Welcome everybody, and especially Ken, I’m so glad that we get to do this for the first time together. You will be a soothing presence for me, that’s for sure.
I’m super excited to have this conversation. Recently, Jay and I were talking with all of this Covid-19 stuff going on… we were talking about how early in our parenting journey we were living in isolation ourselves with our kids before this whole trauma informed movement was happening. We were living in this alternate way and so we have put together this packet of information for people that is based on how we lived in those early days, how structured things once we understood the science and how trauma impacted our kids and what they needed in order to be supported at home. And so thats why we started this. We are talking today about the first part of that packet which is making sure that our structure that we have in place is a needs based structure and the importance of helping kids know, everyday, reassuring them all the time that we are going to be meeting their basic needs. So that’s why I thought you would be perfect for that, because i know that in your professional history and a lot of the training and support that you have done, I know that is a huge cornerstone of what you do and I thought that you could speak to that perfectly, so I’m so glad to have you here.
Ken:
Thanks for inviting me Tif, It’s great to be on your first one. Maybe this will be hundreds of thousands, millions of viewers one day and we can look back and have a good chuckle.
Tif:
I sure hope so, that’ll be fun! I thought the first thing, is that, I would like for you to talk a little bit about early trauma, what early trauma is, and what trauma related needs are.
Ken:
Yeah, thats great, alright, well Early trauma, you’re really talking about developmental trauma. That mouthful of syllables speaks to the idea that there are things that happen in the first 6 to 8 years of life that can have a residual effect on kids that go through trauma. I think that the very best explanation of what those traumas are and what the effect might be is done by a group called ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study) Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Anda. What happened is he was trying to understand the antecedents to morbid obesity in women, and put together at a questionnaire to tease that out it had trauma and things as part of it but only an ancillary to the main pushes of lifestyle up stuff like that. In going out and getting responses from those that were in his target group… 2000 people or something like that… He asked one woman if she ever been sexually abused and she said yes and started to cry and he was surprised and he added that to the study. And it turned out that sexual abuse became one of the common factors of like 66% of folks that were morbidly obese had sexual abusing their history. That really shocked him and when he presented the results initially to his group that funded it, they shot him down. They didn’t think it was big enough a number of those that had responded and he decided with Dr. Robert Anda to do a much bigger study. Ultimately they they started to find that sexual trauma and other traumas in young adulthood are actually in in early childhood we’re really predictive of a whole host of issues.
Social issues, psychological issues and physical issues. So now know in large part thanks to them is that they’re there are 10 types of trauma in early childhood that are those kinds of predictors you can find all this acestoohigh.org. you can take the inventory yourself. In about 5 minutes you find out what your score is relative to trauma. These 10 are like obvious physical and sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect… and five different types of family dysfunction. Things like somebody in the family going in and out of jail, separation from parents, going through divorce or through adoption. It could be a mentally ill parent, bipolar disorder or something like that that’s creating that.
Look at those 10, and each one of those that you had as part of your Early Childhood adds a point to your score. And as you add those up whatever your score is becomes pretty productive. Turns out everybody’s got a little bit of trauma, having a 1 or zero is no big deal… really 2 or 3 people do really well. It’s when those compound and you got developmental comprehensive trauma, 4 or more of those… that’s when the wheels come off and it predicts a whole host of issues like bad school grades, bombing out with friends, later on in life… more marriages and divorces and things like that but physical stuff like high blood pressure and cardio pulmonary disease and depression and suicide. That trauma activates a part of the brain, the fight, flight or freeze continues to stay on and can cause all kinds of lingering physical and interpersonal issues. So there’s a quick background on just trauma and Tif, what was the second part that we were asking
Tif:
If you would talk about what trauma-related needs might look like.
Ken:
Yeah so trauma related needs then… kids that are in that kind of environment that have had that kind of trauma don’t know that the world is safe. The world is a dangerous place for them all the time. So the trauma affects a part of the brain inside the head called the limbic system. This comes from Dr. Dan Siegel and he does the hand model of the brain where the Limbic system is wrapped with the prefrontal cortex. In here, where in the cortex the fight, flight or freeze areas of brain reside that’s lit up all the time for somebody that’s in that trauma space.
