maybe there is such a thing as Dumb Luck!  All my pipes are thawed out now, and I didn’t say any flood of water spewing out from under my house, so I think I escaped the consequences of my lack of taking appropriate preventive action last night that tonight I vow I will.

Next post:

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

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+CRITICISM NOT ALLOWED IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE WORLD

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I never once had the thought during my 18-year abusive infant-childhood that there was any other kind of parent different than mine were.  I was sequestered within a total environment of trauma that had never allowed me to learn to think either subjectively or objectively about my own experience in relation to anybody else’s different kind of experience.  There was only ONE WAY to see the world, and that was my abusive mother’s way.  She held control over every inlet and outlet of my life, and her control of me was absolute and unswerving.

In my mother’s black-and-white world I was the all-black-one and everyone else was all-white.  Because there was never any break in the trauma I experienced, and because no deviation from my mother’s dictates was ever allowed, I never knew anything like GREY actually existed.  And perhaps because I know so intimately what it feels like (and IS like) to be completely ‘demonized’, I tend to make every possible allowance I can find not to ‘criticize’ anyone else.

There was no balance of any kind in the environment that built me.  Conceiving of a world where very real malevolence exists AT THE SAME TIME that true benevolence ALSO exists at the same time, in the same place is very hard for me to do.  I believe that being raised in a completely abusive Borderline universe makes the Borderline’s inability to tolerate either ambiguity or paradox seem like a fact of reality that everyone accepts.

Trying to live in a different kind of world that accepts the reality that good and bad exist together along with a zillion degrees of mixtures of the two in between often makes me feel as if I am walking completely blind through human-influenced experiences of all kinds that I do not understand.

DARING to criticize my own nation makes me feel like a traitor who will be exposed at any moment – and punished for both my daring and for my criticism.  My severe trauma-built body-brain makes sure that I remember one thing – and it tells me this is the truth whether I ever would have dared to criticize my mother or if I dare to criticize America:  “The bigger they are they harder the hit!”

I was completely setup to shutup.  There never was a middle ground, not even enough for me to be able to identify my own feelings or to have my own thoughts about my experience growing up.  Being entombed absolutely alone in a living tomb of silence is VERY SCARY.  Daring to criticize ‘my nation’ now is stimulating everything I know about threat-to-life if I challenge the status quo.

It was obvious to me that the entire world was on the side of my mother, including my father, my siblings, my teachers, any neighbors we ever had, even my grandmother who was ‘forced’ to give up trying to intercede against my mother on my behalf.  Because my mother was always RIGHT, and because I have accepted the cultural dictate in this nation that America is also always RIGHT – who do I think I am to dare to question otherwise?

And yet it seems to be my concern for the millions of infants, children and their families that are suffering in very real ways within our nation today that is giving me the permission I need to ask in my compassion for THEM, “What is WRONG here?”  Along with the ideas I presented in my earlier post today about ‘betrayal trauma’ comes my own conflicts about daring to notice something is wrong, daring to ask the question, and about daring to look at the ugly side of the history and ongoing practice our nation displays in allowing some people to thrive while others needlessly suffer and perish – both within our own boundaries and around the globe.

Am I betraying my own nation by entertaining the idea that America is far from perfect?

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Previous posts in the last 24 hours:

+HERE’S A TAKE ON THE RICH RICH RICH RICH AND THE POOR POOR POOR POOR

+FINDING MY COURAGE TO TAKE A LOOK AT ‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICA’

+ONGOING TRAUMAS: AMERICA’S BIG MONEY PERPETRATORS

+WHERE THE BAD PEOPLE HIDE: ‘AMERICA FAR WORSE THAN A BULLY’

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+AGAINST ALL ODDS — HERE I AM!

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I know I share with others my great difficulty in understanding much adult so-called humor.  I know part of the reason for this comes from my own traumatic very inadequate and scrambled-up early experiences with preverbal and verbal language.  Most words I heard directed at me from birth were contained in the context of severe emotional, psychological, verbal and physical violence and abuse.  That I grew up hearing other people in my family talking to one another in an entirely DIFFERENT context was of only vicarious use to me.

