About the workshop
How the world treated me shaped my brain and effects how I treat you and the world. What you need to know if you want to impact my life!
What is reality for any one person? How do we presume to relate reality to children whose life experiences include dramatic maltreatment and/or literal, mind-numbing neglect? How do we help them to become adaptive to a new environment-a safe home, when the past does not feel like the past?
This is a unique approach in describing the interpersonal neurobiology of children who have been maltreated. This day will include the dignity and dynamism of each person's life story. The workshop will be organized to interweave the child's/teen's perspections of themselves and the theory and research that helps to understand the brain's processes.
Deborah Gray will tell stories of 2 children/teens-from their points of view. She will switch from their first person narrative to third person observer, exposing the theory/current research that pertains to each narrative. She will describe the methods that ultimately shaped their brains in a positive manner, as well as any influences that continued to stress the brain in a negative manner.
The day will take advantage of Deborah Gray's years of specialty practice in working with children adopted from foster care or international orphanages. We will be looking at the various ways in which early environments uniquely change the functioning of the brain. Then, we will be exploring methods of working best with children with early neglect, losses, or maltreatment.
The day will include life experiences that have long-term consequences for brain development and emotional connection. The workshop will discuss classic scenarios, connecting what is likely occurring in the brain and how these children will perceive their world. The day will describe children's experiences that build resilience or cause brain injury from stress.
The day will not be a series of descriptions, but will discuss children in a functional manner. It will bridge between brain issues and everyday life. Methods to help with adaptive skills and more flexibility will be included in the context of the story-telling.
Story themes will include:
1. Neglect in the first year and one-half of life. What is happening in the brain? What are these children struggling with as time goes on?
"My earliest memories are ones of being left. I have always watched the door. I'm afraid to sleep sometimes. Will my mom be there when I can't watch her? Sometimes I kick her at night when she's reading to me. I'm already mad at her because it feels like she will be leaving....."
What is the impact of leaving infants or toddlers in a neglectful home? What will be the probable outcome? What does the research say will be happening in the brain? What are ways to help build different developmental arcs later in life? Through this narrative we will learn how neglect, and attachments influenced by neglect, shape relationships-both close and more casual. We will learn how to provide a home environment to influence brain development in a positive manner.
2. Siblings placed from the foster care system after neglect and multiple traumas.
"My brother and I arrived at our home after a kinship placement for me, many foster care moves for him. Lessons from our birth family are wired into our brains. We are quick to fight, slow to sleep, and scared of losing our parents.....again. We lived with meth. My birthmother said that it was cooking in the basement; the smell that accompanies her memory of her pregnancy with my brother....."
This narrative will weave together the theory of neglect and trauma as experienced by children. Mindful interventions by parents, caseworkers and therapists, appropriate for these children's brains, will be detailed. They will be relayed through the child's eyes, a neuropsychologist's report and recommendations, therapists, parents, and teachers.