So they just have messages of the world is not safe all the time and you think will why does this kid do such strange things in my house? Well it’s because in their little world the world is not safe and they have to be constantly Vigilant to keep from being hurt in their environment. And they’ll do stuff like hoarding of food, if that was something that was part of their early life where they had been neglected physically so their hoard food because they have to otherwise they don’t know when they’re going to have their next meal It’s that kind of thing and it’s also then hurting animals or other siblings and rages and things that would push people away and keep them from being hurt, well that continues to be a part of the pattern and so there’s just all kinds of intensity in normal daily interaction that you wouldn’t see with other kids. but you see with these kids
because they’ve got trauma. Others that you would add, Tif?
Tif:
One of the things I was going to mention is that with my with my kids something I noticed really early on was just this sort of General resistance like going against the flow like not wanting to do the basic routine things you know fighting routines, fighting structure and I wondered if you could speak to that.
Ken:
You bet. to fight is part of the natural response: fight, flight or freeze… if that’s switched on all the time and the only thing sometimes save me is to be in a fight mode then it just becomes the normal daily interaction in anything that looks like you’re going to impose on me also looks like you might hurt me and so they just stay in the resist mode all the time. They fight stuff they don’t even care about, they just fight. And it looks like then that they don’t need or want structure you need to be more loose with them at the fact of the matter is that once there is safe structure they actually do Thrive with that and it’s takes a while to break through this repetitive thing on their mind that tells them without words that the world is not safe with the structure that you hopefully can create it gets to a place where all them with a soothe and calm down and can handle the family structure and actually thrive in. It takes year.
Tif:
I think to that point, that is something that my kids taught me. If I am trying to impose structure I’m it’s going to be a problem every time because that imposing did this triggering of their threat response that just totally triggered the threat response but if I was reassuring them and soothing them I’m going to meet your needs we’re going to make sure you’re taken care of today and that if I would start the day out that way then I had this softening with them and then they knew that I had their back and I was on their team and it took me a long time to really understand that and I know that that’s something that in treatment facilities that you worked in I have seen that.
Ken:
Yeah, that’s the starting point.
So the first thing to do is flip off that part of the brain the limbic system is to teach it that it’s going to be taken care of it it doesn’t have to be on. Meet some of that safety need so if I’m in this limbic part of the brain, the fight flight or freeze lit up, this part allows us to talk and have an abstract conversation abstract comes offline, that the prefrontal cortex. it’s not engaged. And I’m stuck in that fight flight or freeze so to get that soothed and allow this to come back on-line, I’ve got to, as you say, provide the basic necessities. If there’s been any kind of neglect especially just emotional and physical safety has to be a part of what’s going on in the home and so is there is if you’re if you’re struggling with you know just explosive kinds of stuff with your child that is so understandable because of the crazy stuff they’re doing understandable but no shame but we’ve got to be able to bring that way down and create the emotionally and physically safe space if they’re going to get to where they can start to heal from the trauma. Like what you’re saying, it can be by talking it through with them talk is trying to get to this pre-frontal cortex so if that’s completely offline you’re not going anywhere but explain to them that it’s going to be safe and we’re going to have meals that you need and I’m going to take care of you I’m going to hold you and you need to be held I’m gonna comfort you when you need to be comforted and then showing it day in and day out is where the healing takes place the Damage Done inside here is experiential in that they experience the various traumas that we were talking about. The fix also has to be experiential because talking to this part of the brain doesn’t do much to translate into a feeling in this part of the brain so they have to feel safe and over again over time in order for that part of the brain to calm the heck down.
