Trauma and the Phases of Learning

I'm going to go further out on a limb here than I have ever gone before.

**Deep Breath**

Here goes nothin'...

I am a child of domestic violence. In other words, I grew up in an abusive home. I saw a lot of violence over the years, even up into my adult life, at the hands of my father. I experienced many acts of violence personally over the years.

My family will most likely spew expletives at me for divulging this information in cyber space. I can understand that they want to keep it quiet. However, I have learned some things that need to be shared. I've decided that part of my healing is to speak out and to share.

Trauma - How it Affects Learning

As a foster parent, I attend many classes and training on everything from dealing with children who have been abused to various types of abuse and how to identify the abuse. Through all of this, it has been shared with many professionals what I experienced and how I have overcome. I am not healed completely, yet I have come so far that I can now help others.

I recently learned about trauma that can happen in the womb and early years of childhood and how detrimental these traumas are to the brain, and thus, to the ability to learn. For example, a child in the womb actually experiences the same fear and trauma that the mother feels at the time of the trauma. The brain can be hard-wired to be anxious and fearful before the child is even born into the world.

The brain becomes hard-wired in the emotional centers of the brain by the time a child is 3 years old. All traumas before this time will forever be part of the brain. Older children can experience the same types of trauma and have life-altering affects. This is not to say that children or adults cannot overcome, it just makes it harder to overcome.

My Own Traumas - My Child's Traumas

While I was pregnant with my youngest child, my father threw a chair at me. I narrowly missed getting hit in the stomach with the chair, which had it connected with my body, I'm sure I would have lost the baby. Luckily my mother helped me maneuver out of the way at the last second. I never set foot in my parent's home again. However, the damage was no where near done. Throughout the next year my father plagued me with threats and fear raged in my heart.

I now realize how much this damaged my child neurologically from the womb and during his first year of life. I also know why this affects his learning. He is a very bright person. But, he struggles with moving into and staying in Scholar Phase. His fears get the best of him. He can't help it, it is part of his brain.

I know that all phases are 80 years, give or take. So, I am not discouraged anymore. I know that my new-found knowledge of trauma and how it has affected me and my children will help me move further on the Path to knowing how to best inspire myself and my children.

Overcoming and Learning

A few years ago I heard a talk by Dr. Shannon Brooks, co-author of Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens. He talked about traumatized children and how difficult it is for them to learn. He spoke mostly about children in public school who are worried all the time and so their focus is directed at survival rather than learning.

I remember coming away from that seminar event pondering about the child who is homeschooled but has been abused outside of the home. Maybe from bullying in scouting or in the neighborhood. Or, the child that was molested by a babysitter or older neighborhood child. How does this translate if the home is loving and safe, but an outside trauma has harmed the child?

I believe that any trauma will stunt the learning process. From Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs we can see that when a person is focused on their safety they are not able to operate in the higher levels.

Leadership Education Has the Answers

I love Leadership Education with it's extremely thoughtful process and detail to personal needs. Yet, in all of the books I have not found the exact answers to how to overcome traumatized individual needs. I guess that is what my task is now, to find the answers. TJED/Leadership Education is the way! I just need to find the individualized things to bring it all into play in the way that my son needs.

Traditional methodology has not met the criteria so far. Yet, I know there are answers. There are classics that meet these needs. There are people and mentors that can meet the challenge.

For me, there have been several Healing classics that have helped me personally to overcome my traumas and re-write the lessons of Core Phase.

• The Chosen (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Chaim Potok
• Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers by Ralph Moody
• JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte
• The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin
• The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships by Harriet Lerner

So...off I go into the wild unknown once again in search of more inspiring classics!