How to Build Resilience After Trauma

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Speaker 1:
Okay, welcome everyone to the Family Conference 2020 presented by Rhombus University. The topic covered in this presentation is How to Develop Resilience through Trauma and our speaker is Dr. Kaye Lawrence. Dr. Kaye Lawrence has been a missionary and counselor in Mexico and US for 43 years serving children and families that come from dysfunctional backgrounds. BS degree in nursing, BA degrees in special education and sociology, a doctorate degree in neurophysiology, nutrition, and clinical education psychology. She is a professor of psychology and behavioral science at San Diego Christian College and Southern California Seminary teaching bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate level classes. And I’m happy to welcome Dr. Kaye Lawrence. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi everybody, nice to have you with us this morning. I’m going to pull up a PowerPoint and so hopefully you’ll be able to see that. If you cannot see that, please send me something in chat very quickly. I do want to welcome you and pray that this session will be a great help to each one of you.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
I would like to begin with a word of prayer. Father, I just thank you and praise you for your love for us and for your concern for us and how you reach out to us through many different methods and this family conference is one of those ways that we can learn from you. So I pray that you will open our hearts father, to hear what you have to say and I pray for guidance and direction that you would give wisdom, that you give a peace that passes all of our standing and that we will be able to touch the heart of the subject and understand exactly what we need to know. So be with us today Father, thank you for my help mate here, [Rory 00:01:52] and I pray for the rest of the speakers today that they too will be blessed and that they will be able to forward the information to the people that are listening. So be with us now and we just praise you and thank you for this opportunity in Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So I’m going to share my screen if you give me just a second here. So I want to read this Bible verse to you. ‘Nothing ahead of you is bigger or stronger than the power of God behind you. Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power’. It’s important to remember that the power behind us is the Lord and he is more powerful than anything that can possibly happen around us. However, the things that happen around us can affect us. So we want to remember that post-traumatic stress syndrome can be a part of any age group, including childhood and the time following that trauma or the traumatic experience is very, very critical. The quality of contact that we have with the victims can give influencing outcome of how they’re affected by what’s happened. Though sometime what occurs after that incident is more emotionally devastating than the actual incident itself.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
There we go. So I’m not going to go over in great detail about these, but I do want you to see that there are five different types of PTSD. According to the severity of the trauma, it can range from mild to intense. So normal stress response is when a person experiences one event and that event disrupts their entire life. They can recover with that within a couple of weeks like family dynamics or illnesses, but most of the time people can recover if they have the proper resilience. Comorbid PTSD is commonly diagnosed with another disorder like depression, or some people have been on drugs or alcohol and they might live with guilt because of what’s happened to them. So they can have a comorbid issue with what is post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Acute stress disorder is people can forget things and naturally and frequently, this can disrupt their daily lives like their work or their sleep. This is the least common of all five types. And it could happen if the person is grieving by losing somebody special in their life, which in particular we’re going through this right now with the COVID virus. People are losing those loved ones and not able to be there in time, thus causing a lot of stress and depression. Or they can experience a natural disaster of some sort or something of that order.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Uncomplicated PTSD is more difficult than it sounds because it causes a person to experience a traumatic event repeatedly and these people feel a sense of powerlessness. And usually that comes, because the resilience in their life has not started at a young age and so when they do have these difficult incidents in their life, they don’t know how to deal with them. So they’ll turn usually to alcohol or substance abuse. Some people would turn to eating disorders and some people do self-medicating [inaudible 00:05:10] or cutting themselves or something to that order. So you must understand that while they engage in these extreme forms of behavior, because they feel a sense of release and relief from their mental anguish. The last one is complex PTSD. That’s the one is as it said, it is really complex because these people had experienced traumatic events for an extended period of time, such as sexual abuse or child abuse or things of that sort. So I just want to play this little video, where I only play about two minutes of it because of our time element. But I do want you to see this.