Tif:
Somebody said to me early on a gajillion times is not going to ever be enough like a gajillion isn’t enough it has to be over and over and over and over in I can say that my son is 16 years old and he’s been with us since he was 15 months old we still start the day out that way
Ken:
Yeah, it’s amazing I actually so my own history has a pretty significant trauma in it, I have a 7 on the aces which is fairly high and there was a lot of physical abuse by my mother and there’s no way around that I’m over it and I don’t want to shame her or anything like that but given that she would come home and I would know that I was going to be spanked somebody was going to someone’s getting thumped when she came in and she would use a big paddle anyway didn’t matter what the house is like you know if you’re supposed to be cleaning it wasn’t done well enough if you had forgotten to do it well then you hadn’t done it and so it was weird is that I would hear the garage door opener, hear he garage start to go up and start to panic because that was always the beginning “okay she’s coming in the door any minute, all hell’s going to break loose” and that’s what would happen. What was fascinating is… I didn’t even realize that. And much later I get married and we didn’t have any money to have a garage door opener so I didn’t think anything of it but we got a house finally had a garage door and remember the garage door opening and me just starting to panic. My heart rate went up to 120bpm, I start sweating and I’m thinking. what the crap is going on with me and over a period of time I realized oh my heavens I’ve got this tied to know the stuff from when I was young and now my wife coming home is a negative and I’ve got to get over that. Now if I was 12 or 9 or something like that I wouldn’t be able to intellectualize any of that and I would just freaked out and cause a fight with my wife, go nuts, you know… run, maybe take off out the back door get in my car drive away, go drink booze… there’s all kinds of ways that I might cope that would not be helpful
What I did it’s actually when that garage door would start going up I just created a safe environment she would come in and it’s only lasts about a month where she’d come in and we’d play a little bit of music and dance in the kitchen and over the course of about a month, that went away. And what happens is the neural pairing that I had got overcome by a better neural pairing. A Neural Pairing is when you’ve got neurons like a “bear” and “run” and I don’t need to think that through if I see a bear I know to take off because I know bear equals danger is a better way of saying it two neurons come together and connect bear and danger and what that’s doing is my body is creating neural connections that allow me to not have to think about “lets see, what does a bear look like what does it mean what kind of danger does it not represent or not represent”, I don’t have to think through that I can just immediately know it’s dangerous and take off running that’s very functional we want that but when I’ve got neural pairings that are lying to me like garage door opener means physical pain so I hear garage door opener and get scared, that’s not very functional and it’s not true so what I need to do is not destroy that neural pairing, that would create brain damage. I just need to get neural pairings wrapped around it that become stronger than the underlying neural pairing. So garage door opens and I’m dancing with my wife, that means connection. What’s fascinating is I still have the underlying connection. Your point about your son I can be doing this for a long time and have it going very very well but I just have one bad instance that looks enough like the original garage door opener and your son flips out or I had this happen with me having a bad set of circumstances at work and number of years ago at a residential facility I created it looked like sort of my abuse days and I melted down at the age of 44 – 45 years old and I’m sobbing at my desk just in a panic about my life because that underlying neural pairing became stronger for a minute then the outer one and I worked through with some good colleagues they talked me through it and I knew what was going on and they helped me over the course of about a half an hour and calmed me down. Rob Gent who works with me actually sat there and held me like I was a baby bunny and petted my head, it was awesome. So if you don’t have a safe place to go to and I’ve got that pre-frontal cortex to help me overcome it… if it’s a 16 year old you got to create that space in order for them to calm down when they don’t even know why they’re wound up.
Tif:
I think that goes to the next thing that I was going to talk about which is I talk with parents often that say that my child is safe, and just trying to help people understand the idea that creating felt safety is different than them actually being safe. Would you like to speak to that some?
Ken:
You bet, it’s so hard because you’re feeling like “I’ve done what I need to!” You’ve got to understand that what you believe is safety has to be felt internally by the child and don’t take it personally you haven’t screwed up you’ve done what you need to do but you’ve got to do it at a higher level, a longer period of time and around the items and the things that matter to your child so that they can feel the safety it’s not about you don’t take it personally this is inside their brain a little switch that you have been able to help fix yet that is telling them the world’s unsafe you didn’t blow it you’re just trying to fix the mess later and just understand that it’s a puzzle to find the right things to give so that you can fix that and have the patience to do that and not get triggered yourself when it might not work for a while because you were expressed safety is not translated into felt safety by the child.
Tif:
Right, and that understanding that it is going to take a long time and I think to one of the other things that I think is… that I would love for you to speak to you is kids that are at the level of care that they’re in a residential setting… what should be done in those sort of settings to achieve felt safety for kids because I think that that is really great for people to know because that’s kind of an extreme example of creating felt safety?