Along with the consequence of trauma and malevolent treatment in our very earliest months and years of life that doesn’t built our right limbic emotional regulation areas of our brain RIGHT comes built-in confusion that doesn’t allow us to understand or to ‘read’ other people’s SOCIAL cues, either.  REAL humor in humans is a signal of optimal environmental conditions.  Humor that is NOT truly funny, that does NOT connect itself to the happy center in the left brain that’s built birth to age one, is NOT really funny!

Many of us who cannot easily (or ever) come up with an instantaneous ‘witty’ comeback for other people’s supposed humor are often the same people who suffered greatly in our earliest years where very little was EVER funny.  Being the subject or brunt of someone’s ‘jokes’ can often be a victimizing experience for us in a war that is far too familiar to us.

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Infant-child abuse survivors were victims of bullying usually by the same people who were SUPPOSED to protect and care for us.  I know I have mentioned the following before on my blog, but I am going to describe this one more time – and then move past this ugly segment of my life forever.

When I was diagnosed with advanced aggressive breast cancer in July 2007 I began chemotherapy treatment with a local oncologist.  I went through the chemotherapy which were completed prior to surgery in December 2007 (which showed that there was a second cancer in the same breast).  I had HER positive cancer, so also went through a year of Herceptin treatments which ended July 2008.  At that time my ‘treatments’ were completed, and I saw my oncologist one last time.

By this time I was completely worn down at the same time all of my infant-child abuse-related ‘disabilities’ were in high gear (major treatment resistant lifelong depression, dissociation and PTSD).  What I received as a ‘parting gift’ from my oncologist was this:

He left the examining room while I dressed, and when I stepped out the door into the hallway there was the doc standing there like a predator waiting to attack me and to crush any hopes I might have had that this past year had thwarted my cancer.  He said – and these are his exact words – “I wouldn’t bother having breast reconstruction if I were you.  You won’t live long enough to enjoy them.  And besides, we will just have to cut them off again when the cancer comes back.”

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I have lived under the dark shadow and burden of that bullying, verbally and emotionally abusive cloud ever since.  I had NOTHING to say back to that man.  Finally in late December 2010 I choose to find a decent doctor – which I did in Tucson – and to request a scan that would let me know NOW if there is any cancer detectable in my body.

The scan was last Thursday.  The results came through yesterday, and there is NO SIGN, absolutely NO SIGN of ANY cancer in my body.

My eyes opened this morning as I looked at my clock.  4:16 a.m.  My first thought was, “I am cancer free.”

The relief I feel is beyond my words to describe.  I felt like a character in the movie, “Ground Hog Day.”  My life can move forward into the future from this moment on.

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My life was dependent upon that mean doctor.  I have no way to comprehend inside of myself WHY he did what he did or WHY he said what he did.  That kind of action toward another human being is EVIL as far as I can tell – and those who read my blog know I NEVER use that word lightly.

That I could take no action to defend or to protect myself from his words OR to respond to them is NOT a reflection on me personally.  Yet I do believe it is a reflection of the way my body-brain was built in response to horrific, unbelievable trauma and abuse from my birth and for the next 18 years.

My body-brain was built while I was continually suspended between life and death.  My mother made sure of that.  What I DID was endure – and I survived all she had to heave against me.

I have done the same thing these past three years post-evil-doctor’s condemning words.  But not any more.  I woke today in a different world, a world in which at least for now I am assured that my body isn’t being attacked from the inside-out – nor am I being attacked from the outside-in.

Like many, many early trauma and abuse survivors I HATE seeking medical care.  I did not begin receiving mammograms when I should have.  Because I now know that early abuse and trauma is one of the LEADING RISK FACTORS for breast cancer, I especially urge all women to GET THEIR MAMMOGRAMS.

My cancer had been growing approximately three years before it was found.  It was found ONLY because I did an aerobic workout after which my left arm swelled instantly to three times its size.  My sister INSISTED I go to a doctor.  This swelling was from lymphodema caused by cancer blocking my lymph nodes.

The cancer began at the same time the last of my children left home.  Within a short period of time I lost my business and my home.  I also had NO CLUE about all of the things I now understand about insecure attachment and infant-child abuse and how it changes our physiological development.

