The Negative Effects of Violence on Child Development and What We Do About It.

     The closest I have ever come to experiencing severe childhood stress, was actually as an adult, in 1992, when I was teaching first grade in South Central Los Angeles.  In a paper I wrote for my previous class, Foundations: Early Childhood Studies, I described an experience that forced upon me the realities of violence and it’s affect upon young children.  The following excerpt from that paper is a description of the experience and what myself and others did in support of the students of St. Columbkille Catholic School.

In 1992, St. Columbkille Catholic School was predominantly Hispanic, and about 20% African American.  Many of the Hispanic families served by this school had recently immigrated to the U.S., spoke little to no English, and were exceedingly poor, but they all gained support from the Catholic community of which they and the school were a part.  This community was situated in the heart of one of the most violent areas of Los Angeles.  Sister Kathleen, a nun and my dear friend, once described St. Columbkille as an oasis of peace and spiritual nourishment surrounded by a desert of poverty and violence.  When civil unrest climaxed, on the day four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted, a year after they were accused of mercilessly beating a fugitive African American man named Rodney King; even this small, peaceful, Catholic community was not immune to the civil unrest that ensued.  Only a few hours after the acquittal was announced, a white truck driver passing through South Central L.A. verbally taunted an African American man.  That was the match that lit, what had accumulated as years of civil unrest, into a full-blown race riot.   For three days, groups of rioting citizens dominated the streets of South Central L.A.  Families from St. Columkille hid inside their homes in fear of becoming yet another target of the racial violence that surrounded them.  In particular mothers stood vigilant over their teenage sons forbidding them to even go outside.  Much of the area was burned to the ground, looting was rampant, many lives were lost, schools and businesses were closed. 

 Despite the terror and destruction of this event, for the families of St. Columbkille, this is an example of what the The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child actually calls “tolerable stress”.  Simply put, tolerable stress in children is caused by acute rather than chronic traumatic situations, where emotional support from caring and capable adults is available.  Other examples of tolerable stress include death of a loved one, or a natural disaster. (Shonkoff, J. P., 2006) & ((Shonkoff, J. P., 2010) Four days after the beginning of the riots, school re-opened.  It quickly became clear, that the focus of our day-to-day classroom activities would be in providing emotional support for the children.  In order to emotionally support the children of my class, I had to alter the curriculum.  New academic concepts could not be introduced, as it simply became apparent that the children were not emotionally and therefore cognitively “available” to take in new information in light of the emotional trauma they had just experienced.  Some of the children suffered from a decline in their executive functions, such as the ability to make sound judgments, focus, and plan ahead wisely.  These manifested themselves in behaviors such as increased sensitivity to others, fights on the play ground, fearfulness, and/or crying when in close proximity to others or when feeling isolated from others.  The emotional health and development of a child directly impacts that child’s executive functions, and cognitive abilities.  (Shonkoff, J. P., 2006), (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004) and (Shonkoff, J. P., 2010)

 However, I also noticed that some previously mastered academic skills were retained, and the skill most used in the aftermath of the violence was that of drawing, writing, and verbalization.  The children had stories to tell.  The telling, drawing, writing, and reading of those stories became prolific.  As long discussions between the children and myself developed, the working vocabulary of the children grew significantly.  The children asked many questions about new words and concepts, such as: racism, skin color, violence, AK-47, taser, spic, nigger, Crips, Bloods, overpass, underpass, graffiti, looting, interstate, cops, police, policia, bro, brothers, The Hood, white folk, honkey, anglo.  They also gave detailed accounts of what they experienced during those three days of unmitigated violence.  For most of this community, the stress of this event remained “tolerable” and did not have an opportunity to be come “toxic”.  I strongly believe that the reason the children of this community were able to tolerate this disruption to their lives so well, was because of the supportive and caring community, in which they lived.  The St. Columbkille Catholic community, that was already in place around them, and their families stepped up to council and protect all of the parishioners.  Mass was held daily as families came together to pray and also talk about their experiences, and gain support from one another. (Breeden, D., 2011)

     At St. Columbkille, the study of conflict and conflict mediation were taken very seriously, and started with the very young.  The younger grades used a book and curriculum called “Fuzzies a Folk Tale”. (Lessor, R. & Ricci, P. E., 1971) The curriculum was a great success and had been implemented in the school for over 15 years, before I began teaching there.  The curriculum teaches that we all have “warm fuzzies”, which are words and works of kindness, to give away to other people.  When one gives away a “warm fuzzie”, another one reappears, so one can never run out of “warm fuzzies”.  (Imagine a small pom pom ball in your favorite color.) The opposite of a “warm fuzzie” is a “cold prickly”.  “Cold pricklies” are words and acts of mal-intent.  In the story, “cold pricklies” are held by a very unhappy and angry Sorceress, who comes to town.  The Soseress successfully distributes some of her “cold priclkies” to residents of the town.  The “cold pricklies” are so unpleasant to retain that anyone who has them tries to give them away as quickly as possible to unsuspecting others.  After awhile the residents of the town learn to reject the “cold pricklies” and the unhappy Sorceress is forced to leave in search of some other unsuspecting town.  (Hopefully the unhappy Soseress is helped by a Wise Wizard who teaches her how to dispel all of her “cold pricklies” and replace them with a never-ending supply of “warm fuzzies”)  So, you get the picture.  In knowing the story well, and having worked with the curriculum, the children quickly connected the notion of “cold pricklies” to the riotous acts they had witnessed and “warm fuzzies” to all the ways their families and the community were coping with the aftermath.