Ken:
You bet. First off, I am not a fan of Residential Treatment unless it’s absolutely needed and you’ve got to be at a pretty high level of dysregulation to finally say, ok, time to pull trigger so you know in a home environment do this as much as you possibly can. What I see as far as being the linchpin is if you’re trying to create that I kind of safety in a home environment and no matter what level you give of of actual safety and it can’t translate into an actual feeling of safety for the child and you do that for any number of months or years usually and you just can’t create the safety will then there’s no way to bring the emotional level of the house down to a level where it can be safe and the child can heal, and you may need some outside intervention if that is the case and you go to a place like the one I created which is Calo, and you need to be there then what we’re trying to do is create at it’s outset, the first thing is to create a safe environment so if the anxiety and everything can go down so predictability becomes very very important. We have a very set schedule that we tried to get to but we’re not going to force it we just kind of help the group get used to moving about doing the things that you expect in a real consistent manner. Let that become predictable we want closeness to get to be normal so we use touch on a daily basis And touch means, we want to make sure that it’s safe so we say from the hand up over the shoulders and back down to the other hand and even the back of the head is going to be okay and that’s going to be the only place we’re going to touch you, but we will touch you there. Touch can be very regulating and so I’m going to make sure that happens to the extent you can tolerate it, increasing your tolerance as we go on but have safe touch. Have closeness physically we’re not going to let you just be off on your own and you know melting down somewhere we’ll keep people near you those are the kinds of ways… you know, staff intensive, it takes lots and lots of people, that’s why it’s so darn expensive. 76% of every dollar we spent went to people for salaries because you need all kinds of therapists all kinds of interventions all kinds of frontline staff in order to create the kind of safety I’m talking about so when it gets to be too much at home and you just got two people or one person trying to make that happen and you can’t do it, that’s when you need to spend the money to have a lot of people creating that kind of safe.
Tif:
I wonder sometimes with kids who have experienced harm at the hands of a caregiver, if sometimes they can achieve felt safety easier outside of a parent-child relationship first before they’re able to do parent-child relationships?
Ken:
That’s a very good point. That is a very hard point for a lot of parents to hear, they want to believe they can fix the thing that’s happened before and sometimes they can’t. Very often, most of the time it’s not like a majority are going to residential treatment, most of the time, this is done in the home but there comes a point where actually in specific situations like you say they can’t get it in the structure of a whole environment they just flat-out can’t and you will bang your head against that wall till the cows come home to change it and you need some sort of professional environment like that. Again, it’s the rarity, it’s a small percentage of cases go to residential.
Tif:
So one last thing I wanted to ask about before we maybe start taking question seeing if people wanted to ask him questions is around the idea of consequences and and Punishment with kids that have experienced early trauma and what that looks like how that should look differently for kids who experience early trauma did you want to touch on that?
Ken:
It’s such an interesting balance and there’s a real art to this, this takes years to get right a couple of things… you’ve got to have the right heart going into it. The kids can sniff this out so well. There’s actually a book called The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute, it’s a very easy read that captures I think, we used to use this to train our our staff, I’ve used it everywhere I’ve gone training staff to have the right kind of feel towards kids, so you got to have that first and then structure does have to be part of what’s going on but if you over impose structure, the wheels come off really quite quickly so you’re looking for some balance of love and logic with this big hearted openness and a real lack of shaming and guilting. That just flips limbic system on you talk about the issues that are really there you can talk through what what why you need to fix what you need to fix and stuff and you can go tackle the things but shame and guilt you don’t ever want to be applying. So in an environment where you’ve got kids like this you’re probably going to have less structure than you would… you know you’re not going to have lots and lots of different levels you’re going to pick battles a little bit better and not it’s not a foot-down kind of thing, it’s a figure out how to ease through this and keep safety as we’re doing it.
Tif:
Yeah, and working on having a receptive brain. That’s one of the things I learned that it took me it was a big learning curve because I really wanted my kids to fit in and I wanted them to fit into what everyone else kind of was doing and having to get to that place of accepting that that’s not what our life is going to look like and once I accepted that and really learned about the brain and getting them to a receptive brain state that’s when things started to feel like they were doable
Ken:
Yeah, I realize what you’re saying and would say, find other parents like yourself, find a Tif, because you all have the brother that comes over with his wife and it’s just like “what the hell are you guys doing?” I can handle this child if you give me a chance. They just don’t freaking get it. And that stuff’s not helpful, but to talk with other parents that get it that my house doesn’t look like you know whatever TV show that you’ve seen. This is just really hard stuff, and to be understood at a fundamental level by a group of other people is really amazing and soothing. The Attachment and Trauma Network… I sat on their board, they’re pretty awesome for that. You can join them for fifty bucks a year or something like that and the support that you get from that kind of an organization is really helpful.
Tif:
Yeah, that’s actually where you and I met. we met, through ATN, we’ve both been on the board. And now membership is free for parents so yeah definitely an amazing resource. I think that one of the things for us again with having this new structure this different kind of structure part of the central focus of that was regulation. Do you want to talk a little bit about regulating activity?