I am MUCH wiser now – but that will (to me) NEVER mean that I can fight back against mean people.  Abilities to know the difference between who to trust and who not to, to know who is safe and who isn’t, to have hope – are all abilities that begin to form themselves into an infants growing body-brain by two months of age.  If our earliest attachment environments and PEOPLE in them are/were AWFUL, none of these circuits and pathways build themselves into us in a PRIMARY way.

We are as a consequence ALWAYS at risk for being targets of abuse in our life.  I DO NOT take this to mean in the usual way that we are ‘victims’.  We need to understand that the way our physiological development changed in response to early abuse and trauma means that we do not have OPTIMALLY-built ways to detect the difference between who/what is safe and who/what is not.

Not to be able to trust an oncologist who’s expertise carried me through a very real threat-to-life cancer treatment regime is nearly as hard to believe as it is to believe that my mother (and all others who did not STOP her) could do to me what was done to me from the time I was born.

I endured again.  Here I am.  HERE I AM and I will continue to be HERE hopefully against all odds.  I never did care about getting breast reconstruction.  What I wanted to know NOW is whether or not I can invest in more roses, if I can invest in building a chicken coop so I can get a couple of chickens and maybe a rabbit, if I can take piano lessons…..

YOU BET I CAN!

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+INTERNET ARCHAEOLOGISTS OF THE FUTURE — WHEN THEY DIG UP OUR WORDS

alchemynow2 Comments

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Part of what I learned yesterday is that my dissociational difficulties with verbal language happen not only when my stress response system is accelerated when I am in the presence of other people and THEIR words disappear.  It also happens within my own body as it did yesterday so that MY OWN access to words disappears.

This discovery just serves to answer some of my own questions about HOW I experienced my 18 years of severe abuse and trauma as an infant-child.  Mostly I had no ability to assign words to my experience, which served to bar me from being able to THINK in words about anything I went through.  This reality also means that ‘returning to my childhood’ to remember myself as I went through that hell doesn’t happen in words, either.

Sum of the matter:  For those of us who were deprived of protection in a safe and secure early caregiver-infant attachment environment our ability to USE words, including our ability to THINK in words was altered.  Because all the PREVERBAL interactions that are supposed to happen between infants and their caregivers didn’t happen correctly, our communication platforms built into our developing body-brain regions, circuits, and pathways were changed.

These changes affected how we process and store memory.  They also affected how we remember our own SELF in relationship to/with our ongoing experiences.  Even though developmental neuroscientists (and others) can now describe what infant-child abuse looks like in the ‘changed brain’, nobody describes what the experience of living with a trauma-altered body-brain FEELS like and IS like from the inside out.

It seems to me that only survivors of early neglect, deprivation, trauma and severe malevolent abuse actually KNOW this insider information.  It is our important job, then, to describe and document our own experience of living in a trauma-changed body.  Sometimes as I do this in my writing I feel like I am in effect writing messages to put into bottles to toss into the vast internet sea.

Will anyone find them?  Are all survivors waiting for some future time, long past most of our lifetimes, for ‘science’ to catch up with the living reality of what the longterm consequences especially of malevolence 0-3 actually MEANS to the people who survive it?

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That gives me the image of some far-distant-future internet archaeologists who have skills to dig around in the invisible world of then-ancient internet archives for bits of information those of us alive today are sending out into internet ‘space and time’ right now.

These archaeologist web-hackers in the future will probably accomplish their work via programming computer systems that act as ‘crawlers’ and ‘probes’, sent into our invisible past to find out who we were – ‘we’ being the then ancient ancestors of the still-surviving members of our species.  I think about what it would be like now if we had a verbal record of the experience of OUR ancestors.  Spoken stories, stories carved in symbols on stone, words written and printed on paper, and then there’s NOW where our history is transferring itself into digital formats that exist as long as the computers of our planet continue to hold them.

And in the digital world OUR words, our lay words, our ‘common folk’ words, our survivor words are really as equal as the ‘educated’ people’s words, as the ‘wealthy’ people’s words, as the words of those who hold the power.

