The endurance of children

What are some of the things you remember about being a child? Do you remember more good, or more bad? The answer for many is ‘bad’. Ever wonder why? Because a lot of the bad things that happen to a child can be classified as trauma, and trauma halts you where you are emotionally and holds you there until it gets resolved. For many, it doesn’t happen for years, which is why all the negative things stick with us so easily.

Perfect example: Japan

It’s terrible what’s happening there, and it’s scary to people of all ages. But parents seem to think too often that their young child takes no interest in the news and that they are just going to re-enact disney movies and their favorite cartoons.  It’s just not the case. Young children cannot yet distinguish between something that’s recorded and something that’s real. For many young kids, every story involving Japan is being internalized as “it’s happening again!” regardless of whether or not they can tell you it’s ‘just a recording’ on the surface. In their minds, they will start imagining that it’s happening at home, and it won’t be long before that water washes away everything they hold most dear. This will happen even if you live no where near the ocean. It also takes a very intelligent and collected child to see that kind of material and realize that it’s not them and that they are safe. Compassion would stir heavy feelings of sympathy for those involved. This is because kids breathe life into what they see on the screen.

I remember being very young. There were a few things in my life back then that halted me emotionally for many years. I remember watching Cinderella. I was envious of her. Granted, I lived in better conditions than being stuck in by a fireplace, but I was envious nonetheless. Why? Because maybe if I had been her, I would have a fairy godmother. I would have had someone to be nice to me all the time. And there was the prince: someone to love me and tell me I’m beautiful. For heaven’s sake I was a baby back then! But I sure thought of things like that! I recently saw a commercial for the movie being re-released. I told my boyfriend about the fairy godmother thing and he gave me the biggest hug: my prince. I am no longer in that place as an adult, thank goodness, but without my boyfriend and his family and the constant support they offered over the last 12 years, I may never have moved past some of that trauma from my early years. But moved past or not, I still remember it all.

So please, remember this when you’re screaming at your spouse with the kids nearby, or allowing your spouse to verbally, emotionally or, god forbid, physically abuse you and trying to convince yourself that it’s “ok as long as the kids don’t get hurt”. Too late. The damage is done. And it’s hard to work through. For many that will never happen.

A child’s energy will reflect your energy. If you scream and yell, your child will scream and yell. The question is, where will they scream and yell? And who will be on the receiving end? Daddy hitting mommy? Kids will start hitting. But who? When? Where?

Every child will process the trauma in their life a different way than someone else. Brushing it to the side or thinking that you only have to talk about something with a child once is not helpful. Talk about it over and over again until that child is done with it. Have them draw pictures of how they’re feeling. That alone is therapeutic. Let them tell you about the pictures, but make sure that they know it’s safe to draw pictures and to talk about them. If they ever get in trouble for drawing how they feel about something they’ve seen or heard, they will internalize it. It will be bottled up until that bottle explodes. Broken glass is much more destructive than a picture.

Banned books are the best…most of the time.

There was an article on MSN today about some books that were (“surprisingly”) banned for one reason or another. This prompted me to go search for some other banned book lists and see just how many of them I have read. I realized quickly that these lists contained some of my favorite books, but also some that I had either never heard of or had zero interest in reading.

The reasons books get banned are many, but I’ve found that a lot of books get banned for somewhat…odd reasons. Now, I understand that you wouldn’t want a 7-year old picking up a book at the school library that talks extensively about the treatment of slaves and all, but isn’t there a lot of value in kids (at an appropriate age) learning about the darkness of the past? We have to learn from our mistakes, and hiding them from our youth will doom us to repeat them! I also know that all of these book are available in one way or another, but I feel that many of them should be made readily available to a wide range of people. Shoot, I wouldn’t mind starting a book club aimed at reading some of them!

Here’s a list of the ones I found that caught my eye for one reason or another:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1984

Harry Potter Series

The Color Purple

Lolita

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Satanic Verses

The Catcher in the Rye

The Twilight series

Candide

Brave New World

The Anarchist Cookbook

And Tango Makes Three

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Bridge to Terabithia

A Clockwork Orange

The Grapes of Wrath

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye

James and the Giant Peach

The Witches by Ronald Dahl

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

Little Women

A Light in the Attic

A Wrinkle in Time

Forever by Judy Blume

The Golden Compass

Lord of the Flies

The Chocolate War

The Giver

A Prayer for Owen Meany

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The Lorax

The Da Vinci Code

Animal Farm

Gulliver’s Travels

Lady Chatterly’s Lover

Tropic of Cancer

Fanny Hill

The Great Gatsby

The Kite Runner

Of Mice and Men

Catch 22

Fahrenheit 451

Native Son

As I Lay Dying

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Handmaid’s Tale

In Cold Blood

Slaughterhouse Five

East of Eden

Of the 61 books on this list (while 52 are listed, I added for the two series in it), I have read only 27 of them. I would like to read an additional 17. There are 6 that I doubt I will ever read, which leaves 11 that I am basically ambivalent about or don’t know enough about to decide. What’s interesting to me is that the 27 I have read are some of the most entertaining books I have ever read in my life. Many of them were required reading when I was in school and I have since purchased in life.

I know there are hundreds of books that could be added to this list, but as a lover of reading, I felt that I need to blog about books at least once.

In closing, if anyone is looking for a great book, I highly recommend “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, Janet Evanovich writes great mysteries, and Jodi Piccoult knows how to tug on your heart strings in many ways. I might blog about some of my reads as time goes on.