Ken:
Yeah so experiential activities that are regulating. This is tough because i come from the environment where it was so structured and I had so many resources in residential environment but, regulating activities that have the possibility… your engineering experiences that have possibility of connection in them and the high likelihood of connection in them. There we would do things like fly-fishing. Something that has a bit of a stress to it but through connection I can have a resolution that’s actually what we’re looking for. This is the overarching philosophy of every intervention at the residential treatment programs I’ve created. It is that I want to increase the stress load. I actually want to do that. I want to get back into touching in that limbic area of the brain, increase the stress or the perceived risk or perceived irritation, perceived problem is high but actual risk or actual problem is kind of low and I’m able to control that. So like with fly fishing that’s why we chose that. To cast a regular lure out is really easy, but to understand fly fishing is actually fairly complex anybody has done it will know this but it’s master-able. So if I do this with kids and help them learn how to tie a fly with me and go out and cast to try and hook a fish… that’s raising their level of stress but through the connection with me… so stress, connection, resolution that’s what I’m looking for. Increase the stress and through connection we actually get through it, we have it turn out well, and now there’s a resolution and back to a nice limbic state that’s okay over and over and over again that’s where I get the neural pairings that come back and help me. So that’s one example fly fishing. They can do blocks with a kid, maybe they’re really physical, shooting basketball with the kids, doing puzzles, anything that is connective to the extent that it can add some stress a little bit in a controlled way that you can help bring down so you become a trusted figure that’s important.
Tif:
So I do a lot of talking nowadays about my parenting transformation all over Washington and some of the folks on this call are familiar with that, and I have a phrase that came directly from you that I say all the time; “positive memory building experiences” like I say that all the time because that I think is the heart of building resilience with kids that have had early trauma-related experiences and what we found is that in building these opportunities for positive memory building experiences that also can be neural pathway creating / building we definitely see all of our kids function go up overall like social skills go up connection goes up and general executive function goes up that’s the beautiful thing.
Ken:
Yeah, I didn’t talk about this you just brought it up for me thank you with the ACE’s what’s so fascinating is… A 4 or more score on the ACE’s predict so much damage. The one mitigating factor was if there was a positive connecting caring adult in the life of that child that’s what you’re trying to be as parent. You’re a little late to the party it would be best if it happened to the age of 4, or 2 or 1 or whenever the damage was being done but those positive memory building experiences are the kind of force you’re trying to be the create safety and starts to mitigate the damage done by all of that trauma. It’s huge. I had forgotten that phrase, I hadn’t used it in quite a while so I appreciate you bringing that up. That is the goal, instead of the goal being to accomplish a task, screw the task, forget tasks! Process! You’re worried about the process of getting towards some area and it’s anything you can do to dump tasks but have positive process like what you’re talking about with positive memory building building experiences that will get you to your ultimate goal.
Tif:
Right and one of the things that Bruce Perry says that I totally love is that kids who experience early trauma, and that could be in-utero trauma as well, that their brains are wired to seek chaos. That’s how their brain is wired for seeking chaos and so what we are actually trying to do is not to get them to comply with structure, but to build their tolerance towards structure so that once they become an adult they are able to have a job and stay in that job. It’s not about getting them to accept and comply to structure, it’s about building tolerance. And I think that was really, as a parent, important for me to understand. It’s not that my child isn’t going to be able to tolerate structure at a level that another child is. It’s not just a decision they’re making I’m going to be in the structure and not it’s something that they have to build tolerance for.
Ken:
For sure, yeah I really appreciate that. Dr. Bruce Perry is pretty phenomenal if you’ve not heard of him you can find him very easily online too. This is a guy who went through trauma at a later age, and has dedicated his life to it. Tolerating that structure and getting to a place where ultimately then the world being safe you could start developing the executive functioning with this pre-frontal cortex and functioning in the world in a way that it rewards you on its own you start becoming part of society. I was so blessed, I’ve got a brother who was in the same situation as me that did not have a caring adult to help mentor him. I did, I had two. I came out and he actually is in jail right now, struggling in various ways and understands himself that it’s a function of the trauma that he suffered as a kid.
Tif:
Yeah, you and I have had this exact conversation on the DVD extras for our film “My Name Is Faith”… one of the things that we talked about was… I remember that I used to be a parent who ask my children why they did things all the time. Like I used to ask “why are you doing that!?” Can you talk a little bit about why that is not a good idea?