So in the future when our internet world of words is ‘dug up’ what we are saying now as survivors of severe early trauma will be equally as TRUE as what everyone else is saying.  But in our words will be reflected a reality about being super-tough and super-strong and super-resilient because we endured from infancy what humans are NOT meant to ever experience in the first place.

Nature did not design infants to be abused, hated and traumatized by their caregivers.  That our stories tell the story in words about what enduring the unendurable is like means that whatever it is that WE HAVE and that WE KNOW will be directly connected to whatever it will be that carries our specie’s survival into the distant future.

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+DISSOCIATION AND TRAUMA-CHANGED INFANT SEQUENTIAL LEFT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

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I really believe that one of the repeating experiences any survivor of early severe trauma and abuse has – because our earliest experiences built us and built themselves into us – in the BODY memory (of course processed and translated through our trauma-built brain) of what THREAT TO LIFE feels like.  I am mere moments away from being picked up by medical transport to go have a CT scan done as a follow-up for the breast cancer treatments I received and completed three years ago.  I am in the midst of having what I know today as ‘a life hanging in the balance’ moment.  Or should I say, an entire sequence of those moments?

Oddly enough – yet logically enough – my entire experience this morning as I wait now without food intake for the magic moment I begin to drink that very weird barium mix in my refrigerator – is ALSO connected to something my daughter shared with me last night regarding my 10-month-old grandson, C.

C’s mommy has been establishing an evening bedtime routine which includes bath time to remove the food from his body and hair as he is learning to feed himself – a fun and very messy process!  Then comes the hair brushing.  Then comes the tooth brushing.  Mommy has the cutest little baby toothbrush – a little soft rubber thing with soft bristles on it that she sticks on the end of her pointer finger and puts into his mouth.  Brush!  Brush!

Last night after brushing C’s hair mommy was in full movement to hand C the hairbrush so he could practice brushing his own hair (which he does).  In mid-movement mommy noticed with surprise that after his hair had been brushed he immediately opened his mouth for the toothbrush.

He KNEW what was SUPPOSED to happen next.

Rather than disturb this amazing rhythm of sequenced happenings-events, mommy DID then brush his teeth before she handed her little one his hairbrush.

NO BIG DEAL?

HUGE DEAL!

Among the many sticky notes that I have attached to this ‘ordinary’ infant-toddler growth and development chart I have propped here by my computer is this one, labeled “15 months.”

“Emotional activities and mechanisms of memory operating at this specific time.”

Unfortunately when I was doing my developmental neuroscience research a few years ago and spotted this milestone, I neglected to write the citation for this tidbit of critical information!

Today when I Google search “brain development mechanisms of memory” a host of webpages appear on my screen.  If the page doesn’t come up when you click on this link, just pop these words into your own Google search and you will see what I mean.

At the moment I will just connect my thoughts together into a pattern with something else I know from this morning.

Having cancer is a distressing, traumatic experience.  For me, as a severely abused and traumatized infant-child, my ‘routine’ of experience with my earliest caregivers did very very little to establish ‘reason-able’ routine into my growing body-brain.  What I got was CHAOS.

I am used to thinking about my resulting DISSOCIATION in terms of its ‘opposite’ – ASSOCIATION.  I know we have ‘a prefrontal associational complex in our cerebral cortex’.

“The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness.”

Without swimming around in the neuroscience soup at the moment, it’s enough for me to note here that development of our cortex speeds up in its rapid growth in the second year of life.  When this happens for a little one within a traumatic, malevolent, chaotic and terrifying early caregiving environment – lots of changes can happen in the growing brain.

These changes are happening on top of the changes that happened to a severely abused infant prior to the age of one in abusive, neglectful – dot dot dot – early malevolent unsafe and insecure caregiver-infant lack-of-attachment experiences.

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So here I am this morning getting ready to go have my CT scan.  Of course my entire body-brain is on high anxiety alert, even if I THINK myself into feeling calm.  I am not calm.

So there I was applying my makeup when I realized (as I did many many times while I was going through chemotherapy treatment) that I had FORGOTTEN how to apply my makeup.