Speaker 2 :
Because of the way the brain works, you will always remember your very first roller coaster ride. Storing these new experiences is one of the brain’s main jobs. In fact, your brain creates a mental blueprint of every new experience you have. A blueprint for any new touch is stored in one part of the brain, a blueprint for any new sound in a different part and a blueprint for any new sight in still another part. But as powerful as that first roller coaster ride was, it can’t compete with the lingering effects of your brain’s earliest experiences. Although you have no conscious memory of this part of your childhood, it is these very first experiences that literally become the building blocks for your whole life.

Speaker 3:
Unlike other organs, the brain is undeveloped at birth and it is waiting for experiences to shape how it will develop. The amazing thing about the human brain is that the younger you are, the more sponge-like your brain is, which is the reason that children in three years can learn language, can learn to walk and do all kinds of incredible things. But the very same biological sponginess that allows us to rapidly acquire language is also the same sponginess that makes young children more vulnerable to trauma than older children.

Speaker 4:
We have the opportunity to do police ride-alongs to a domestic violence situation and so this was actually the first call I ever rode along. It was dinner time and they were having spaghetti for dinner. It was dripping down the walls, the kitchen table was overturned and we had three children in the household. Looking at this whole situation at the time, we said no evidence of physical harm, the kids are fine. We learned differently of course, the boy in the corner was classic behavior that we see with kids who have had chronic exposure to violence. He would just completely zone out, numb out as things started to get scary. The six-year-old little girl on the chair blames herself for what’s going on, but actually it was four years later that we really appreciated who had some of the most profound or severe harm coming out of this situation. And that was the six month old baby who was now-

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Okay. I’m going to pull out of that right now and I will make that available to you so that you can watch it later on. I think that this is a really important thing for you to continue to watch, but I do want to continue on because of a time sake here. So I want you to realize the reason why I’m talking about this is because it goes back that far many times about how children build resilience. So some things can happen to them that are positive, and that helps them to build a resistance and a connection with their caregiver who helps them to build resistance. But we must remember that we have opportunities to work with children by the time they’re seven years old, 78% of all good inhabit, bad habits are formed.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So generally children’s reactions to trauma differ based on the nature of the trauma, which could be the child as an individual, their family, or their neighborhood characteristics. But the overall balance of risk and protective factors in their lives are really important and so that connection and bonding that they have with their parents is the prime source of giving good resilience for when later on in life, something might happen to them that they have an opportunity to face that situation with a positive attitude. So resilience is defined as a dynamic process, encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity. So this is what children need to be able to, have happened to them is that they have that opportunity to have a positive adaptation, which is sometimes not always available to them because of what’s happened as a child.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So the impact of trauma can have various effects on children’s life and they can have difficulties forming attachment to caregivers, they can experience the excessive fear of strangers or separation anxiety. They might hoard food or hide food in the rooms, or they might eat as if there will be no more meals for them and they just have to stuff themselves. Even as it had years of consistent available food, they may have failed to thrive rumination throwing up food, swallowing problems later in life and unusual eating behaviors that are often diagnosed as anorexia or nervosa bulimia, and sleeping issues that could be especially fussy as a child. So they might show regression, not able to sleep through the night or toilet training.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
School age children usually have a different way of showing it. There’s maybe that they would engage in aggressive behavior. They might become withdrawn. They could be fixated on their own safety or the safety of others, that frequent nightmares. Adolescents have different ways of experiencing trauma and showing how they feel. So that could be because they’re anxious or they’re depressed. They engage in risk-taking and self destructive activities. Adolescents, you’ll want to remember that their brain, the prefrontal lobe doesn’t totally develop until they’re probably in their early twenties and there’s no exact deadline or time element on that, but it is true and because of that, they will engage in risk taking activities without thinking, and it could be more impulsive. So that may not be because of trauma. It might be just because of the fact that they’re growing up. So you have to be able to distinguish the difference in that.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