Ken;
That’s either shame producing or teaches them how to lie. You’ve got to remember that again the damage is done experientially in a non-verbal non-conscious way. It’s unconscious so asking that kind of a question… they’re left to do is dream stuff up. I watched this kid who had a car that another kid cared about and he’s a good kid trying to get better and was making some progress. So he put this car that he borrowed up on the shelf, overlooking this 20 foot drop outside and I watched him just looking at it, and you know his chaos brain… his fight, flight or freeze brain was pushing at him, and he just walked over and pushed it off, and it went tumbling down and he was shocked. Just immediately like “oh my gosh, what have I done!?” and I did the same dumb thing. Here I am a professional that has been doing this for long enough, but I walked up and was like “why did you do that?” and he went… it was so cool because usually it’s lie, or feel shame and hide or get mad or something like that, but he actually said… very rare… “I don’t know”, and I was like “oh, shoot what am I doing… You know what… we can figure out a way to make that okay. I know your roommate’s going to be irritated by this, so let’s go get it and see what we can fix”.
And now we’re working together, we go fix the car, we take it back, everything’s okay. We explain what happened but the cars okay now, but the why question “why would you do that?” does not help. They don’t know. They’re doing it because there’s an internal fire pushing them to do weird crazy crap. Stop asking why.
Tif:
Yes! you just touched on one of my other favorite things which is repair. can you maybe talk a little bit about repair and how repair is so much more helpful than the punitive stuff.
Ken:
So the normal cycle of human relationships, all of them, married, between children, between siblings, between friends, whatever is that we’re connected so I’ll do it as if there’s diagram connected connection then there’s a break always and then there’s repair now the only time that there’s not break is if you’ve got somebody that thinks there’s not break. They’re wrong. John Gottman speaks about that and says that they’re either a liar or a stranger to the truth. Anyway the point is, everybody’s breaking but what happens is with these kids they don’t understand how to do the repair to get back to connected so what we’re trying to teach is that repair fixes that and we just do it experientially with them over and over again so we’re connected we have a break and then we repair by words by putting arm around them by spending time together we make sure they feel that connection, because we’re wanting the kids to understand explicitly and internally that that’s what happens. Look, we’re connected. If you break you just have to do the repair. They’re usually good at break, so-so with the connection and really crappy at the repair. So we’re teaching them how to do that so they can get back on that cycle and the cycle starts to happen quicker and the brakes are less intense that’s the ultimate goal. Let’s not let it be off the charts, let’s have them be a little smaller and not so often and hey, we’re making progress.
Tif:
And it helps them to get it in their in their body in their minds that but that relationships are repairable, and that they are safe and that connections are safe because I know for my kids, especially for my daughter her experiences were… you have that break and then it’s all over. The relationship is gone.
Ken:
You bet, and you can you look at what they’ve come from with the traumas that we talked about again that connection is just like their modeling connections always been maybe weak, maybe they’re feeling it but breaks have been intense and there’s never repair. Nobody’s apologizing it’s just a sweep under the rug in this kind of connection again or back to another break. They’re really bouncing between a pseudo connection and break and we got to physically teach them emotionally teach them, not with words, that we know how to repair and here’s how you do it now, we’re connected again.
Tif:
So one last thing I think that you are so great at explaining that I was hoping that maybe you could go into a little bit is just what happens the importance of that early attachment cycle could you just talk a little bit about what happens with a newborn baby in those early days of life that is so imperative to how a child navigates the world.
Ken:
Sure, If done right, you think about this… so I’m adopted you don’t have to be adopted to have had a separation like that, that is a trauma but that’s one trauma, some people get it through divorce and such but I was carried by a woman my biological mother I track down a number of years ago and was talking to on the phone a couple of days ago. And I was carried by her and she had a particular heart rate, a way of breathing, a level of fitness that was one way and it would have been body sounds that were a certain way the a voice that I was hearing even if it was through water and such all of that was a particular kind of an environment that was soothing I mean you’re you’re in the umbilical sac you’re just you’re okay you come out it is bright crazy world and that voice is still there that’s one thing but I within one day went to a different mother than a different voice by a long shot that you know and higher pitch to it that was didn’t smell the same as this one that I came out to right from the womb and everything was very very different and that did not match what I had that was soothing, and it was very jarring very immediately and I was pretty colicky kid from what I understand and I was having that trauma right off the bat so those those early early days are so important in utero for crying out loud you know you can then be setting the stage by having a good to having a mismatched unintentional though it may be that can create some sort of trauma.
Tif:
Yeah, and when it goes optimally, what does that set up for a child like I guess what it will I guess it’s that sense of safety that we talked about and then it just causes the brain to develop differently right?