I forgot the sequence so that I had to CONSCIOUSLY and carefully recall the proper steps, the proper sequence, the proper ORDER, the proper pattern, rhythm, routine of accomplishing this ‘simple’ task.

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Enter changes to the development of the hippocampus through early severe trauma – along with changes to memory.  Google search “infant abuse brain development hippocampus memory” and you will get an idea of what I am talking about.

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So today for the first time I am noticing that along with my thinking about ‘association’ in terms of ‘dissociation’ I am also connecting these thoughts to ‘sequencing’ and ‘dissociation’.

It seems very likely to me that the lack of order, routine, established patterns – dot dot dot – that happen within a traumatic-chaotic early environment MUST create changes in how an infant-toddler’s brain is building itself to REMEMBER.

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Again, Google search “left brain sequencing” and then add into your search “left brain sequencing language” keeping in mind we are talking about developmental brain changes that happen when an infant-toddler is being raised in a malevolent environment.

According to developmental neuroscientist Dr. Allan Schore, after the right limbic-emotional-social brain develops during the first year of life, the left brain’s development kicks in.  Not supposed to be a big deal, is supposed to happen CORRECTLY under continued optimal early safe and secure attachment conditions.

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Now I feel like Mr. Monk (Yup, I’m in the throes of watching his entire series via Netflix streaming).  “Here’s what happened.”

Google search “left brain sequential language foxp2” and take a look at what appears on your screen.  Our human brain built its language-in-words abilities into our experience around 140,000 years ago BY USING THE SAME REGIONS of our left brain that we had already well developed by that time.  (Also interesting that some language experts connect the activation of our FOXP2 gene with earlier grooming behavior so that TALKING to people IS a more highly evolved experience of ‘group social grooming’.)

When I, for example, am experiencing ‘threat to ongoing life’ and my stress response system (certainly NOT the other end of this continuum, the calm connection safe and secure attachment arm) kicks in – like it is today – I experience DISORGANIZED and DISORIENTED attachment IN MY BODY-BRAIN that is directly connected to my dissociation.

Great big gaps appear in my verbal thinking AND in my motor action.  My grandson is building a boy-brain the right optimal way.  In the center of all of his experiences his SELF is forming.  I had no opportunity to recognize my SELF in the middle of my insanely abusive and traumatic early environment.  I had no opportunity to PRACTICE being a self having a life.

I plan to take piano (keyboard) lessons soon.  I anticipate that I will be learning how to play one step at a time – so that eventually everything will fit together in an ordered, organized way.

I expect that I will practice measures of a song, in order, and eventually I will learn entire songs.  I will not get triggered (I hope) into backtracking out of nowhere and repeating ‘past measures’ that have nothing IN CORRECT TIME to do with where the song is going!

I will not skip measures and leave big blank gaps in the order of the music.  I will not skip around, either, playing measures out-of-order!  Etc.  Etc.  Etc.

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What my experience of having cancer and going through chemotherapy treatment did to me was make me FORGET the sequencing that I had managed to build up all by myself growing up (and all the way into my adulthood).

I had ‘learned’ how to ‘pretend’ to be an organized, oriented SELF.

When chemotherapy and trauma of cancer affected my brain’s ability to REMEMBER these super-imposed patterns I had built, my ‘fake’ was exposed.

My grandson is BUILDING his body-brain-self correctly so – to use this image – he will be the BUILDING itself.  I didn’t do that.  I couldn’t.  I built a ‘secondary’ self like building a scaffolding around where my building-of-self was SUPPOSED to be.  Under stress, my scaffolded self fell apart and collapsed.

That, to me, is what dissociation is and does.  We can on a ‘secondary’ level put two and two together and build a ‘fake’ self that appears to function OK.  It is NOT the same thing as getting a SELF from the inside out like my grandson is doing.  He will never forget the sequencing patterns he experiences in his ordered, safe, secure earliest caregiving environment because they are building themselves into him at the same time they are BUILDING HIM.

Not so for those of us who suffered terrible early trauma and abuse.

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+OUR NATION’S GAP IN CHILD WELL-BEING: A LOOK AT STATE RANKED #5

alchemynowLeave a comment

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When I began writing this blog April 2009 I never anticipated where my journey would take me.  Yet as I examine how I am feeling and thinking at THIS moment in time, and as I look back at my thinking process that has led me directly to this point, I realize that all the signposts were there along the way that I would get HERE sooner or later.

