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I just finished a conversation with my daughter (working on her doctorate in gerontology) who expressed frustration with the very limited academic perspective on ‘social networking’ within the ‘aging and aged’ population.  Nowhere in the research readings that have been assigned to her has there been a single mention of ‘loneliness’ among our older population.

I reminded her that she will continue to notice gaping holes in approaches to development at the older end of the human life spectrum just as we know they exist on the front end (infancy and early childhood) – regarding the impact of attachment relationships.

I am posting here some links I pulled together to send to my daughter.  I believe that those who suffer from insecure and unsafe attachments in their earliest most critically important stages of body-brain building months of life are almost guaranteed to suffer from their Trauma Altered Development over the course of their entire lifespan.

Sadly, information about problems that concern older people is likely to ignore difficulties across the lifespan that trauma in infancy and childhood creates.  It seems those within the ‘ivory towers’ of academia most often design research that meets only their own views of the reality of the chosen few rather than address the reality that huge segments of our population face.

I encourage my daughter not to give up on her studies.  I assure her that many of the conflicts she feels right now are connected to her much broader base of understanding about people.  She has much to offer to those who need help most – no matter what age span she focuses her attention on.

The actions it takes to gain a doctorate happen within an academia that works within its own limitations about what ‘research proves’ at the same time that its own biases are denied/ignored.  As society truly begins to understand that the experiences a person has within their first 33 months of life (conception to age 2) profoundly impact what happens on the ‘old age’ of the lifespan (and everything that happens in between) there will be new research that ‘proves’ an entirely different picture about human well-being than does today’s limited and often inaccurate research that has been accepted as being ‘true’ thus far.

Because my daughter is one of these new researchers her road to her doctorate might seem a lonely one.  As her momma I believe that the more she believes in and trusts herself, the smoother her road will be.

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Aging and Loneliness

http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcreprints/hc07.pdf

Learning to live with loneliness – [It would be better to help people learn how to diminish loneliness, I think!]

http://artofaging.blogspot.com/2008/06/learning-to-live-with-loneliness_03.html

Loneliness can speed aging

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20070820/loneliness-can-speed-aging

midlife loneliness speeds aging (probably related to above)

http://lifetwo.com/production/node/20070828-midlife-loneliness-is-a-killer

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Important one –

Loneliness, depression and sociability in old age

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016701/

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How to stay connected as you age

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-women/2009/12/01/loneliness-is-contagious-4-ways-to-stay-connected-as-you-age

Social isolation

http://www.coag.uvic.ca/documents/research_snapshots/Social_Isolation_Loneliness.htm

loneliness study/facebook

http://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/aarp-loneliness-studyin-your-facebook

Dealing with the loneliness of aging

http://howardgleckman.com/blog/?p=345

Aging gorilla and the bunny

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112763/Aging-gorilla-stifles-loneliness-zoos-gift-pet-bunny-named-Panda.html

Aging, loneliness, longevity – emotional wellness – healing power of friendships

http://www.everydayhealth.com/longevity/emotional-wellness/healing-power-of-friendships.aspx

Aging – deadly for men

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/11/09/fat-wallets-and-no-friends/

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Combining term ‘attachment’ with ‘aging loneliness’ –

The Impact of Relationships on Aging, Longevity and Health

http://longevity.about.com/od/lifelongrelationships/p/relations_aging.htm

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Important – Cambridge research –

Being alone in later life

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=66727

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Research – Factors Associated With Loneliness of Noninstitutionalized and Institutionalized Older Adults

http://jah.sagepub.com/content/23/1/177.abstract

The Relationship of Loneliness and Stress to Human-Animal Attachment in the Elderly.

http://www.deltasociety.org/document.doc?id=327

Social correlates of loneliness in later life (1989 research)

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v26041314462r477/

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IMPORTANT

2012 research

The impact of depression and sense of coherence on emotional and social loneliness among nursing home residents without cognitive impairment – a questionnaire survey

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2011.03932.x/abstract

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Loneliness and the aging

http://gradworks.umi.com/EP/13/EP13974.html

Feelings of subjective emotional loneliness: an exploration of attachment

http://www.iscet.pt/sites/default/files/obsolidao/Artigos/Feelings%20of%20Subjective%20Emotional%20Loneliness.An%20exploration%20of%20attachment.pdf

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research – attachment – aging – brain

http://www.mendeley.com/research/overexpressing-the-glucocorticoid-receptor-in-forebrain-causes-an-aginglike-neuroendocrine-phenotype-and-mild-cognitive-dysfunction/

“Repeated stress enhances vulnerability to neural dysfunction that is cumulative over the course of the lifespan. “

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Child abuse, neglect and trauma survivors have been greatly impacted by ‘repeated stress’ over their entire lifespan — start to finish.  There is great power for positive change possible for all of us who fully comprehend that connecting what happens at the beginning of a human’s life all the way through to the end of life is the ONLY way to consider human reality accurately.