     Because of the experience I had, with what is widely known as the “Rodney King Riots”, and the affect it had upon the young students of my class, I chose to do a little research about the affects of war on children, and what if anything is being done to support children who are exposed to the trauma of war.

      In Pediatrics, I found a very interesting study involving children of the Second Iraeli-Lebanon War in 2006.(Sadeh, A., Hen-Gal, S., & Tikotzky, L., 2008)  The study was conducted during the last week of the war, in a “sheltered camp”.  All of the children and their families were displaced from their homes and all of them were suffering from anxiety disorders related to their contact with the war.  This study focused on the affects of early intervention treatments (while the war was actually still on).  Being able to intervene with effective treatment during a war is tricky to say the least.  So the question was, how do we create an intervention that is doable given the limitations, including limited resources, available in war torn areas?  Because doctors, including pediatricians, are often called upon to enter these areas, the thinking was….  What can a pediatrician do to immediately treat children suffering from anxiety disorders?… Something that is doable given limited resources and is cost effective.  (War is incredibly expensive for everyone!)  How about a “Huggy Puppy", that comes with a good story?  The idea is that a cute, soft, stuffed dog, called “Huggy” is introduced to the child by the pediatrician.  “Huggy” is away from his family, unhappy, and needs to be cared for.  The pediatrician asks the child if he/she would like to take responsibility for the care of the puppy.  If yes, the pediatrician gives the “puppy” to the child, as a gift, upon the condition that the “puppy” is well cared for.  Mothers of the children were asked to encourage the child’s attachment to the “puppy”, and remind their children of their duty to care for the “puppy”.  The reasoning behind the “Huggy Puppy Intervention” is based upon the following: 

 One perspective is drawn from the literature suggesting that giving responsibility to care for others and encouraging active coping during stressful periods empower individuals and make them less vulnerable and susceptible to stress reactions. From a child development perspective, it has been well-established that young children, from as early as the middle of the second year of life, are capable of pretend play, which serves important developmental functions. The play therapy literature suggests that children are highly likely to project their feelings and anxieties onto toy figures (particularly animals) to identify with those feelings and to regulate those emotions while caring for the toy figures.(Sadeh, A. et al., 2008)

It has been suggested that anxiety disorders (in both adults and children) are associated with attentional biases that are linked to fear-inducing stimuli.35 Furthermore, it has been shown that anxious individuals are more likely to focus inwardly, on their fear-related sensations and thought processes, and that attention training and reduction of self-awareness may lead to significant improvement for anxious individuals.  The HPI provides the child with an incentive to focus on the puppy's feelings and needs and on the child's role as caregiver, thus offering a distraction from the child's own fears and anxiety. The child is encouraged to focus on his or her role as a competent caregiver, rather than as an anxious and needy individual.(Sadeh, A. et al., 2008)

In conclusion:

These studies suggest that a brief early intervention based on mobilizing the child's role as a caregiver to a needy puppy doll may serve as a cost-effective means to alleviate children's stress reactions after exposure to war experiences. If our results are validated by additional research, then this intervention could provide pediatricians and other child health care professionals with a valuable tool for early intervention for children exposed to stressful and traumatic events.(Sadeh, A. et al., 2008)

     In reading this study, I am reminded of when as a young person, I was outwardly creeped out by spiders.  If I saw a spider, my mother would simply catch it and release it outside, explaining to me that spiders are a useful part of the environment and that they should be protected, and of course, in removing the spider she was protecting me as well.  I once asked her with my face wrinkled in disgust, “How can you do that?” and then, “I could never do that!”   My mother said, “Don’t worry.  When you have children of your own, you’ll become brave.”   It wasn’t until much later, that my mother told me that she too had always been irrationally fearful of spiders, and that when she had children her focus moved away from her fear of spiders and more toward the protectiveness and care of her children.  I think a connection can be made between this scenario and the “Huggy Puppy Intervention”, as the children are given a means by which to divert their attention away from their internal fears and more toward the care of another individual, consequently reducing their stress levels.  Fascinating work!

References:

Breeden, D. (2011, December 11). The Shonkoff affect and the multidiscipinary scienc of early childhood development.

Lessor, R., & Ricci, P. E. (1971). Fuzzies a folk tale. Resources for Christian Living.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2004). Children’s Emotional Development Is Built into the Architecture of their Brains. National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. Retrieved December 3, 2011, from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/resources/reports_and_working_papers/working_papers/wp2/

Sadeh, A., Hen-Gal, S., & Tikotzky, L. (2008). Young Children’s Reactions to War-Related Stress: A Survey and Assessment of an Innovative Intervention. Pediatrics, 121(1), 46-53. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-1348

Shonkoff, J. P. (2006). A Promising Opportunity for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the Interface of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Social Policy: Remarks on Receiving the 2005 C. Anderson Aldrich Award. Pediatrics, 118(5), 2187-2191. doi:10.1542/peds.2006-1728

Shonkoff, J. P. (2010, November 4). Leveraging an Integrated Science of Development to Strengthen the Foundations of Health, Learning, and Behavior. Casey Family Programs/Early Learning Symposium. Retrieved December 10, 2011, from http://www.casey.org/Resources/Events/earlylearning/WA/default.htm