When I began to write in 2009 I did not in any way align myself with the ‘guilty’.  Having been a victim of pervasive and horrible abuse without reprieve from the moment I was born until I left home at age 18 had certainly contributed to my blind-sightedness about how my own experience fit into the grand continuum of degrees of benevolent-malevolent treatment of infants and children.  My layers of blindness have been peeling away until at this moment I believe I am very nearly at the core of what concerns me most.

When looking at the range of harm done by the intra- and intergenerational transmission of unresolved trauma (the overall topic of this blog) I now very clearly understand that suffering is suffering, trauma is trauma, overwhelming experiences of malevolent treatment all happen within the context of the society we live in.  Infant-child suffering is happening all over the place around me, and I am left asking the same two questions of myself that I would have asked of anyone outside of my family who did absolutely nothing to help me when I was an infant-child:  “Why are you not SEEING my suffering and why are you doing NOTHING to help me?”

There are days when I come very close to giving up ‘my work’ completely.  The big picture is – well – exactly that – A VERY BIG PICTURE!

The undercurrent of this blog is a discussion of how early deprivation, neglect, trauma and malevolent treatment of ALL KINDS can and usually does alter human physiological development on all levels so that infant-children ESPECIALLY between ages 0-3 (the span of the most critical developmental body-brain windows of growth) has to CHANGE itself in degrees according to experiences in the environment that are NOT OPTIMAL.  ALL experiences 0-3 profoundly determine directions of body-brain development FOR EVERYONE in accordance with degrees of safety and security of attachment or their absence with primary caregivers.

I understand now that no matter how horrible any individual early trauma survivor’s stories may be, the essence of what matters is how that person’s PHYSIOLOGICAL development was forced to change in response to their traumas.  This process is happening to some degree for every single infant-child who is NOT optimally safe and secure during their most critical periods of body-brain development.  Any lack of well-being experienced at the start of life will create ‘channels’ of lack of well-being PHYSIOLOGICALLY that will determine an adult’s life course.

It was inevitable that I would recognize myself (along with other adult severe early trauma survivors) in the river along with all the CURRENTLY SUFFERING little people within our nation.  (I can’t begin to talk about lack of child well-being outside of our nation’s boundaries – the conditions for our own children are bad enough).

I have selected this one of our 50 states to focus on in this post concerning some of the lack of child well-being issues within our nation:  Massachusetts.

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This report, available through searching the KIDS COUNT pages for ‘violence’ – “A State Call to Action:  Working to End Child Abuse and Neglect in Massachusetts” – is reporting on information collected in the 1990s.  Considering how damaging this ‘past’ information is I cannot begin to imagine what a similar report might contain that covers the current state of affairs in our recession.

According to KIDS COUNT data — KIDS COUNT overall rank – Massachusetts now rates #5 in the nation on overall indicators of child well-being.  When this report was created In April 2001 the state ranked in the top 10%, yet, according to this 216 page report the problems in the state fall exactly along the lines the United Nations reported in their 2010 report card on child well-being among the globe’s 24 richest nations with the United States having very nearly the widest gap between rich and poor (Credit for all citations below to:  Massachusetts Citizens for Children – Kids Count):

“However, contrast between the state’s overall progress and the incidence of child maltreatment is stark and confounding.  In the decade from 1987 to 1997, Massachusetts saw an 98% increase in the number of children reported for abuse or neglect, compared to a national increase of 54% during the same period.  Based on the latest data, roughly 46 of every 1,000 children in our state is involved each year in a child abuse or neglect report.  Each year, thousands of newborn children in Massachusetts go home from hospital only to return later with unthinkable injuries – injuries that for most will be life-changing and for some will be life-ending.

“Although Massachusetts ranks consistently in the top three to four states in per capital income, we have been unable to translate this extraordinary wealth into reductions in childhood poverty, family violence or child maltreatment.  States with fewer resources but clear vision are leading a national reform of child protection that is innovative, pro-active and effective.