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Click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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In following my previous post and its comments I note that in my mind all of the so-called ‘stress responses’ are first of all physiological reactions to breaks in our ongoing experience of ourselves in our life.  Dr. Allan N. Schore, an important developmental neuroscientist, refers to these breaks (or breaches) as RUPTURES that are then in need of REPAIR.

These are some of the links on this Stop the Storm blog about Schore’s work:

**Dr. Allan Schore on Emotional Regulation – Notes

+LINKS TO ESSENCES OF IMPORTANT ATTACHMENT RESEARCH ON DEVELOPMENT

++ DR. SCHORE ON SHAME

These posts are also related:

+IMPORTANT NEW RESEARCH ON ‘EXECUTIVE FUNCTION’ OF THE BRAIN – AND INFANT EXPERIENCE IMPACTS THESE ABILITIES

+A COLLECTION OF IMPORTANT EARLIER POSTS ON ATTACHMENT

+A COLLECTION OF LINKS ON BODY-BRAIN CHANGES CAUSED BY EARLY INFANT-CHILD ABUSE

+FACTS OF THE MATTER

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It seems possible to me that in essence every human ‘stress response’ is a ‘shame’ response in some way (which includes the ‘fawning’ response I mention in my previous post).  It seems possible to me that humans are designed to KNOW what BEST is.  We know what goodness is, rightness, health, peace and calm IS — so that anything that happens to us that interrupts this BEST state is — actually — A SHAME!!

We are built to live well.

We are built to be healthy.

We are designed to be HAPPY!

Yet ‘life’ is often a great disappointment as one thing after another jumps into our life-living pathway to ‘upset’ us so that we have to respond IN SOME WAY in order to reestablish this very NICE state we are born to desire above all else — for our own self and for everyone and everything else on this planet.

Yes, because these states of being are essentially of a spiritually astute nature we most often FORGET our own reality.  We do NOT REMEMBER that we are destined to be good people living wisely in a peaceful world.

Of course being physical beings in a physical world (at this stage of our earliest development as souls) means that all kinds of ‘natural disasters’ CAN happen.  Accidents happen.  Things surprise us and interfere with our attempts to live an ongoing life of peaceful calm.  (And, yes, from this point of view being born to parents who cannot love us and instead harm us greatly is, on the level of what our soul knows, a GREAT SURPRISE!)

According to the way we were built during our first months and years of our lives, our nervous system (including our brain) will respond to interruptions in our ongoing experience of being alive – a response to ruptures in goodness that need to be repaired — in the best way that we know how.

Survival is the end goal – one way or the other — and the patterns of healing of old wounds and traumas that we use  moment to moment throughout our lives CAN be changed.  Yet for survivors of unsafe and insecure early attachment relationships/environments greater effort than ‘ordinary’ is nearly ALWAYS required of us to find the best ways possible to respond to challenges to the state of peaceful calm that most early abuse and neglect survivors — have never known before!

Peaceful calm – sounds so clear and so simple — but this state is built into our body brain from the moments of our beginnings as physical beings — OR NOT!

Some of us don’t even know what this state of being actually feels like.  We have to discover ways to learn what peaceful calm is — how to ‘get there’, how to ‘return there’ when something big or little troubles us, and how to best ‘stay there’ as much as we can.

“Every road leads to Rome” – so with therapy or without it if our personal goal is to heal, we will find ways to accomplish our intention.

And, at this moment, I need to finish preparing to leave my home this morning to drive into town to our local Farmers’ Market – to look for some in-joyment in and with the company of others.  This does NOT feel like my natural state, but I am willing to practice healing in this small way – today!!!!

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Click here to read or to  Leave a Comment »

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I thank blog commenter, Gingercat, for the heads up about the important work of Pete Walker, M.A. on Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD).  I have found my way to one of his web pages of information that is concerned with an additional “F” he has added to a list of stress responses:  Flight – Flight – Freeze AND – FAWN

Walker’s description of this FAWNING response bears some serious consideration.  Please click on this link to access Walker’s writing on the topic:  Codependency, Trauma and the Fawn Response.

I can tell within my first moments of reading about Walker’s work that he has a focus that FEELS both specific and accurate to me about the experiences that survivors of severe child abuse have as emotional reactions that reappear often ‘out of nowhere’ all through our lives.  I don’t mean to in any way discuss the information that is contained on the web pages HERE – there is too much for me to read and consider this late in my day (and perhaps even this late in my life now that I am 60).

I do recommend that readers take a look at Walker’s work – but PLEASE BE CAREFUL.

Very very few people who suffered severe early abuse can access the kind of therapy – or therapist – that we need to work on the ‘issues’ that Walker is describing.  When we pop in and out of web page universes such as the one you will find if you follow these links above, we are opening far more than the proverbial ‘can of worms’.  We can easily fall into what seems like a bottomless pit full of deadly vipers.