Ken:
Yeah sure so if my experiences in utero and all that safety.. that can also not be safe in the wrong kind of circumstances with abuse and stuff like that they can actually affect the child okay but let’s say I come out and you know there is just kind of this insecure attachment or ambivalent attachment, you know I’ve got attacks coming at me or I’m being sexually molested and things that are flipping on that fight flight or freeze mechanism I’m at a very early age then feeling I’d never be able to put into words and can’t remember it but I’m wiring the brain with neural connections about the world having attacks that come to me on a frequent basis and then my neural pairings are the world and lack of safety instead of a nurturing environment where there’s touch and safety and I learn how to coo based on the weird little sounds that my parents are making with me and a touching of cheeks together and all the good stuff that should be happening that creates safety there’s a fascinating video by Dr. Edward Tronick, the still face experiment and that captures it terribly well, you can find that on YouTube with just a 10-second search and watch that. But you know Mom comes to her newborn and is talking and the baby is laughing and pointing at things that moms looking at it and then Mom turns and comes back with a completely still face and does a neglectful parents what she’s approximating. Just holds still. Doesn’t respond to the child. The child starts to go nuts very quickly. Pointing doesn’t work and within 2 minutes he decompensates into (upset noises) just screaming and crying… I think it’s just 2 minutes and then she starts to soothe everything again. What you find is that when that kind of neglect is immediately alarming to the limbic system of that child that they don’t know why they just know that is not okay and not normal because we are built to be connected and to have touch and they lose it, they just simply lose it. If that’s a daily thing… so if that happens one time with Mom, that’s not going to scar that kid but what if that abuse… what if your abuser lives with you and that happens every day in it’s form, whatever that form is… 20 times a day. That is going to wire that kid to have an unsafe feeling about the world.
Tif:
Yeah, and that is a really alarming video I mean it is super uncomfortable to watch. It really is. That baby gets really uncomfortable and you can tell the mom’s uncomfortable too! It’s hard to watch. (Laughing) By the way… my son… on this whole topic, my son has been waiting for the Avatar animated series to come out on Netflix, and it came out today, so we’re like “okay that trumps mom doing a first video podcast… there’s no way he’s not doing that, so if you’re hearing laughter in the background. Anyway well I’m so glad that we got to have this time, and as nervous as I am about doing it for the first time, and as clunky as it is, I appreciate you being the first person to do this with us, and I hope that you’ll come back another time. and wondered if you would just maybe tell us a little bit about what you’re doing these days?
Ken:
Sure, so I built another residential treatment center that this time is focused… still on trauma, but drug and alcohol recovery and I’ve got an executive director who is running that now and I’m doing mostly consultations, a little bit of family therapy kinds of stuff and working on a case by case basis. I am working on managing some other business stuff but I’m really probably only spending about 10 hours a week now in the field and mostly doing business kinds of things. So on the sidelines to some extent.
Tif:
And your family is good?
Ken:
Yeah, they’re doing great my oldest 4 are out of the house, I’ve got two married, have two grandkids by my oldest and that’s been really really fun and then I’ve got a daughter who’s dating somebody has a boyfriend and she’s going to college and one son that’s a missionary in Texas and then i’ve got 2 left at home, one turned 17 yesterday and my 14 year old will turn 15 in a week so we’re just about done. Just like you, we’re going to be empty nesters here in a few years.
Tif:
Gosh,
can you believe faith is 21 years old? Jonah’s 16… time flies. I am absolutely grateful for you hanging out with me today and if there are any last-minute questions we’re here for those I don’t see any so far I think that this has been really great and I thank you for taking time to do it.
Ellen:
Tiffany, it’s Ellen… and you have six things in the chat box
Tif:
I don’t see them that’s weird.
Ken:
I see six things but they’re all just short comments, I don’t see any questions.
Tif:
Do you have a question Ellen?
Elen:
I can think of a question. I spoke with a parent of two children last night. Two children who are possibly alcohol exposed. So these children have been living with a wonderful family, a teacher – a special ed teacher who knows a whole lot about learning disabilities and whatever, but she’s now struggling. The family is trying to figure out how to address some issues as the boy right now is 14 and his sister is younger so I don’t know if either of you have some ideas references to help connect or ideas particularly the symptoms or the big problems recently that have been going on for a long time are stealing and there has not been an FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) evaluation done yet, we’ll see if we can make that happen. Thoughts or any ideas that I could pass on to this parent. I’m going to make sure she gets to see this because there are 2 or 3 things that are perfect for the way she communicates with these kids that I think she’ll find very helpful. She’s awesome.
