very young children developing brain prosocial behavior socialization tendencies helping behaviors risk factors buffers protective factors child's integrative framework of wellbeing family context effects of early adversity effects of exposure to high conflict and inter-parental violence on children "seeing beyond what is" apparent with children symbolized communication by children children's capacity for relatedness sense of a fore-shortened future in traumatized children
"children are equipped with prosocial tendencies that have deep evolutionary roots, and socialization builds upon these tendencies (rather than creates them . . . . .)
Mothers and others may contribute to the development of prosocial behaviors in young children – but so does Mother Nature." --
-- a lovely recent research finding from Harvard's Center for the Study of the Child.
Parental Presence and Encouragement Do Not Influence Helping in Young Children
Felix Warneken
Department of Psychology Harvard University
Michael Tomasello
Max Planck Institute
Infancy, 1-12
2012
(which is to say -- !!! "Young children begin helping others with simple instrumental problems from soon after their birthdays."
Our focus for children and youth is positive and holistic - addressing the issues young children present with within a comprehensive, integrative framework which best supports their overall innate prosocial nature and wellbeing as well as what is specifically hopeful, healthy and meaningful for you and your entire family.
while this is particularly relevant for infants, parents, caregivers, and the youngest children, we have found it is also critical for working with latency age adolescents/teens and transitioning older youth within their unique contexts.
It is pertinent to those who have limited access to appropriate, quality treatment -- who may be in low-income schools, recovery settings, who are homeless, sheltered, stateless, or in out-of-home, temporary or long-term placements.
Every psychological "issue" has a history - and the degree to which a child or young person is "resilient" is known to be directly related to how many buffers, "protective factors", were available and accessed in the face of early adversity, adverse life events. (ACE's, Adverse Childhood Events, CDC and Kaiser Study, 1996).
As committed, clinical psychologists with fifty years experience between us, we have amassed rich, extensive experience in the scientist-practitioner model of psychology, teaching for many years at Bay Area APA Doctoral programs, primarily PGSP (Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, now Palo Alto University), as Professor and Associate Professor, core part-time faculty, at the same time working as private practice practitioners, as Clinical Directors at local agencies; and as clinical and forensic consulting psychologists in the areas of assessment, trauma psychology and trauma assessment, and providing graduate school and private supervision and mentoring; supporting student dissertations.
we have developed and supervised innovative school-based treatment programs, using our advanced trauma clinical and trauma practicum doctoral students as clinicians in low-income/high violence neighborhoods (East Palo Alto; East and Central San Jose), there, we acquired a wealth of learning about the nature and effects of exposure to very high and chronic conflict and community/interpersonal/inter-parental violence on latency age children and youth.
what we learned about the effects of child exposure to violence from the honesty, vulnerability, openness, and willingness to disclose of our young patients, and the overall courage of these fourth-graders, caused violence exposure to become an abiding, hope-filled focus of much of our continuing professional work.
It has become the "lens" through which we see "beyond what is", beyond apparent symptoms and complaints as we conduct assessments and psychotherapy, and has become the "ears" with which we now "hear" the meaning of attitudes and overt behaviors that can otherwise, at times, seem merely illogical and self-defeating.
we continue to expand our knowledge and scope of practice, which is now global,
combining sound developmental theory with a lifespan, transcultural, and trauma-responsive emphasis which derives from contemporary trauma theory, Parent-Infant and Child-Parent mental health principles, to include the most recent to research based suggestions regarding clinical interventions for children and youth of many diverse cultures (C. Zeanah, et al, 2016).
working clinically with children and youth
effective psychiatric practice with children always occurs through astute, knowledgeable, and respectful observation of their play and play themes, sensing their emotional tone, listening to their thoughts and feelings, those spoken, symbolized, drawn out and pictured with art materials, played out, even dreamed and explained later.
data is gathered through a variety of methods: interacting in play, observation, creating art, interacting verbally, storytelling, sometimes by recalling their dreams by talking about them, acting them out, making pictures about them, or video-taping them as stories and plays, puppet-shows.
we listen for their inner/internal representations
expressed, for example, in responses to psychological assessment, through skillful interview and by understanding art and play themes, gained in collaboration with their families and collaterals, school personnel and others meaningful to them during open-ended conversations.
we respect and honor children's abilities to know themselves
we anticipate that children will express the uniqueness and complexities of their inner worlds, perceptions of their experiences and current life situations when they are given time, trusted and predictable safe emotional space with respectful, honest and well trained clinicians.
we believe that children will reveal their "capacity for relatedness," which means, they will clearly demonstrate, by their behavior, what "being in relationship" means to them.
They often share by enacting, their internal representations of themselves, others, what being in relationships means to them, as well as their sense of the wider world - whether it is to be feared, avoided, trusted, clung to, whether reaching out to the wide world is something they are ambivalent about . . .
and, depending on the extent of terror, trauma, victimization they may have suffered, they will reveal their sense of a future.