It is essential that we trust our inner wisdom about how much we can tolerate of this kind of information at any given time – no matter how accurate and ‘helpful’ it might actually be to us.  We are bound by the fundamental limitations of BEING HUMAN BEINGS – LIMITS being the key word here!

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What I have read thus far about this ‘fawning’ response lets me know the concept is of value – very probably of great value – to many survivors.  My first reaction personally is that ‘fawning’ was NOT one of the stress responses I was ALLOWED to use as a child – not even as far back as Walker is describing (toddlerhood).  My unique abuse situation for the first 18 years of my life let me know from the time I was born that NOTHING I could do could possibly avert the terrifying and terrible abuse that was continually aimed at me.

But I also know that my abuse situation was, most fortunately, very unique in many significant ways.  My mother, who was my abuser, was severely mentally ill with a psychosis toward me that defied any attempt by anyone to name in any kind of ‘reasonable’ way in our family.  Nobody even tried.  There was no way for me to avert what happened to me – and from what I am seeing of Walker’s description of ‘fawning’, an attempt to control what is happening to the child in the environment is the end-goal of this stress response.

I knew my situation was hopeless.  I cannot even describe here in simple words how profoundly I knew this fact.  I was never fooled.

So in this very brief post I am simply encouraging readers who experience intense emotional responses, or ‘emotional flashbacks’ to take a look at these pages at the links above.  Every abuse survivor has to define for their own self what fits, what rings true, for them.  I am sensing that ‘fawning’ was possibly a response more characteristic of my siblings who suffered ‘witness abuse’ by being in proximity to the abuse perpetrated against me.

Walker is presenting information, concepts, descriptions of dynamics, and (in my real world) some rather fantastical suggestions for healing that seem based on the assumption that a survivor can access the kind and quality of therapy/therapist that Walker seems to be.  True, for most severe child abuse survivors, only in some fairy tale world.

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Click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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My guess is that the dream I remember from last night was tied to the conversation I had with a friend at the laundromat cafe yesterday.  We were talking about ‘trauma drama’.  I was saying how I am so thankful that none of my children found their way into their adulthood without any need whatsoever to clutter up their lives with trauma dramas of any kind.

I am not at all sure how that happened.  While I sure didn’t abuse my children, I cannot say that the life I lived while I raised them was free of this kind of drama.  But somehow through all the ups and downs and ins and outs of my own travels from severely abused childhood into and through my adulthood, there must have been more stability than not.

But, then, I had my own unspoken goal as a parent — to raise my own children to know absolutely and fundamentally who they were as individuals – and to love their self.  Goal met.

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My friend yesterday told me that she believes people who fill their lives with trauma drama do so because without it they would not feel alive.  She feels that trauma drama is the only way these people know to feel the activation of their own life force.  Without this drama, my friend suggests, many people would not FEEL as if they were alive at all.

Hum……….

Now, in my dream last night I was moving back into my home of origin along with both of my parents (who are dead in reality) and with all five of my siblings – who moved their own families in, as well.

There are many pictures from my childhood at this link:

WHAT PICTURES TELL

Many pictures were damaged in a fire – but there are some pictures as you scroll down at this link

*1959 Homestead summer and winter

that show the canvas Jamesway we lived in.  It was into this same Jamesway that all my family moved into last night in my dream.

What seems important to me about the dream is that every member of my family except me had added onto the Jamesway.  They each had their own door into the main part of this canvas structure – and as they moved all their belongings through their own doorways I could see that all of them had a large and individualized addition – with plenty of room for everyone.

They all finished moving in, closed their respective doors — and there I was, the person who was targeted for such terrible abuse for the first 18 years of my original life as a child, left standing alone in the Jamesway – with nowhere to go.

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As I thought about my dream today I also thought about my conversation yesterday with my friend.  I think in many, many critically important ways I came out of that abuse not having a single clue about who I am.  I went through my childhood not knowing who I was.

Maybe the trauma drama becomes central in many abuse survivors’ lives not so much because we don’t feel alive without it — but perhaps because we have no real clue about who we are as people – and the drama then becomes a sort of mirror within which we see ourselves – yes, as alive – but also as individual people who know no other way to survive.

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I have very little drama in my life now.  I cannot stand it, have no tolerance for it, no patience for it, no need for it, no desire for it — not my own drama and not anyone else’s.

But did I ever create for myself the life I WANTED?  If I still don’t know who I am — which is for the most part a true statement – then I never did go off and build my OWN LIFE – my way, the way I wished it to be – as a clear reflection of who I am as a person.

At 60 years of age I still struggle with this.  I don’t think any of my three children have EVER even had such a thought.

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Click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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In the midst of my current investigations as I have been presenting them in recent posts I want to pause to mention an inspiring person I met – although I don’t remember his name.

I encountered him selling vegetables yesterday at our local Saturday market in the park —

The Bisbee Farmers Market

Word of mouth spreads news fast and comprehensively in an area like ours — “Vegetables, a whole grocery bag full of as many as you can fit in there for five bucks.”

Yep!  True true…..