“Since May 1999, over 200 Massachusetts policymakers and advocates have participated with Massachusetts Citizens for Children in the “Summit Initiative on Child Protection and Family Support.”  Motivated by a shared belief that overall current systems do not reflect our state’s deep and longstanding commitment to improving children’s lives, they collaborated to achieve a consensus for change.  This State Call To Action [full report also available at this link] reflects their collective vision on how Massachusetts can successfully deal with child maltreatment and reclaim its historic role of leadership in meeting the essential needs of all its children.  (page 9)”

Access full report here:  A State Call to Action:  Working to End Child Abuse and Neglect in Massachusetts

This report, which represents the combined hard work and dedication of a LOT of people, was generated in response to

“…the National Call To Action to End Child Maltreatment, initiated by Children’s Hospital and Health Center-San Diego at its January 1999 “Conference on Responding to Child Maltreatment.”  This effort to end child abuse and neglect has now brought together over 30 of this country’s leading organizations in a coalition to address this national crisis.”

I want to know what the results of the intentions and the efforts this report represents are NOW a decade later.  As far as I can tell, the most accessible current information is available HERE.

There is a link on this page to “Who’s For Kids and Who’s Just Kidding?” – This is a November 2010 citizen’s guide to candidates’ stands on these issues:

– Reducing Child Poverty

– Supporting Low-Income Working Families

– Providing Early Education and Care

– Improving Children’s Health

– Preventing Child Sexual Abuse

– Protecting Children In Foster Care

– Improving Juvenile Justice

These are among the questions posed to the candidates – good ones to be posed to ANY candidate for any position in America!

“Massachusetts boasts the third highest per capita income in the nation, yet 12%, or nearly 170,000 of our state’s children are living in poverty; 6% or 88,000 live in extreme poverty in households with annual earnings of only $11,000 for a family of four.  What will you do to bridge this persistent economic divide and to ensure greater economic security to lift these children out of poverty?”

“What will you do to address the harmful impact of the growing gap between low and high income earners in Massachusetts?”

“What will you do to tangibly improve the conditions of poor children and their families in the Commonwealth’s poorest cities, such as Holyoke, Lawrence, Springfield and New Bedford?”

Taking a look at some of the issues presented in this Massachusetts ‘flyer’ makes me wonder what’s happening in the very poor and middle income states within our nation.  Interspersed with this information being reported here are questions for the candidates:

PROVIDING EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE

– 43% of 3rd graders in the Bay State do not read at grade level, and two-thirds of these children are from low-income families.  The impact of reading failure on these children and our state is enormous, with many likely to become our lowest income and least skilled citizens tomorrow.

– Science has never been clearer about the long-term effects of early environment and experience on a child’s brain architecture.  Research confirms that providing high quality early education and care to children from low-income homes yields a 10% to 16% return on investment to the economy through better reading skills, greater high school graduation rates, college attendance, and healthier lives.

[me:  not to mention the power of a little one 0-3 growing an optimal body-brain IN EVERY WAY in a safe and secure attachment within a VERY low stressor environment, which also includes its effects on preverbal-verbal development]

– Organizations and schools have worked tirelessly over the past decade to press the state to build a system of universal access to affordable, accessible, and high quality services with well-trained teachers.  They have supported parents in playing a critical role in their child’s educational success.  To meet those goals, Massachusetts formed the nation’s first Department of Early Education and Care in 2005.

FACTS ABOUT OUR KIDS:

– 61% of Massachusetts’ 480,422 children ages birth through 5 years old have parents who are in the labor force, and most of these parents have child care needs.  92%of children under age seven are cared for regularly by someone other than a parent.  However, the quality of these arrangements varies enormously.

– Children from low-income families entering kindergarten are typically 12 to 14 months below national norms in language and pre-reading skills.  [bolding mine]  By 4th grade, many of these children will not be able to read or understand up to half of what is taught to them in the 4th grade curriculum, and most will continue to be poor readers even through high school.

– Only 32% of kindergarten and preschool teachers in Massachusetts hold a Bachelor’s degree versus 50% nationwide.  And only 16% of child care workers have graduated from a four-year school.

