Minding the Children – 1. The Real Problem

Our mind, will, body, and emotions function together to determine who we are in our hearts as individuals and how we navigate life’s challenges.  In turn, our bodily health is determined by the choices we make as stewards of our physical bodies.  But we are also influenced by the heredity and environment provided by our parents and family.  Adverse experiences can impact our physical and emotional health and can affect our ability to think, make good choices, and learn.  Although God’s Spirit can override our flesh and its limitations, humanly speaking, adverse experiences can rob anyone of the mental and emotional health necessary to surrender and walk within the power of the Spirit of God. 

But how well are we managing the health and well-being of our mind, will, body, and emotions?  In this blog, we will define and address the seriousness of what are called adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s).  We will discuss how ACE’s can cause chronic stress which creates a physiological and emotional “load” on our body that, in turn, can diminish the quality and longevity of our lives.

In Part 2, “Minding the Children – Path to Restoration” (Click HERE.), we will move from theory to application and problem-solving by providing an interview with our friend, Mr. Robb Fogg, a man who has personal and professional experience with the causes of adverse childhood experiences and their effects on quality and longevity of life.  It is our blessing as brothers in Christ to co-author this three-part series of articles.

Part 3 is "Minding the Children - What Can I Do?" (Click HERE.) It aims to answer that question for those of us who know of at least one person who might benefit from the free online, "Acorns to Oaks" program.  We provide a brief overview of the subject followed by a handy directory of important links beginning with a "jump-in" website for those who want to make a difference in the lives of those they love. 

Responsibility to Our Children
Lately, two topics have been dominating objective news reporting. They are not unrelated.  One is growing influence of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the other is the growing concern that we are losing a most precious and sacred resource-- our children.  While advancements in AI suggest that we are succeeding in the development of increasingly intelligent computer systems, national statistics suggest that we are failing in our responsibility for the cognitive, spiritual, and social development of our children.

Elon Musk sees firsthand the apparently limitless potential of “intelligent computers,” but he also warns us of the economic, political, and ethical challenges posed by AI.  While Musk calls for a pause in AI research and development, we have already experienced a damaging pause in the educational development of our children as a result of the COVID pandemic lockdowns. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (“The Nation’s Report Card”) “estimates that some two decades of progress have been wiped out.  Average math scores for fourth and eighth graders in 2022 fell by five and eight points, respectively, compared with 2019 levels, while average reading scores fell by three points.”

Computer-aided teaching has played an important role in classroom education for decades.  However, the COVID pandemic lockdowns made it clear that computers are no substitute for student learning in community with their peers under a competent teacher.  To be sure, every generation of children has faced educational and emotional challenges, but the pandemic and the increasing moral breakdown in family and society have clearly exacerbated the emotional and behavioral challenges of growing up.

The Family International offers the following statement regarding our responsibilities to our children:  Every child is precious in God’s eyes and deserves quality and responsible care, and to be loved, nurtured, protected, and enabled to develop their full potential.  Pause for a moment, CLICK on the graphic below to review the many necessities of each child in order to grow and mature:

 

Effective Childhood Education
Traditionally, childhood growth and development are nurtured through the influences of family, church, school, and community.  Last year, Oikonomia provided an autobiographical sketch of child’s education starting within his mother’s womb (Click HERE).  After birth and thanks to the nurturing of a loving father, mother, and grandparents, the child began to learn the social skills of sharing, cooperating, and being patient with others.  When he misbehaved, he learned through firm discipline how to respect authority.  Gradually, his world expanded into school and church where he learned that God is Creator and King over His created order. 

As a youth, he learned more about God’s order in creation and to understand his identity and role in creation.  He began to develop a moral conscience to govern his responsibility toward God and toward others.  All the while, he learned that knowledge is gained by studying different “subjects,” or disciplines, under a variety of teachers.  He began to understand that these disciplines contribute to an integrated whole of what can be known about the visible world and the spiritual world.  Meanwhile, his teachers were assuming a greater influence in his learning, values, and worldview formation.

Effective teachers use a variety of approaches including instruction, training, drill, projects, and laboratory inquiry.  In the process, a dedicated teacher professes—i.e. he or she conveys how passionate they are about teaching and learning; and, how much they love and value their students, other people, ideas, and the world.  A teacher who professes in this way wants to influence or profoundly affect his or her students directly and indirectly in important ways above and beyond the level of rote learning and regurgitation of facts. 

…Engages Mind, Body, and Spirit
Education from a biblical or Judeo-Christian worldview aims to foster learning that produces change in mind, body, and spirit.  Both historically and biblically, learning requires both a competent teacher and a teachable student, one who is mentally able, willing, and motivated to learn.  When a teachable student, a disciple, is blessed to sit under a committed teacher-professor, both teaching and learning become a joy with rich rewards for a whole life.

The autobiographical sketch above emphasized education beginning within the womb and continuing through loving parents and grandparents who then, if possible, choose a competent school and church in which the child can gain a more formal education.  Similarly, although two millennia ago, Apostle Paul encouraged his young disciple Timothy by reminding him of those who had helped to educate and mentor him into a growing faith in Christ.  Paul’s reminder to Timothy is a perfect picture of how personal faith and learning is passed down from grandparents through parents to offspring.  Paul wrote, I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you (2 Timothy 1: 5).

After reminding Timothy of family his heritage, Paul challenges him as a young pastor-teacher to take responsibility to teach others:  You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful people who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2: 1-2).

We learn from the life of Timothy how education ought to be rooted in the love and nurture of family, particularly through parents and grandparents.  Indeed, God’s design is that our growth in body, mind, and spirit be nurtured and developed through consistent teaching within the home and family.  In the culture of Paul and Timothy, dedicated teaching of God’s Word within the home was to be complemented by the teaching in the synagogue for those who were able to attend.  This pattern was handed down for centuries in Western Civilization where education in the home and community have been foundational to producing well rounded individuals.