There I was yesterday at the market stuffing my selection of peppers (many varieties to choose from), summer squash, zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes into my bag when I entered a conversation with the man who has put this whole ‘feed the people’ plan of action into – well – ACTION!

All that I know is that this fellow is a biker.  He is a part of a new church that he and his friends have put together called the

Olde World Church

The church is nondenominational and meets presently in the bikers’ repair shop.  (Why does the website say it’s a church for men?  I’ll ask next time I’m at the market.)  A nonprofit was needed so that grants can be written to subsidize this ambitious and very creative ‘feed the people’ venture — which began……

This man’s story began as all our stories do long before he was born.  But by the time Vegetable Man (VM) was born the main-stage MEAN player, his father, was in full motion.  VM told me he was taken home from the hospital with bruises on his face from being hit by his not-so-dear dad.

VM simply stated to me, as his hands continued to busily pick less-than-fresh vegetables out of boxes he had on tables to throw them into a large blue plastic garbage can behind him, that his father beat him often and mercilessly until when he was 13 his mother took him and ran far far far away from Alabama to Bisbee, Arizona.

VM, now 42, told me he got out of prison after years of rough, hard living in 1996 — as a changed man.  He is drug and alcohol free.  VM searched to find something he could do to help make the world a better place and came up with his ‘feeding plan’.

He knew that many vegetables that reach our local (and other) Safeway stores find their way into dumpsters because they have reached their expiration date.  He set out to find a way to access those vegetables that were headed to dumpsterville BEFORE they got there.

VM now has a large refrigerated truck that he drives every Wednesday to Nogales to pick up vegetables that are sent from Mexico toward Safeway stores – but are now being sorted there for absolute store-quality freshness.  VM takes the rest and then spends his week handling vegetables as he drives around a route he has developed that includes a stop at Bisbee’s Farmers’ Market.

The $5 per bag charge for the food goes toward the cost of trucking the food.  VM plans to get grants to improve his warehouses and their cooling systems, and to cover costs of the cooling in our hot summer months.

VM is friendly and is the most cheerful and positive person I have met in a long, long time.  He shines.  That he has suffered, struggled, survived and beat nearly insurmountable odds to find ways to thrive and to meaningfully contribute to others is a part of the many stories that he freely shares along with his generous vegetable offerings.

I now have a full pot of delicious vegetable soup simmering away in my crock pot on this gray windy day thanks to VM.  I feel honored to have met him and look forward to seeing him again.

Now that it’s daylight I am off to feed my chickens some of the discarded vegetables VM gave to me yesterday.  Nothing is being wasted!

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Last week I received via email some comments on the first two chapters of the book my daughter and I are working on from a woman in the little writer’s group in our town that I have been attending recently.  While I appreciated her thoughts and the time she took to both read what I had sent to her and to respond, my immediate response was, “No.  You are ‘wrong’ and I am ‘right’.  I have the right to write my story my way.”

What did my response mean to me?  Most importantly, that two little chapters are NOTHING compared to what I need to write.  Next, my response showed me that this book will not likely be like any book written as a ‘child abuse memoir’ that has ever been written before.  This book needs to be written MY WAY!

My way is going to be, I realized as I read this woman’s comments, as daring a book as is the story it is going to tell.

Reading this woman’s comments fanned the fading tiny spark of my own belief that this book can be written.  Essentially, I DARED again to turn in the direction of the hope of my heart.

Yet what is so important to me about this single small word – DARE?

“To be sufficiently courageous to….”

“To have sufficient courage….”

“To challenge to perform an action especially as a proof of courage…”

“To confront boldly…”

“To have the courage to contend against, venture, or try….”

Origin of DARE

Middle English dar (1st & 3d singular present indicative), from Old English dear; akin to Old High German gitar (1st & 3d singular present indicative) dare, Greek tharsos courage

First Known Use (in Modern English): before 12th century

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Nothing in these definitions of the word DARE refer to the END RESULT of courage, boldness, daring.

This word is, to me, about something that happens entirely on the INSIDE of a person.   It speaks of attitude.  It speaks of the use of a person’s life force.  And most definitely it implies to me that a DECISION has to be made to utilize one’s life force in a direction that is meant to “perform an action” that will “contend against, venture, or try” against a CHALLENGE.

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Challenges in our environment disturb us and require some kind of an action from us.  But when does our response slip into the category of being a DARING response?

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Putting the bulk of these thoughts aside for the moment, I just know that I can FEEL the call for daring INSIDE of my body.  I feel it right now in response to the information I have recently posted:

+IMPORTANT INFORMATION: ASSETS KIDS NEED (AND WHAT ABOUT ABUSED KIDS???)

+RESILIENCY: LOOKING AT PROTECTIVE FACTORS

This is really scary ‘stuff’ for me to look at, to ponder, to think about – and facing MYSELF as I face this information takes DARING for me.