Ken:
Yeah, FASD is a whole different ball of wax is just another level now you’ve got cognitive impairments frequently that are creating bigger difficulty (sound drops out) anyway so I think you’re on the right track what I was going to suggest is that I would get a full workup. I don’t know who’s doing a good workup out these days but I’d get a full psych testing relative to FASD and get some recommendations for who could help. That’s just specialized enough that it’s outside of the care that we provided at Calo, if there was FAS, that was just beyond the scope of what we could tackle and so I actually don’t know who to send you to. Tif do you have any names?
Tif:
We do in Washington have a resource, I know Ellen you’re familiar with it too… It’s kinda hard to get in. I think for evaluation we have a resource I think Ellen you’re asking about specifically how to support at home is that your question?
Ellen:
Just if you had any ideas of other resources. We are going to look at, and see if we can get these kids evaluated and consultation available through the FASD Clinic. The challenge… the children were all referred previously, but the challenge has been, because of the huge numbers that are potentially brain damaged and need good workups they have to have confirmed by somebody, alcohol use before they can accept them into the evaluation. It’s just very sad because they’re really good I’ve been to the clinic twice to see evals done, so I know how wonderful it is to have the feedback.
Tif:
I definitely have some people to ask Ellen here locally that I could refer you to so I can I can ask. In terms of caregiving I can I can give my thoughts on care giving when it comes to FAS. One of the things that I know to expect is, and to provide is tons and tons and tons of extra flexibility and recognizing that because of function or skill is there one day it may not be there the next and the same is true for the next minute so being able to remain flexible as a parent and meet the child where they are at any given moment of function and not expect that if they can’t do something that it’s willful behavior. Maybe you can speak more to that, Ken?
Ken:
Yeah I mean, taking it personally is a real issue. I spoke and touched on that just a little bit earlier, but it is not willful. You’ve got to remember it happening experientially outside of their consciousness and outside of their verbal ability to attack it. They’ve got feelings that are just flooding them that they’ve got nothing to do with other than that it’s in their body. The feelings are real they’re just lying. It’s real feelings of fear but is telling them that the world is not safe and that’s not true and so you got to remember that this attack coming at me is for a really good reason it’s not because I’m bad, or because I’m screwing it up and you got to be able to soothe yourself get your own therapist if you need to. Whatever to bring your emotional response down so you can recognize this is not personal. Really, it has nothing to do with me. Once you get to that place it gets easier and easier when you see the craziness too, because you realize “oh, of course they’re doing that… I can’t expect them to do anything else.”
Tif:
And I think what you’re explaining so well Ken, is part of that transformation I was talking about like that being able to make that shift and understanding and standing in the lane of, my child’s behavior is brain-based not necessarily choice-based and that I think holds extra true for kids that have FAS. I mean I think it’s just really really so true for them.
Ken:
Yeah, when I was initially starting Calo for the first year, maybe even two years, it still was a real struggle. The level of dysfunction that we were seeing… the things kids would do I could describe and it would just curl your hair, you’d be shocked. It was hard not to get amped up and frustrated by damage to the building, or sexual acting-out or whatever it was but over time I was able to continue to help remember these are just kids like me at a younger age they don’t have control of it, and the emotions and everything flooding their brains in ways they cannot control. The staff would get burned out too, so this this’ll help you I think. We hit a period about a year-and-a-half in, where we could tell we were getting ready for a big huge turn over, and and my best friend and co-founder Landon Kirk came up with an amazing idea. He projected up onto this screen, we had an all-staff meeting, and had listed up there… Born in Russia, and left on the doorstep of a hospital, prior to that time investigation found out he’d been burned with cigarettes to make him stop screaming which would of course not work but anyway, Just a list of the most horrendous crazy things you could do to an infant. And then gets adopted temporarily into a family that is that is related to the original folks, and there was sexually abused over the course of 4 years. So you just read this detail and and it’s like it’s some you know just example of a troubled kid but then that fell down and there was a picture and it was one of the kids in our program. That was their profile. And the first one, that did it. Everybody started crying. And he did it with 2 more and by the end of that… the kids that were burning them out, they saw as human, they saw as just broken. And when you can remember that this is coming for very good reason and it’s not about me you get better at making the transformation Tif that you talk about and the one that I had over the course of a year of starting things up.
Tif:
Yeah thank you so much Ellen for that question and thanks Ken for that. Alright well I thank you very much. We’re going to be doing this every Friday we’re going to have seasoned parents and professionals that we’re going to talk to you thank you Ken for being the first person to do this with me I’m so grateful.