Life offers our children myriad experiences. Some are pleasurable and some are painful. The painful ones when not processed, become trauma. Experiences can be traumatic but when they are processed, they don’t necessarily get stored as trauma. Unprocessed traumatic experiences, get stored in the body. Every unpleasant experience and interaction causes an emotional disturbance. If this is not looked into in the moment, it forms blocks in the child’s system. In EFT (Emotion Freedom Technique/ Tapping) we call it an emotional zit. As life goes along unexamined, many such emotional zits get formed. So, energy in the child’s body cannot flow freely – blocking the life force from expressing itself fully. This can show up as physical ailments or reactive behaviours.
Although life is a mixture of experiences, pleasurable and painful, all we can do is show up to all experiences fully and look deeply into the painful ones. In its own time, the emotional wound will heal. It’s humanely not possible to be sure if we are processing all the painful experiences. Some emotional zits end up forming, nevertheless. However, when they are brought to our awareness as triggers, we can bring them up for examination. This examination happens in the parents and in the child. Many times, the unexamined trauma in the parent becomes the cause for painful experiences in the child’s life. So, it is critical that we parents show up for our own trauma periodically. We need to have practices that free us of our own emotional zits, especially if we aspire to support our children authentically.
So how does one process painful experiences in children?
- Talk about it:
I would like to share an experience I had with our younger daughter. We went on a trip to Florida. Our older daughter was excited to go parasailing. Our younger daughter was scared to go. I was scared to go too! I forced my younger daughter to go with an intention to help her overcome the fear. I didn’t see how she wasn’t ready enough yet to enjoy it.
My older daughter went with her grandpa. They enjoyed parasailing and landed beautifully on the boat.
Now it was my younger daughter and her father’s turn. Unfortunately, just as it was time to land, the motor stopped and instead of landing on the boat they landed in the water. This was scary for us all but traumatic for my child. My husband was with her holding her. They were helped back to the boat and wrapped up to help them get warmed up and they were safe.
You can imagine the situation and the charge it carried for us. Especially for my daughter. We came back to our hotel room and were relaxing. My daughter came up to me and said, “Were you surprised that I fell into the water?” She had given her pain a voice. I said, “Of course I didn’t know and if I knew I wouldn’t force you to do it.” It looked like she felt a kind of relief. We continued talking about it for a bit. Then she was done with the topic. However, she overcame the fear of water gradually over some months. In her mind, she must have been thinking, why did my mother force me to do this? Did she know I would drop in the water? Does she not love me?
Knowing that I was shocked too and that I would not have sent her if I knew, soothed her traumatic experience that had just happened. If we had not talked about it or hushed it up by saying it was not a big thing, an emotional zit would have been created. An emotional wound – a narrative of – “my mother doesn’t love me”. I am not ruling out some emotional pain that could be stored from this traumatic experience. All I am saying is at least it’s seen.
On hindsight, years after, I recognised how I was living my life through my child. Trying to make her not as fearful as me. Forcing experiences that I thought will make her fearless. I saw clearly how this was not helping my child or our parent-child connection. We each have our own experiences from which we learn what we are meant to learn. I had learnt a very valuable lesson – not to force children to do something they are not comfortable or ready to do. We can suggest, encourage but not force and pressurize. This is traumatic for the child. This is an example of how talking about the painful experience can mitigate or heal the pain from the experience so it can heal in its own time.
- Draw it:
Here’s another example from my experience. In the Montessori Teacher Training program that I offer, Child Psychology is a part of the curriculum. As a part of this subject, the student teachers have a project where they observe and study one child closely. One of the children a student teacher was observing made a drawing. The drawing had a boat in it. In the boat were stick figures of a lady and two children. And in the water was a stick figure of a man. When she asked the child what the drawing was about, the child said that the one in the water was her dad. He was travelling and could not go on this holiday with them. She went on to say how sad that made her and that she missed him a lot. Giving her pain a picture helped soothe it. Drawings say it as it is. This is an example of how healing can happen through drawing.
These are two examples for processing traumatic experiences with talking and drawing. The other ways we can use with our children are:
- Dance/Movement:
You can ask them to express how they feel through gestures, dance, and movement. They could also just dance to their favourite music as long as they want to.
- Journal it:
Older children can write about the painful experience. This can be a routine which they can do every night. They just write about their day.
- Rhyme it:
Older children can write poetry. This is one of the ways I examine emotionally disturbing experiences. They do not have to share it with anyone. It is just to give their pain a voice.
- Meditation/Yoga:
When children practice meditation and yoga they learn a valuable skill – self regulation. Self-regulation develops gradually. Practicing yoga and meditation acts as a gymnasium to practice the muscle of self-regulation.
- Positive affirmation songs:
When children sing songs with positive affirmations, they are reminded of those qualities in themselves. This will help in gradually embodying the positive affirmations.
The above ways can soothe the pain caused from painful experiences and interactions. When done periodically, it reduces the number of emotional zits and allows free flow of energy. Where energy flows, things grow. Our children can unfold freely and be who they truly are. They can show up fresh and light to each moment with no emotional baggage.
Traumatic instances can happen, yet they need not be stored as trauma. Processing the traumatic event lets the pain flow through and out of our systems.
Some pointers that can help examine traumatic experiences are:
- Acknowledging/ believing that the experience happened.
- Recognizing that it was/is painful.
- Allowing expression.
- Allowing all feelings.
- Extend solicited support.
You can check out my YouTube channel @SmrutiGopal under the playlist, Movement, Music and Meditation for ideas.