These young people have a very difficult time adapting to people into society. So what’s involved with that is the attachment disorder. There’s four different kinds. The secure attachment of course, is by far the best. That’s what we’re looking for. Insecure attachment and avoidance behavior is that they don’t orientate themselves towards the attachment figure. They don’t seek contact with attachment figure when they’re distressed. And these type of children are likely to have a caregiver who is insensitive and rejects the needs. Where insecure ambivalent is usually a child that is very clinging and will reject the attachment figure when they engage in interaction. The child fails to develop any feelings of security from the attachment figure. And the disorganized one is by far the more difficult one. This is disorientation in the form of wondering, confused expressions, they will freeze, they could have unorganized patterns of interaction with their caregiver.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So what happens here is, attachment is an instinctive system in the brain that evolved to ensure infant safety and survival. Early attachment occurs in a unique way. And that’s why it’s so important that mom has the opportunity when the child’s born, that the child comes on her breast and she has an opportunity to touch and hold the child. And of course if dads in the delivery room, that’s wonderful. That helps make that connection. But an attuned primary caregiver will observe and follow the lead of the infant. Attachment is essential for the foundation of a healthy personality, and they have the resilience that they need later on in life.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
These are just some of the different things that are talking about attachment disorder. I’m not going to read all that, but I move forward because of your time. These children will often have very primitive and immature and even sometimes bizarre soothing behaviors. And that will be a consistent way that they would show that they’re upset or that they have problems. They may scratch or cut themselves. They may bite themselves. They may headbang or rock or chant. So these symptoms can increase during times of stress or threat. Emotional function could be some type of depression and anxiety. Children have a difficult time showing that they’re depressed, they don’t necessarily sit over in a corner. Sometimes they can be very irritable and that shows that they might be depressed. So we have to be concerned about these type of behaviors, because these can contribute to an abused child’s confusion about what intimacy is and how they should connect with their caregiver.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Aggression and cruelty are part of that. This is related to two primary problems, neglected children, which one would be lack of empathy from the caregiver and poor impulse control. These are emotionally, basically young people that have a very difficult time to understand what’s going on around them. They don’t emotionally understand all that’s happening and the impact of our behavior to them can also impair these children more. So we have to be really careful that we’re very sensitive to their needs, that we can read the children and we can follow what’s happening with them. They really do not understand or feel what it is like for others when they are hurting themselves. So they need to have help to reach out to them. But sometimes they will reach out in a way that might hurt animals like they might kick animals or try to hurt smaller children or siblings, or just be very, because they’re hurting inside and so they’re looking for a way to release that pain, that thing out.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
And again, these are all areas that move towards proper resilience when a person gets older. So disruptive behavior disorders are among the earliest to identify of all coexisting conditions because they involve behaviors that are readily seen such as temper tantrums. You’ll see this in children, they have tempered tantrums. Physical aggression, such as attacking other children. They could be already mad like ‘I’m not going to do this or I told you I wasn’t going to do this. No, I don’t want to do this’. They could have, and that could be very excessive to the demands of the caregiver. So you want to watch for these kind of things. Children tend to steal when they have these needs. They don’t always steal because they’re lacking something, they’re stealing because they want to show a form of defiance or resistance to authority.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So these disorders could include, and I’m going to mention some of those types of disorders which maybe you’ve seen, ADHD would be one, its pretty common, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder. These are all different types of disorders that have come from something that’s gone on with this child when they’ve been very young. And often first they attract notice when they interfere with school performance or family and peer relationships. ADHD can be a genetic disorder too. So you want to bear in mind that that’s a possibility, but these things will intensify over time. So when a person becomes an adult, then they have risk factors that are involved in that. And that would be circumstances in all of this list, which you can read as you’re going, as I’m speaking. These are different things that occur in our risk factors for children to not build resilience for reasons.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