Do I dare know how much of what I needed during the first 18 years of my life was missing?  Do I dare add onto that the true knowledge of how terrifying my home environment was?  Do I dare know how brutally chaotic and insanely violating and violent my home environment was?

Do I dare to know that not only were nearly ALL of the Developmental Assets described as so vitally important throughout the developmental stages of childhood missing (and the asset information is NOT even speaking about the fundamentally and critically important stages of earliest development in infancy and toddlerhood) – but that horrendous abuse and trauma existed INSTEAD?

Do I dare to know what happened to me in consequence to those horrors?  Do I dare to understand that what is being shown at this link has changed my entire LIFE across my lifespan as I have continued to suffer suffer suffer and struggle struggle struggle against what have always seemed to be invisible monsters?

Take a look at this info:

Protecting Youth from High-Risk Behaviors

Assets have tremendous power to protect youth from many different harmful or unhealthy choices. To illustrate this power, these charts show that youth with the most assets are least likely to engage in four different patterns of high-risk behavior, based on surveys of almost 150,000 6th- to 12th-grade youth in 202 communities across the United States in calendar year 2003. CLICK HERE TO SEE CHART

Looking into protective factors is making my insides shudder, creep and crawl!  This research being presented is being put in the context of negative consequence to adolescents.  IT DOESN’T STOP THERE!  It doesn’t REMOTELY stop there!

Adolescents who are troubled and in trouble, as described in these charts, these ‘Developmental Assets’ deprived young people no doubt started out in life missing huge pieces of goodness in their lives – and as a result will pass through their teen years and right on into their adulthood STILL missing these huge chunks of goodness!

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As I began my ‘resiliency’ investigations yesterday I began at an important place:  I survived 18 years in hell, I came out a good person, and I did not abuse my children.

Today I add – a big – AND?????

AND I began life at terrible risk – right along with the Developmental Asset deprived young people presented as lines in the graphs and charts at THIS PAGE.

And I kept right on going – going – until I reached age 60 having survived advanced aggressive breast cancer that I firmly believe was triggered by terrible traumatic stress during my development.  I am receiving full SS disability for the stress related consequences of being a Developmental Asset deprived person.  I am single with no hope of a secure attachment relationship to a mate (after 2 failed marriages).  I am still and have always struggled in poverty.

I could go on and on with the list of the lifelong consequences I see TODAY as being directly linked not only to the terrible traumatic abuse of my first 18 years, but also to the lack of the presence of most of these assets because nobody else gave them to me when my parents could not.

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All this could seem terribly depressing to me right now – except I possess something of my own to fight back against all the trauma, all the deprivations, even against all the continuing consequences the light of this new protective-factor information I am finding is teaching me about.

I have DARING and in my daring I created the resiliency to not only survive, but to continue to seek to understand my self in my life.  I ALSO care enough to dare to consider what is happening to children everywhere!

Who is meeting the true needs of children in our communities worldwide?  What can I do to help them?  Daring to learn what they need as I learn about what I NEEDED and didn’t receive (and still need and don’t have) is the step I am taking today – painful as my discoveries may be.

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As I mentioned in my post this morning —

+RESILIENCY: LOOKING AT PROTECTIVE FACTORS

I am beginning to look at the positive influences in my insanely abusive home of origin.  It is really hard for me to even put those two phrases together in one sentence, let alone in one thought.

But in order to answer in my book questions like those I mentioned in my last post (above) I cannot spare this stage in my research.  So, here goes with MORE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

For blog readers here who were abused as infant-children please join me in looking at information presented below in new and creative ways.  WE DID SURVIVE hell and become terrific people!

How, exactly, did this happen??

I will be spending time with my proverbial fine-tooth comb going through the information presented here to discover what I need to know about my childhood so I can reasonably answer this question!

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How Are Your Community’s Young People Doing?

Search Institute’s research on Developmental Assets is conducted one community at a time. To see how your young people are doing, commission an asset-based portrait of your community’s young people

• Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes & Behaviors, a survey for young people in grades 6–12.
• Me and My World, a survey for young people in grades 4–6 (ages 9–11).

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Below you can find several different lists of Developmental Assets®. Each is tailored for a specific age group or language:

40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents (ages 12-18) – – (see below in this post) –
View   Download   Download in Spanish

40 Developmental Assets for Middle Childhood (ages 8-12)
View   Download   Download in Spanish

NEW! 40 Developmental Assets for Grades K–3 (ages 5-9)
View   Download   Download in Spanish

40 Developmental Assets for Early Childhood (ages 3-5)
View   Download   Download in Spanish

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40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents

What are Developmental Assets?

The Developmental Assets® are 40 common sense, positive experiences and qualities that help influence choices young people make and help them become caring, responsible, successful adults.  Because of its basis in youth development, resiliency, and prevention research and its proven effectiveness, the Developmental Assets framework has become one of the most widely used approach to positive youth development in the United States.
Read the list of assets
Watch the Introduction to Developmental Assets video
Download a web-based introduction to Developmental Assets

Background on the Developmental Assets

Since its creation in 1990, Search Institute’s framework of Developmental Assets has become the most widely used approach to positive youth development in the United States. The assets are grounded in extensive research in youth development, resiliency, and prevention. They represent the relationships, opportunities, and personal qualities that young people need to avoid risks and to thrive.

