Abuse - Does it send out silent signals?

October 3, 2008 1:19 AM

If children are sponges and caretakers have issues what are the kids absorbing?

Kids are receptive to all types of stimuli, energy, input and interaction. But what if a caretaker has *issues*. Say, problems with anger, self-control, emotional regulation, hopelessness and emptiness - in short - a disordered mind?

This is not about OVERT abuse - but the COVERT kind. The stifled anger, the aloofness, the sarcasm, the innuendos, the *everything is FINE - can't you see I'm coping?* that a child is privy to hearing, seeing and sensing. In short what happens to a child caught in the line of silent fire?

I am looking for pioneer work in the transference of a caretaker's emotional states to the child under their care - whether parent, relative, nanny or babysitter - with follow up studies as to how much of the caretaker's *stuff* the child actually internalized and what kind of impact this made on the child and later adult's relationships with self, the world, God and others.

How much of their caretakers' internal conflicts do kids actually *feel* and *recreate* later?

posted by watercarrier to human relations (7 comments total)

Welll... IANA caretaker or whatever, and I'm not sure if anecdotal data is what you're after... but as someone whose parents definitely had issues with anger and emotional regulation, it does kind of suck. Well, a lot. Beyond that I can't really say what its impact might have been on me, though, growing up in that kind of environment, because I'm not entirely certain myself.

I think at the most base level the "everything is FINE can't you see I'm coping?" thing sends the message that all that crap is Not Okay To Talk About. Everything Is Fine. Shut Up And Deal, You Weakling.

It's also possibly a ... lack of trust, or trust that's broken early (most kids thinks their parents are all-knowing at first, after all). It's very difficult to go to them with problems or tell them stuff, because it's readily apparent that they don't know how to deal with their issues so why should they be able to help with anything.

Maybe even skewed sense of judgement... If you can do something one day and nothing happens, do it again some other day and Dad laughs, and then on the third go you get yelled at, you start judging actions by Dad's mood of the day rather than the action's merits or demerits, and that transfers to other things. An advanced case of "when the cat's away, the mice will play," if you will.

There could be more to it than that (and probably is, if you're talking scientific studies and the like), or none of the above; I could just have issues of my own. I dunno. *shrug*
posted by Xany at 3:16 AM on October 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

There was a very interesting chapter on This American Life on Sunday that talked about how you need to talk to kids and how it impacts their future development. I think it's worth checking out because according to the guy they interviewed, kids need a lot of positive encouragement and if the caretaker is a bump on a log, then they won't develop a lot of key literacy and social skills.
posted by cachondeo45 at 5:01 AM on October 3, 2008

As for pioneering theories, I believe Harville Hendrix developed the idea that we are wounded as children and seek partners like our wounding parent in order to recreate that relationship and change the ending - a do-over, essentially. Until and unless we resolve these issues, we will continue to seek partners with whom we can work through the issues. This is restricted to relationships, but perhaps is in line with what you seek.

Anecdotally, I agree with Xany's comments wholeheartedly. The inconsistency in the parent's responses and behavior - the unpredictability - is what is so corrosive to the child's healthy sense of self and relationships, rather than the actions in and of themselves.
posted by Punctual at 6:12 AM on October 3, 2008

I don't have time to google or PubMed this for you, but extensive studies have been done on the children of folks with PTSD (parents studied were Vietnam vets, or Holocaust survivors).
posted by availablelight at 7:16 AM on October 3, 2008

anecdotally, in my case, it meant that i am completely unable to take most people's words at face value. i pretty much never believe that someone is telling me how they really feel or what's really going on.

this has, inevitably, led to some serious relationship dysfunctions that, at forty-plus, i am only now becoming able to unravel.
posted by RedEmma at 7:37 AM on October 3, 2008

For another angle on this, it's worth checking out the literature on psychological resilience, starting with Emmy Werner.

Children pick things up, but that doesn't mean they're sponges. They're not passive. People have individual differences in temperament that matter a lot. Outside factors matter a lot. Any given person who grew up in an abusive situation (whether that be overt, covert, physical, or emotional abuse) is not fated to recreate the circumstances of his or her upbringing.

Plenty of us grow up to be pretty stable. I have my quirks, sure, but personally, I think I took a good deal less damage from my problem caretaker directly than I did from the wider cultural understanding that I was doomed and damaged goods. I'm not saying it didn't suck -- oh, man, did it suck -- but I grew up to be a reasonably sane person. That was something of a surprise to me.
posted by sculpin at 10:19 AM on October 3, 2008

How much of their caretakers' internal conflicts do kids actually *feel* and *recreate* later?

In my case, a lot. Well, the feeling bit, anyway, though I am very much like my father, so perhaps I recreated that too? At any rate, the environment I grew up in certainly had an effect on me.
posted by Solomon at 11:40 AM on October 3, 2008