And by the time they are adults for, I put military up there because sometimes it’s coming from a military family changing and moving around all the time, they’re at increased risk for experienced trauma because of that. Or a lack of dad not being home, or maybe dad lost his life in the military action. So these are things that could happen to the children if they’re not treated properly in these particular areas. So the presence of risk factors, our membership in a high risk group does not necessarily mean that a child will experience trauma or its most adverse effects, it depends a lot on the protective factors that have helped the children to buffer these risks through life. And that will improve the odds of resilient functioning.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So it’s really important that we learn how to be good parents, good caregivers, that we’re there for the children that we’re connected, with the children know that we’re there for them and that they can talk to us anytime day or night. And that’s one of the things that’s hard to do in this day and age, because most of the time father and mom, dad, mom are out working and it’s hard for them to come home and mom still has to carry on the duties of the home and listen to her children. So if a child just needs to know that the door is opened for them, and that helps build that resilience for them so that if trauma does come along later on, they know who they can go to to get the help they need.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So how can we help? And what can we do? I want to just mention very quickly the limbic system, because that is where everything’s stored. I haven’t talked about that in this particular conference, but it’s really urgent that you investigate what the limbic system does and how it functions because that’s where everything comes into play and it can be stored there and once it’s stored there, then the child does start having the repercussions of what’s happened to them. So if they have a faulty alarm system in their limbic system, their emotional brain is not functioning the way it should be. So we need to, as parents or as professionals, restore the emotional brain to do an ordinary job of being a quiet background presence that takes care of the housekeeping, that’s going on in our body. So only when this happens and we become aware of what’s going on with our children, because of the experiences that they’re having, then we can help them to overcome and that’s even true when people become adults. By the time they become adults, they tend to hold things in for longer periods of time.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So there’s certain personality changes that take place. You should watch out for these. You may notice sudden or gradual changes in the way that someone typically behaves. He or she may behave in ways that doesn’t seem to fit the values or the family’s values or the person’s values or the person may just seem different. They might seem uncharacteristically angry or anxious or agitated or moody. You may notice the person has more frequent problems controlling his [inaudible 00:21:38], and he seems irritable or unable to calm down. People in more extreme situations of this kind may be unable to sleep at night. So we have to help them teach them how to sleep, or they could explode in anger at a minor problem.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
They might withdraw or isolate. Someone who’s used to be very social and all of a sudden does not want to engage and will pull away from family and friends and lock themselves in the room or go in a corner and play and stop taking part in activities that they used to enjoy. You want to watch out for that because that’s a sign that something’s happened. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean it could be sexual abuse or any type of that kind of abuse. It could be bullying. So you want to make sure that you’re on top of that. These people tend to stop taking care of themselves and they might engage in risky behavior. They’ll have a change in level of personal care or an act of poor judgment. Sometimes their personal hygiene goes to the wayside. They don’t want to take baths, or they might lead as an adult and abuse alcohol even though we’re seeing that down to younger ages in this day and age. They might elicit substances or engage in other self-destructive behavior that could alienate their loved ones from them.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So when you see these kinds of things taking place, you want to reach out, you want them to sit down and talk to you. Now, if they’re rebellious and they’re at a point where they don’t want to talk about it, you have to figure out and be creative, ‘what can I do to help these children get to talk’. Sometimes it’s just playing games with them. Sometimes it’s going out and walking with them or playing a sport. And so that they know that they can trust you. They might seem overcome with helplessness because of the circumstances or the circumstances. So if you’ve noticed that a person used to be optimistic and now can’t find anything to be hopeful about, this could be something to do with extreme or prolonged grief or feelings of worthlessness or guilt. So they might say things like “the world would be a better place without me” suggesting suicidal thinking. So you want to be on of that.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