The Power of Assets

The 40 Developmental Assets represent everyday wisdom about positive experiences and characteristics for young people. Search Institute research has found that these assets are powerful influences on adolescent behavior—both protecting young people from many different risky behaviors, and promoting positive attitudes and actions.

Who needs them? Why are they important?

Over time, studies of more than 2.2 million young people consistently show that the more assets young people have, the less likely they are to engage in a wide range of high-risk behaviors and the more likely they are to thrive.  Research has proven that youth with the most assets are least likely to engage in four different patterns of high-risk behavior, including problem alcohol use, violence, illicit drug use, and sexual activity. The same kind of impact is evident with many other problem behaviors, including tobacco use, depression and attempted suicide, antisocial behavior, school problems, driving and alcohol, and gambling.  Read the study and the results.

The positive power of assets is evident across all cultural and socioeconomic groups of youth, and there is also evidence that assets have the same kind of power for younger children. Furthermore, levels of assets are better predictors of high-risk involvement and thriving than poverty or being from a single-parent family.

The average young person experiences fewer than half of the 40 assets, and boys experience an average of three fewer assets than girls.

How to get started building assets

There are many ways you can start building assets for the children and youth around you. Whether they’re in your family, school, or community, Search Institute has resources you can use to create a better world for kids.

• Developmental Assets Lists —Read and download lists of the 40 assets for different age groups.
• We Can Help —Find resources for parents, educators, youth-serving organizations, and other groups.
• Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth —Search for asset-building initiatives in your area.
• Developmental Assets Tools —Download free asset resources.
• Developmental Assets Research —See the research assets are based on.
• Search Institute Store —Browse asset-building books, posters, and other materials.

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Search Institute has identified the following building blocks of healthy development—known as Developmental Assets—that help young children grow up healthy, caring, and responsible.

This particular list is intended for adolescents (age 12-18). If you’d like to see the lists for other age groups, you can find them on the Developmental Assets Lists page.

For more information on the assets and the research behind them, see the Developmental Assets or Developmental Assets Research page (same as links presented above).

EXTERNAL ASSETS

Support

• Family Support | Family life provides high levels of love and support.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Positive Family Communication | Young person and her or his parent(s) communicate positively, and young person is willing to seek advice and counsel from parents.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Other Adult Relationships | Young person receives support from three or more nonparent adults.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Caring Neighborhood | Young person experiences caring neighbors.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Caring School Climate | School provides a caring, encouraging environment.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Parent Involvement in Schooling | Parent(s) are actively involved in helping the child succeed in school.

Empowerment

• Community Values Youth | Young person perceives that adults in the community value youth.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Youth as Resources | Young people are given useful roles in the community.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Service to Others | Young person serves in the community one hour or more per week.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Safety | Young person feels safe at home, school, and in the neighborhood.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

Boundaries and Expectations

• Family Boundaries | Family has clear rules and consequences and monitors the young person’s whereabouts.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• School Boundaries | School provides clear rules and consequences.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Neighborhood Boundaries | Neighbors take responsibility for monitoring young people’s behavior.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Adult Role Models | Parent(s) and other adults model positive, responsible behavior.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Positive Peer Influence | Young person’s best friends model responsible behavior.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• High Expectations | Both parent(s) and teachers encourage the young person to do well.

Constructive Use of Time

• Creative Activities | Young person spends three or more hours per week in lessons or practice in music, theater, or other arts.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Youth Programs | Young person spends three or more hours per week in sports, clubs, or organizations at school and/or in community organizations.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Religious Community | Young person spends one hour or more per week in activities in a religious institution.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Time at Home | Young person is out with friends “with nothing special to do” two or fewer nights per week.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

INTERNAL ASSETS

Commitment to Learning

• Achievement Motivation | Young person is motivated to do well in school.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• School Engagement | Young person is actively engaged in learning.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Homework | Young person reports doing at least one hour of homework every school day.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Bonding to School | Young person cares about her or his school.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Reading for Pleasure | Young person reads for pleasure three or more hours per week.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

Positive Values

• Caring | Young Person places high value on helping other people.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Equality and Social Justice | Young person places high value on promoting equality and reducing hunger and poverty.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Integrity | Young person acts on convictions and stands up for her or his beliefs.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Honesty | Young person “tells the truth even when it is not easy.”   SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Responsibility | Young person accepts and takes personal responsibility.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Restraint | Young person believes it is important not to be sexually active or to use alcohol or other drugs.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

Social Competencies

• Planning and Decision Making | Young person knows how to plan ahead and make choices.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Interpersonal Competence | Young person has empathy, sensitivity, and friendship skills.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Cultural Competence | Young person has knowledge of and comfort with people of different cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Resistance Skills | Young person can resist negative peer pressure and dangerous situations.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Peaceful Conflict Resolution | Young person seeks to resolve conflict nonviolently.  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