Adverse Childhood Experiences
Statistics have shown that cognitive, emotional, and spiritual development in children is enhanced when they are members of a stable two-parent family and receive formal education that complements the ongoing influence of their parents.  Sadly, we have witnessed the breakdown of both the family and our public educational system. 

Pause again for a moment and revisit what we have termed “Necessities for Each Child to Mature in Mind, Body, and Spirit” (above).  Then, try to imagine from a child or adolescent’s perspective how the traumatic events in our culture, at home, and at school could deprive him or her of these necessities.  Notice from the graphic the large percentage of parents who noticed more pronounced emotional and behavioral responses in their teen’s during the COVID pandemic.

In an attempt to define the degree to which children demonstrate symptoms of adverse experiences on their behavior and learning, beginning in 1995, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the so-called “ACE Study” over a period of two years.  This study which included over 17,000 participants led to the development of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Questionnaire,  (Click HERE for the ACE Questionnaire, and HERE for an explanation.)  For example, a child who has an ACE Score of 4 or more out of 10 on the questionnaire indicates he or she has experienced a significant history of trauma.  An ACE Score of 6 is associated with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).

HPA-Dysfunction
Our bodies are equipped with a variety of physiological mechanisms to help us respond to sudden real or perceived threats to our physical or emotional well-being.  The so-called “fight or flight response” is a physiological reaction involving secretion of adrenalin and a cascade of other hormones that prepare the body for “fight or flight” response to danger.  The resulting heightened alert prepares us to respond in a survival mode until the threat is past.  However, if the threat is prolonged or repeated in close succession, or the heightened response fails to shut off, the resultant chronic stress can negatively affect our mental and emotional health.

Physiologically, when we encounter adverse situations, our nervous and hormonal (or neuroendocrine) systems function together to adjust the balance of hormones in response to the stress.  This neuroendocrine control operates through a complex system of direct effects and feedbacks known as the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis.  But when we experience repeated and/or prolonged and stressful situations, our HPA axis becomes dysregulated.  Our body is said to experience HPA-Disfunction (HPA-D).  Chronic stress impacts our mental, emotional, and physiological health through its impact on HPA-D.  These include cellular dysregulation that leads to disrupted energy metabolism, cellular aging, and the often-related outcomes of cellular Inflammation, poor immunity, autoimmune disorders (arthritis, allergies, asthma, etc.), and cancer.  Consequences of HPA-D also include PTSD and behavioral problems, poor nutrition, eating disorders, and addictions, all of which affect brain health, and learning and social skills.

Peer reviewed journals collectively report over 400 malfunctions caused by an error in the body’s stress response system.  The “Fight or Flight gets “stuck on” and runs perpetually, causing hormonal confusion throughout bodily systems.  This confusion causes the body to live in a constant state of stress and anxiety.  This hypervigilance further adds to the stress load and can make it difficult for the person to care for themselves and others.

Hypervigilant behavior is illustrated by the boy who suffers from the trauma of being threatened day after day by a wolf lurking in a forest.  He develops the need to clear-cut the whole forest to make sure he can see the threat of danger.  But his focus on the landscape to see the wolf hinders other thought processes and communication to the point that they may hear words but their meaning does not register in their minds.  The hypervigilance causes miscommunication, missed expectations, and miscues in reading facial gestures.  Frequently the hypervigilant person will accept responsibility for his or her failure.  Because hypervigilance is so deceiving, the resultant mental paralysis hinders relationships and vocation; and, it is a major reason why many cannot even see their own dysregulation! 

Learning to live with so many hormonal miscues is physically debilitating and emotionally exhausting.  Psychologists use the term allostatic load to gauge the physiological consequences, or “wear and tear” on the body, as a result of chronic stress, dysfunction, and hypervigilance.  The ACE Questionnaire attempts to quantify the number of adverse childhood experiences that contribute to allostatic load. 

Adverse childhood experiences leave mental and emotional scars that influence many people for life.  According to Focus on the Family, mental health challenges may include depression, self-harm, aggression, impulsivity, and emotional distress.  Consequences of “prolonged toxic stress” in children may affect brain development which, in turn, can negatively affect their ability to pay attention, problem-solve, make decisions, engage in learning, and manage stress. As a result of the developmental concerns, opportunities for educational and career achievement may not be actualized. Subsequently, this can create economic challenges that further diminish quality of life and may even shorten the lifespan as much as 20 years.  Insert “307ACE Pyramid.”

From Theory to Practice
So far, we have presented a theoretical description of how a stable home and family complemented with a supportive church and formal education can provide what each child needs to mature. When these supporting structures are weak or absent, the likelihood increases that a child will experience an elevated allostatic load.  The resultant HPA-Dysfunction can be detected by higher ACE Scores.  But, what can be done to address this concern?

Maybe you or someone you know shows symptoms of struggling under the effects of chronic stress and HPA-Dysfunction.  We urge you to continue reading in Part 2 in which we move from theory to application and problem-solving.  There, you will be treated to an interview and short videos featuring Mr. Robb Fogg, a man who has personal and professional experience with the causes of hormonal dysregulation and its effects on the quality and longevity of life.  Robb and his wife, MaryEllen are completing a free, online program, "Acorns to Oaks" which provides enrollees with practical steps toward restoration. 

Time for Your Response
Thank you for your interest in Adverse Childhood Experiences and their effects on our lives.  None of us live in a perfect physical and emotional state.  And, we recognize the complex, personal, and sensitive nature of the subject. However, your comments can add much to the value of this blog so we urge you to use the "Comment" link below.  Or, you may e-mail us at silviusj@gmail.com or robb@10000atoms.com .