And I just want you to see this because trauma can affect children in so many ways. And when I talk about people that have PTSD or lack of resilience its because they’ve been badly injured in some manner. So to their mind, emotionally and physically, they feel they’ve been damaged. So the imbalance of PTSD or their behaviors can be learned because of what is seen or experienced, but it is huge for them. So if it’s not treated, it can affect their lives and affects their brain. So I wanted you to see the brain here. On the left is the normal brain and the brain on the right is extreme, extreme neglect. So this happens from the time when the child’s brain is developing as a young child. So it’s really important that we are taking care of. You can see here, how the difference in the brain in size has, it is less, it’s 38% volume reduction to the brain size. And this is a hard thing to understand, doesn’t mean it can’t come back to normal. It can with the proper connections.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So let’s find a way to help these young people. What can we do? We must look for a way. The challenge to recovery is to re-establish ownership of their own bodies and be mindful themselves. Now that’s tough for a little child, but it can happen as they progress through life being taught by the caregiver the proper way to respond to things, the love and give and take. These are all important areas. So we have to help them to learn to maintain calmness in response to images, thoughts, sounds and so on.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
I’m going to move very quickly on to this last slide, because this is really important. This tells us how to raise resilience in children and teens. So it’s not an extensive list, but it certainly or are conclusive as certain will help you. So remember that no one is best at anything.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
When a child learns what they are good at, try to praise him for them, motivate them. This is a major step in letting them know how to thrive in the world. They need to explore, but you need to help them when they explore to look at the good side, what’s happened to them. It’s hard to see your children upset when they make mistake and so try very hard to help them and give them your support at that time, sit them aside, let them talk about it. Let them draw. Artwork is very good. They get an opportunity to express through artwork. If they want to feel anger, sad, even at times, disappointed, allow that to happen, but show them how to manage those bouts. They’ll be better equipped to handle stress later on when they know that they will have disappointments in life and understanding how to reach out to them would help them through those disappointments.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Teach them to reach out to others. This is really important because children need to learn how to do that. And so they understand what it’s like to give and ask for a helping hand. By volunteering and helping others, children learn how good it feels to do that. It helps to build the resilience as they see other people going through difficult places and they can reach out and help them. And help them develop social skills, this is so important. They have to re-engage into their social activities, it’s crucial. So be sure that if you need help with these things, there are people available to give counsel and direction and these things will help, not only so that they won’t be re-traumatized by them, but it will help them to be able to care for other people.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So that’s it guys. So let’s go to some question time here. This is my website where I work in Mexico. If you would like to look that up, you’re welcome to do that later on. I’ve written this book Palace of the Pigs. It’s available on Amazon.com. It’s basically talking about how we started a ministry. So let me open it up here for questions. I’m going to stop share right now and let me open up if anybody has any questions.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Most times it is with a comorbid disorder as a rule, but yes, you can have more than one. Generally if it’s progressive one, it moves into different categories. So on the normal stress response, if you have one issue at house, disruption in your life, like what I just shared about the COVID virus, for example, that’s probably not going to be a, it might be a lifetime trigger because you might be scared of death of viruses in the future, whatever. But we need to learn how to face those things. So that’s, I just mentioned those so that you understand that there are there disruptions in our life that can move away from us and not bother us later on, which would be a normal stress response. But once it becomes an issue that yes, it could connect into something else. And you can find this on the internet anywhere.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Let’s break this down, if you will. It’s called trauma proofing for your kids. It’s by Peter Levine. And also, but I do want to share with you that all children that come into foster homes or adoption, I would probably guess a half percent of them are not, have no issues. They all have issues because they’re not connected with their principal biological, they haven’t bonded properly with their biological parents is what they really need. So this is another one that’s really good for adoptive parents. This is called the maltreated child, finding what lurks beneath by Dr. Steven Gray. And it’s very, very helpful because it shows you what foster children go through and what you can’t see on the surface, but they show symptoms of what’s going on with them. And you’ve mentioned several of them and he might smile, yes. And he might be friendly, yes. But deep down inside, he may have other behaviors that he’s manifesting that shows he has pain. And these kind of pain are children that have deeply emotional problems.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