Positive Identity

• Personal Power | Young person feels he or she has control over “things that happen to me.”
  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Self-Esteem | Young person reports having a high self-esteem.
  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Sense of Purpose | Young person reports that “my life has a purpose.”
  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION
• Positive View of Personal Future | Young person is optimistic about her or his personal future.
  SHOW ME HOW TO TAKE ACTION

This list is an educational tool. It is not intended to be nor is it appropriate as a scientific measure of the developmental assets of individuals.
Copyright © 1997, 2007 by Search Institute. All rights reserved. This chart may be reproduced for educational, noncommercial use only (with this copyright line). No other use is permitted without prior permission from Search Institute, 615 First Avenue N.E., Suite 125, Minneapolis, MN 55413; 800-888-7828. See Search Institute’s Permissions Guidelines and Request Form.

The following are registered trademarks of Search Institute: Search Institute®, Developmental Assets® and Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth®.

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Free Asset Resources –

• Developmental Asset lists, downloads, podcasts, and more. Get assets now!
• Our 2012 Spring catalog is here–sign up to get yours!
• Did you know Search has three fantastic newsletters? Sign up to have one or all of them delivered to your inbox today!

Watch this great primer on the Assets and their power to make a difference.

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Developmental Assets Research

The framework of Developmental Assets is grounded in extensive research on what kids need to succeed. Since 1989, Search Institute has been studying the assets in the lives of young people. To date, about three million young people have been surveyed in thousands of communities across North America. Read more about the research behind this framework.

The Current State of Assets Among U. S. Adolescents

• Where do the Developmental Assets come from?
• How many young people (grades 6–12) experience each asset?
• How do assets make a difference in young people’s lives?
• How many assets do U. S. young people experience?

The Asset Approach provides an easy-to-use overview of the assets to help you introduce this approach to other leaders, parents, youth, and other stakeholders in your community. Also available in Spanish.

Assets in Real Life

Beginning in 1997, Search Institute launched a revolutionary longitudinal study of asset building in the St. Louis Park School District of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

• Signs of Progress in Putting Children First (2003)

What is Successful Development?

Developmental Assets help youth develop successfully . . . but what does that mean? This study took a look at different methods of defining successful development and relevant indicators.

• Successful Young Adult Development (2004)

Developmental Assets: Not Just for Adolescents

Search Institute’s framework of Developmental Assets was developed based on the research on adolescents in the United States. However, the basic strength-based approach and framework is consistent with research on what kids need to succeed throughout childhood—and probably into adulthood. Search Institute continues to deepen its research and framework to be relevant for all ages of young people.

• Developmental Assets in Early Childhood, ages 3–5
• Developmental Assets in Middle Childhood, ages 9–11 (grades 4–6)

The Applicability of Assets

Many people wonder if the research on assets is applicable to young people from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Research shows that the assets are beneficial to all youth, regardless of these factors.

• Unique Strengths, Shared Strengths: Developmental Assets among Youth of Color (One-page summary – 2003)
• Unique Strengths, Shared Strengths: Developmental Assets among Yuouth of Color (Complete report – 2003)

Other Research Publications on Developmental Assets

• Search Institute Insights & Evidenceis a free online periodical that interprets Search Institute’s research for policy and practice. Download these issues for more assets research
  • Boosting Student Achievement: New Research on the Power of Developmental Assets
  • Unique Strengths, Shared Strengths: Developmental Assets Among Youth of Color
• All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents (2nd Edition), presents a comprehensive overview of the Developmental Assets and the change strategies needed to create asset-rich communities.
• Developmental Assets: A Synthesis of the Scientific Research on Adolescent Development, which examines more than 800 scientific articles and reports on adolescent development that tie to each of the 40 Developmental Assets
• Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice, offers the insights and perspectives of leading U.S. scholars on the contributions and implications of Developmental Assets for adolescent development.
• A Fragile Foundation: The State of Developmental Assets among American Youth provides useful research captured from a sample of almost 100,000 youth around the country.
• Promoting Positive Development in Early Childhood: Building Blocks for a Successful Start presents strategies for building assets with kids in this important formative time, based on current theory and intervention design.
• Coming into Their Own: How Developmental Assets Promote Positive Growth in Middle Childhood provides current research supporting the importance of Developmental Assets for children and establishes guidelines for building assets with children and designing programs and policies to further this purpose.
• A bibliography of peer-reviewed articles and dissertations on Developmental Assets

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Click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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endnote:

How Many Assets Do Young People Have?

While the assets are powerful shapers of young people’s lives and choices, too few young people experience many of these assets, based on surveys of almost 150,000 6th- to 12th-grade youth in 202 communities across the Unites States in calendar year 2003.