(A sense of foreshortened future, or no future imagined at all, is hypothesized to be a hallmark symptom of children who have experienced severe trauma, such as found in those presenting with post traumatic stress symptoms or disorder, complex developmental trauma, etc.
Mothers and others may contribute to the development of prosocial behaviors in young children – but so does Mother Nature." --
-- a lovely recent research finding from Harvard's Center for the Study of the Child.
Parental Presence and Encouragement Do Not Influence Helping in Young Children
Felix Warneken
Department of Psychology Harvard University
Michael Tomasello
Max Planck Institute
Infancy, 1-12
2012
(which is to say -- !!! "Young children begin helping others with simple instrumental problems from soon after their birthdays."
Our focus for children and youth is positive and holistic - addressing the issues young children present with within a comprehensive, integrative framework which best supports their overall innate prosocial nature and wellbeing as well as what is specifically hopeful, healthy and meaningful for you and your entire family.
while this is particularly relevant for infants, parents, caregivers, and the youngest children, we have found it is also critical for working with latency age adolescents/teens and transitioning older youth within their unique contexts.
It is pertinent to those who have limited access to appropriate, quality treatment -- who may be in low-income schools, recovery settings, who are homeless, sheltered, stateless, or in out-of-home, temporary or long-term placements.
Every psychological "issue" has a history - and the degree to which a child or young person is "resilient" is known to be directly related to how many buffers, "protective factors", were available and accessed in the face of early adversity, adverse life events. (ACE's, Adverse Childhood Events, CDC and Kaiser Study, 1996).
As committed, clinical psychologists with fifty years experience between us, we have amassed rich, extensive experience in the scientist-practitioner model of psychology, teaching for many years at Bay Area APA Doctoral programs, primarily PGSP (Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, now Palo Alto University), as Professor and Associate Professor, core part-time faculty, at the same time working as private practice practitioners, as Clinical Directors at local agencies; and as clinical and forensic consulting psychologists in the areas of assessment, trauma psychology and trauma assessment, and providing graduate school and private supervision and mentoring; supporting student dissertations.
we have developed and supervised innovative school-based treatment programs, using our advanced trauma clinical and trauma practicum doctoral students as clinicians in low-income/high violence neighborhoods (East Palo Alto; East and Central San Jose), there, we acquired a wealth of learning about the nature and effects of exposure to very high and chronic conflict and community/interpersonal/inter-parental violence on latency age children and youth.
what we learned about the effects of child exposure to violence from the honesty, vulnerability, openness, and willingness to disclose of our young patients, and the overall courage of these fourth-graders, caused violence exposure to become an abiding, hope-filled focus of much of our continuing professional work.
It has become the "lens" through which we see "beyond what is", beyond apparent symptoms and complaints as we conduct assessments and psychotherapy, and has become the "ears" with which we now "hear" the meaning of attitudes and overt behaviors that can otherwise, at times, seem merely illogical and self-defeating.
we continue to expand our knowledge and scope of practice, which is now global,
combining sound developmental theory with a lifespan, transcultural, and trauma-responsive emphasis which derives from contemporary trauma theory, Parent-Infant and Child-Parent mental health principles, to include the most recent to research based suggestions regarding clinical interventions for children and youth of many diverse cultures (C. Zeanah, et al, 2016).
working clinically with children and youth
effective psychiatric practice with children always occurs through astute, knowledgeable, and respectful observation of their play and play themes, sensing their emotional tone, listening to their thoughts and feelings, those spoken, symbolized, drawn out and pictured with art materials, played out, even dreamed and explained later.
data is gathered through a variety of methods: interacting in play, observation, creating art, interacting verbally, storytelling, sometimes by recalling their dreams by talking about them, acting them out, making pictures about them, or video-taping them as stories and plays, puppet-shows.
we listen for their inner/internal representations
expressed, for example, in responses to psychological assessment, through skillful interview and by understanding art and play themes, gained in collaboration with their families and collaterals, school personnel and others meaningful to them during open-ended conversations.
we respect and honor children's abilities to know themselves
we anticipate that children will express the uniqueness and complexities of their inner worlds, perceptions of their experiences and current life situations when they are given time, trusted and predictable safe emotional space with respectful, honest and well trained clinicians.
we believe that children will reveal their "capacity for relatedness," which means, they will clearly demonstrate, by their behavior, what "being in relationship" means to them.
They often share by enacting, their internal representations of themselves, others, what being in relationships means to them, as well as their sense of the wider world - whether it is to be feared, avoided, trusted, clung to, whether reaching out to the wide world is something they are ambivalent about . . .
and, depending on the extent of terror, trauma, victimization they may have suffered, they will reveal their sense of a future.
(A sense of foreshortened future, or no future imagined at all, is hypothesized to be a hallmark symptom of children who have experienced severe trauma, such as found in those presenting with post traumatic stress symptoms or disorder, complex developmental trauma, etc.