So this is another good one for you. Excuse me, for recommending a lot of reading material. But I think it’s really important for you, how to raise emotionally healthy children. And this is if you take on foster kiddos. One of the things that I don’t think is taught in our foster system, and this has been a real sore spot with me is that foster parents, and I have lots of people that have adopted and lots of people that foster parents and in Mexico, that’s what we do. We work with children sent to us through the authorities. And they all have issues, they all have problems. In our case down there, every one of our children would have been abused in some way, sexually abused or mistreated. And this all brings ramifications in their lives. And they do not know how to be resilient when they face other types of trauma.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
Just a kid in school teasing them, they don’t know what to do with that. So they may be very aggressive and hit him right in the nose. And of course, that’s not the way we want them to learn, to treat those kinds of issues. So do your homework I think, and proud of you. It’s just wonderful that you’re doing this type of work, but bear in mind, what you’re doing is not easy, but God will guide you and he will lead you. And he would be with the right people. And I agree with you. There are many people that do not know how to diagnose his situation, do not know. And I can’t give you a lot of [inaudible 00:31:17] right now, cause lack of time. But I can have you, I’ll give you my email. I’d love you to, I’m going to type it into right here. And you can send me any questions you might have because that’s what I do, is work with people that have these kinds of problems.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
You know, sitting on the floor and playing ball, teaching your five-year-old how to do jacks, where you can just kind of talk, watching them very carefully on eye movements, gestures, learning how to read those, playing with them outside, playing in sand tray. I have a sand tray where the children can come and play in the stand tray. And it’s not always important to be able to interpret everything, as you grow in your profession you will be able to learn those things.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
It’s important that you just have time with that little guy, with both of them in different moments alone, as well as together where you have moment time with the two year old and quality time with your five-year-old. And then you have quality time with both of them together and that they know that you, you care about them enough to do that and take them on little trips together, do some camping, get out of the worldly issues that we’re going through so that it doesn’t build fear. And that way they know that they have a good positive contact with their main figure, which is daddy and that’s really important. Mom’s important too, but dad’s the head of the house and dad is like a representation of God to them. So how you reach out to those little guys is super important.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
I’m so happy that you’re concerned about that because that’s something that needs to be done and remember that you have to the age of seven. So by seven they’re usually in second grade or starting second grade. And they have formed at that point, all their good and bad 78% habits. So that’s a lot. All of what we do with them at those years from the time of birth. Even during the pregnancy, I tell my people, in the pregnancy put your hand on the baby and pray for them, read to them. My son-in-law used to read books to his daughter and she’s now a doctor. She just loved it. She always reads and she absorbs everything. So I think it started in the pregnancy. I’d see him reading little storybooks to her when my daughter was pregnant. So all the attention that you can give, you don’t necessarily have to say anything or ask questions, but how are you is good, when did that happen, could you tell me about that, where and so on that these guys will know that they can communicate to you in their way.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
One of the things, it’s hard for these little guys, that’s anger, showing itself basically and retaliation. And that is part of attachment disorder, because what they’re saying is that my caregiver has left me so I’m going to take it out on you. So let me tell you that all children that go under attachment disorder issues and have those problems, mostly because they’ve lost their biological caregiver, they will take it out on the female figure in the home as a rule. They treat that female figure as the person that’s left them. So they have that connection that ‘you’re a female, you’re trying to give me the attention, but I have this other person in my life. And where is that other person? So I’m going to treat you bad because it’s somehow going to get back to that other person’. This is a psychological way that these children hit back.

Dr. Kaye Lawrence:
And you are the, any persons, the foster parent, the mother is the same situation. Any person that takes on another child that they have to care for and a child has attachment disorder, they don’t all come in with attachment disorder, by the way, but the high percentage of foster children or kids that have lost their parents in some way, you can pretty much count on the fact that they’re going to present some type. You might want to do some investigation on that, play therapy is really good. Unfortunately, this has happened, and this is the responsibility that God’s given you to connect with these little guys and if you don’t do that with them, they will not build resilience. So you need to look for ways to get the help that you need so that they can build the resilience that they need when they grow up and start facing more difficult situations in their lives. And you might consider getting some therapy for yourself and for the little guys.

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How to Develop Resilience through Trauma with Dr. Kaye Lawrence