The Gap in Assets Among Youth

While there is no “magic number” of assets young people should have, our data indicate that 31 is a worthy, though challenging, benchmark for experiencing their positive effects most strongly. Yet, as this chart shows, only 8 percent of youth have 31 or more assets. More than half have 20 or fewer assets.  Click here: http://www.search-institute.org/research/assets/asset-levels

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Developmental Assets Research

The framework of Developmental Assets is grounded in extensive research on what kids need to succeed. Since 1989, Search Institute has been studying the assets in the lives of young people. To date, about three million young people have been surveyed in thousands of communities across North America. Read more about the research behind this framework.

The Current State of Assets Among U. S. Adolescents

• Where do the Developmental Assets come from?
• How many young people (grades 6–12) experience each asset?
• How do assets make a difference in young people’s lives?
• How many assets do U. S. young people experience?

The Asset Approach provides an easy-to-use overview of the assets to help you introduce this approach to other leaders, parents, youth, and other stakeholders in your community. Also available in Spanish.

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I expect to be writing a series of posts about my explorations into what experts seem to call PROTECTIVE FACTORS.   These factors appear to be the supporting tree trunk for what these experts refer to as RESILIENCY within infants, children, families, adults and societies.  I will be studying information such as that presented on this post so that I can think more clearly about the conditions in the bigger picture that existed within my severely abusive home of origin.

How did my parents’ 6 children survive and grow into fine human beings?  How did I, the chosen target child for my mentally ill mother’s ongoing pervasive and terrible abuse not only survive, but NOT abuse my own children?

There MUST have been some Protective Factors in our family.  I need to know what they were and how LACK of many of these factors must have powerfully interacted with the Protective Factors that WERE present. At first glance at the information presented below I cannot begin to imagine that the family I grew up in had ANY of these factors present — and yet some combination of them MUST have been there.  This study of mine on this topic will take some time!!

So, here is my beginning —

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A child welfare site offers this:  what are the protective factors?

The five Protective Factors are the foundation of the Strengthening Families approach. Extensive evidence supports the common-sense notion that when these Protective Factors are present and robust in a family, the likelihood of abuse and neglect diminish. Research also shows that these are the factors that create healthy environments for the optimal development of all children.

Parental Resilience

No one can eliminate stress from parenting, but building parental resilience can affect how a parent deals with stress.  Parental resilience is the ability to constructively cope with and bounce back from all types of challenges.  It is about creatively solving problems, building trusting relationships, maintaining a positive attitude, and seeking help when it is needed.

Social Connections

Friends, family members, neighbors, and other members of a community provide emotional support and concrete assistance to parents.  Social connections help parents build networks of support that serve multiple purposes: they can help parents develop and reinforce community norms around childrearing, provide assistance in times of need, and serve as a resource for parenting information or help solving problems.  Because isolation is a common risk factor for abuse and neglect, parents who are isolated need support in building positive friendships.

Concrete Support in Times of Need

Parents need access to the types of concrete supports and services that can minimize the stress of difficult situations, such as a family crisis, a condition such as substance abuse, or stress associated with lack of resources.  Building this Protective Factor is about helping to ensure the basic needs of a family, such as food, clothing, and shelter, are met, and well as connecting parents and children to services, especially those that have a stigma associated with them, like domestic violence shelter or substance abuse counseling, in times of crisis.

Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development

Having accurate information about raising young children and appropriate expectations for their behavior help parents better understand and care for children.  It is important that information is available when parents need it, that is, when it is relevant to their life and their child. Parents whose own families used harsh discipline techniques or parents of children with developmental or behavior problems or special needs require extra support in building this Protective Factor.

Social and Emotional Competence of Children

A child’s ability to interact positively with others, to self-regulate, and to effectively communicate his or her emotions has a great impact on the parent-child relationship.  Children with challenging behaviors are more likely to be abused, so early identification and work with them helps keep their development on track and keeps them safe.  Also, children who have experienced or witnessed violence need a safe environment that offers opportunities to develop normally.

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There is a pdf file from Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education at this link that describes how their programs are designed to help families build these five protective factors into their lives and into their family.

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From the Child Welfare Information Gateway website –

Risk & Protective Factors

Find research on the risk factors that contribute to child abuse and neglect, including characteristics of parents or caregivers, families, children, and communities that increase risk. Also find research on protective factors that promote safe and supportive families and resilience in children.

• Factors that contribute to child abuse and neglect
• Protective factors

Risk and Protective Factors for Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Across the Life Cycle (PDF – 193 KB)
National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2009)
Lists risk and protective factors at the individual, family, and school/community levels for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, schizophrenia, and conduct disorders.

Related Topics

Preventing child abuse & neglect
Responding to child abuse & neglect

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Note:  If the two active links in the first paragraph of this post go dormant and are no longer active – please just Google search those terms to find information — using Protective Factors in one search and Resiliency in another search.

SEE ALSO:

+IMPORTANT INFORMATION: ASSETS KIDS NEED (AND WHAT ABOUT ABUSED KIDS???)

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