Should Infant Adversity Be Used As A Parenting Tool?
A study that was released this week focused on a lack of attachment problems at 18-months after leaving babies to cry alone. Of course this got my attention! I admit that I haven’t read the actual study yet, and am curious to when I can get access. I’ve read only the linked paper about it. It seems to be restating a few things that we know about childhood trauma and adverse childhood events - and I want to simply share how it relates to current understanding of infant mental health. I’m no expert - just putting some pieces together in case it helps someone reading.
We are starting to understand that resilient children can indeed balance their negative experiences against their protective factors, and come out the other end ok. This doesn’t mean we should expose children to trauma, however, even when we know we can love and support them through it. We still attempt to protect our children from experiences that introduce hardship and that work against the basic building blocks to infant mental health.
This paper suggests that “In fact, they [researchers] found leaving babies to cry it out a few times at term and often at 3 months was associated with shorter crying duration at 18 months.” It is also stated that at 18-months, these babies pass the strange experiment, which would show significant attachment issues if there were any. They did the strange experience at 18-months without a baseline for that child, though, and I wish we could know if the outcomes were better or worse than their original attachment pathway. Either way, this is good. No significant attachment issues. Breathe. Our kids can experience very hard things and be ok.
The neurobiology of building brains might suggest that these experiences still wire the infant brain to expect certain ways of being treated in this world, even when attachment was maintained. Hopefully that unwanted experience and the learning it caused is pruned away appropriately (begins around 13 months) as more positive experiences in that baby’s life show them that their parents are indeed there for them. This would happen when the positive experiences of needing parents when scared at night outweigh the experiences of that child being left alone and scared at night.
Through Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) research, we know that the more childhood traumas experienced, the more of an impact they have on that child’s overall mental and physical wellness for the lifespan. Some ACE’s are avoidable and some aren’t (abuse and divorce, for example). Reducing ACE’s is a well researched strategy to help improve outcomes for kids.
It does seem this repair can happen, but the work it takes is costly to the child’s developing system.
So sure, kids can experience trauma within the context of a loving environment and come out the other end “just fine”. This may be true for any one of the Adverse Childhood Events (ACE’s) such as divorce, parental mental health, neglect, being sworn at, parental addiction, or single instances of accident or abuse. The more difficult experiences a child accumulates, the more likely the risk of lifetime adversity including, depression, anxiety, heart disease, obesity, and more. Those of us working in and along Infant Mental Health try to help families reduce the amount of these exposures each child has, to help prevent these future outcomes. You see, unfortunately we don’t really know which children are at more or less risk of adverse outcomes, and cannot predict what will happen in their future, and so minimizing these experiences as much as possible becomes an important part of our role as parents and caregivers.
I’m happy that families will know (and should know) that their kids can be exposed to some level of adversity and still be ok. This is important. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions - like holding a child down for blood work in the ER. I would still opt to try and help the child have a positive experience and maybe freeze the arm and hold them myself... but if that doesn’t work, force may be needed.
I can’t agree, however, that we should expose them to and help them collect more negative childhood experiences when those experiences are avoidable.
Within this information about avoiding trauma, there is a lot to also understand about building the fulcrum... the balancing point for any person that determines how significant their traumas and their negative factors will weigh against their protective factors and attachments. This seems to be built through consistent and strong positive interactions that are repeated over and over for that child. Kindness, responsiveness, connection, relationship, etc all lead to building this strong fulcrum.
Kids with incredibly strong and healthy resiliency (the fulcrum) will be able to take on those negative experiences more easily. These experences may not have the same heavy effects and impacts as they would for a child who hasn’t had this resiliency built for and with them by their environment, caregivers responsiveness and learning. Shifting the fulcrum becomes the key to helping families who will inevitably be exposed to trauma, whether it be avpoidable like cry-based parenting and neglect or unavoidable like maternal mental health concerns. Building the fulcrum begins with stacking the positive life events and the protective factors on one end, and shifting resiliency to allow the child to let negative experiences feel less heavy. This happens by providing responsive parenting, by using connection and relationship at the heart of discipline, by maintaining the serve and respond mechanisms with intentional interaction, and by proving consistent opportunities for emotional and developmental needs.
Parents make hard choices. Every day.
Sometimes prents must make choices that dont support these ideas - like not responding to them on purpose, using time outs and other relationship-removal punishment, or using small levels of neglect to force a situation where they need to figure something difficult out. When the baby serves a need, and the parent does not respond, the baby learns that they aren’t cared for in that moment and that they need to find a way to adapt. Most will adapt by being quiet, compliant, cute, or will fall asleep to avoid. Although serve and NOT respond is not typically the goal, this may be necessary for some families in some moments. No judgement here - sometimes were just trading one undesirable choice for another. A common example is with the impact of postpartum mood disorders and maternal mental health. Maternal mental health disorders are a documented adverse event for the child (ACE) and would count towards their score. Improving the mental health of the parent becomes paramount, and this may include some parenting choices that would not be made in a different scenario such as leaving a aby to cry alone. This is a difficult situation, considering we may be introducing something less than desirable to the infants brain wiring in order to save the parents mental wellness… but oxygen mask first, always! And if this is surrounded by love and affection ad attention most other times, it wont likely have a large negative impact as the study suggests. However, when we make hard decisions to put our children’s needs second, we are doing so without really examining the previous possible adverse events, and without being able to predict what my come. We aren’t sure if we’re trading one negative outcome for another or are truly making overall improvements. This is where parents need to follow their instinct about to their child, and help whoever needs the most help in the moment. If another health adult is available to care for the baby, that is the best case scenario. We would do well to remember that if it doesn’t feel right, it likely isn’t, and MOST importantly, to ask for help. Sometimes there are ways to meet everyone’s needs at the same time.
Some research has also suggested that when children have to spend much of their emotional energy protecting themselves from trauma (abuse at home, swearing at them, divorce, neglect/not responding to them, etc) that they do overwork parts of the brain that help protect and regulate. This is likely from recurring situations over a long term. What’s concerning is that when this happens during a time where their emotions are meant to be co-regulated by their caregiver, in order for energy to be used to build other brain functions, they are instead asked to mobilize that energy away from the other learning they are meant to do in exchange for focusing on the large emotional strain of regulation. When we can co-regulate their emotional needs consistently, children can then focus on the learning and growing and developing happening. Learning self-regulation in a forced and premature way may cause this area of the brain used for constant emotional and safety monitoring to overwork. This is also thought to be impactful on anxiety disorders and other over-active alert systems.
You Do You.
I don’t know the right answer for your family. Whether you should tend to your baby, let your baby fuss before getting them, or more. Some research suggests it wont lead to attachment issues at 18-months. But there isnt any research to explain how leaving babies in distress, alone, impacts these resiliency mechanisms and hpw it guides brain wiring at this critical time. I do know what was right for my family, simply because I know my family. For us, when something didn’t feel right, we protected the family from it. And when something was not-negotiable? We supported and loved and stayed close and soothed. What I can suggest is that you find your own family balance, do what you need to do to get through parenting, and assess everything in through your heart as well as your mind. Parenting with kindness and connection can happen even in the hardest situations. And lastly, try to ensure that the positive interactions (responding, being there, co-regulating, serve and respond, protection from harm, connection and relationship) outweigh the negatives (hungry, unresponsiveness, parental mental health, divorce, physical abuse, neglect, and other ACE’s).
If you want to learn more, take the Alberta Brain Story course. It’s free. Accessible (geographically) to most as its online. It’s 20ish hours of the current neurobiology around trauma, attachment and shifting the fulcrum. https://www.albertafamilywellness.org or book a visit with me for private, tailored solutions.