– By the end of fiscal year 2009, state funding for Universal Pre-K declined from $12 million to $7.5 million while funding for full-day kindergarten programs declined from $33.8 million to $22.9 million.

IMPROVING CHILDREN’S HEALTH

– Thanks to the expansion of health care coverage under Massachusetts law, the state has some of the best child health outcomes in the country.  In fact, Massachusetts ranks among the top three best states on key indicators of child health, including infant mortality, the death rate for children and the rate of births to teen moms, according to the latest KIDS COUNT data.

– Currently, only 2% of children are officially uninsured in the state.  Furthermore, 80% of children on Medicaid receive an annual health screening and 91% of our two-tear-olds are immunized.  Massachusetts is one of only six states where at-risk children are eligible for early intervention, special education and preventive health and mental health services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

– Despite these accomplishments, Massachusetts is still a tale of two states with regard to physical, dental and mental health outcomes for children living in the poorest communities.

FACTS ABOUT OUR KIDS

[lists double or more increases in percentages between low-income and the state percentages for child problems with infant mortality, teen births, environmental poisoning such as lead]

– Dental decay is the most common chronic childhood disease and is at epidemic levels among many low-income Black and Hispanic children.  It often leads to speech, nutrition and learning difficulties.  [low-income counties affected are listed]

– Mental health care needs in children are more prevalent than leukemia, diabetes, and AIDS combined.  However, parents of children with mental illness report serious issues ranging from long waits for services and inadequate training of school personnel to high out-of-pocket expenses. [also states that state Medicaid only covers an inadequate amount of only $250 a year for child prescriptions – also lists questions for candidates]

– Nearly 37,000 Massachusetts children were confirmed abused or neglected in 2008.  Cases of child sexual abuse rose 16% from the previous year, physical abuse rose 12% and neglect 10%.

– Child sexual abuse is “a silent epidemic,” according to the American Medical Association.  Surveys of adults indicate that one in four women and one in six men have experienced some for of sexual abuse before the age of 18.  Many victims suffer into adulthood with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, relationship problems and further sexual or physical victimization.  Among sexual abuse survivors, 70% to 80% report excessive drug and alcohol use and are more likely than their non-abused peers to develop psychiatric disorders and to attempt suicide.  Girls who report childhood sexual abuse are three times more likely to become pregnant before age 18.

– An estimated $23 billion dollars are spent each year as law enforcement agencies, courts, child protection, health and mental health systems, and social service programs struggle to deal with the aftermath of this epidemic. Prevention and early identification of victims and abusers hold the best promise of reducing the human and economic costs.  Despite this, most communities have not been mobilized for prevention, most adults are not protecting children from people who might abuse them, and most parents are not communicating to their children about a major health and safety risk.

– 50% of 650 Massachusetts citizens polled ranked “safety from abuse” as most important to a child’s well-being with quality education, medical care, economic security and child care compromising the remainder 50%

– 90% of Massachusetts residents polled believe that child sexual abuse is a serious problem in the Commonwealth, 85% believe child sexual abuse can be prevented, and 67% said they were interested in local trainings to learn how – up from 48% in a previous survey.

– Since 2002, a coalition of over 20 Massachusetts organizations has been working through the Enough Abuse Campaign to develop and test innovative programs to prevent child sexual abuse.  Hailed as a “trailblazing effort” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the Campaign operates in a dozen communities across the state.

[Information included here about foster care placements and kinship care needs]

On Juvenile Criminal Issues:

– Black youth are more than nine times as likely to be held in secure confinement as white youth – yet there is no evidence that black youth commit more crimes, or more serious crimes, than white youth.

– Massachusetts is one of only 12 states that consider 17-year-olds adults under the criminal law.

– Massachusetts has the 11th highest rate of juveniles sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the country.

– The stark racial disparities in the Massachusetts juvenile justice system call into question the fundamental fairness of the system and represents one of the foremost civil rights challenges of our time.

– Massachusetts does not collect basic juvenile justice system data, e.g. what types of crimes youth are being prosecuted for.  This lack of data makes it impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention and intervention efforts. [questions for the candidates here includes those on probation and rehabilitation issues]

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