Trauma in Childhood

[Anonymous No.16357388]

Should children be insulated from reality by their parents? I’ve seen this theory advanced quite a bit but it seems like it mostly comes from the humanists. Basically the argument goes that exposing children to harsh realities early on in life will cause them to develop non-constructive traumas (i.e. it doesn’t kill them but it does make them psychologically weaker). The goal is to instil upon the child the belief that the world is a fundamentally good place (or at least has the capacity for goodness) and to thus entice the child away from the suicidal death-urge of, say, an anti-natalist or a Last Man, building psychological resilience so that they can go on to reproduce the system in turn by creating psychologically nourishing spaces for children of their own.

I believe I first heard this sentiment expounded upon during a Jordan Peterson lecture on Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddartha, and again in Plato’s Republic (though if I recall they didn’t have identical prescriptions). I have been a /pol/ack for years and as such am rather skeptical of this manner of thinking (I generally think this sort of thing results in children who are deluded), but have recently come to appreciate that it was a sentiment shared by my own father, who put up with me during the worst of times after I graduated. I wouldn’t say I turned out great, all things considered - but I also don’t think I’m delusional - I have fairly realistic assessments about who I am and what I am capable of, and in turn what the world is like and what I ought to be worried of.

I’ve seen other people who grew up the same way turn out just the opposite, so maybe I’m grasping at straws, just interested to see what you guys think.

[Anonymous No.16357393]

what were some of the hard times you had after graduating?

[Anonymous No.16357402]

>>16357388
Children should be sheltered from the world until they're sufficiently mentally developed. The slightest thing can totally fuck them up forever.

[Anonymous No.16357451]

>>16357388
The challenge has to be at the right level for children to grow and learn and build confidence. Traumatic experiences by definition overwhelm the ability of children to cope or manage. It's not the same question as "do I indulge my child with comforting fictions or tell them the harsh truths", it's more like "do I give my child developmentally appropriate adversity or do I expose them to life experiences that could permanently damage them and cause them to adopt maladaptive coping skills". Trauma comes about through wildly inappropriate and incompetent behaviour by adults like domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, untreated mental illness, or similar.

[Anonymous No.16357499]

>>16357393
I had dropped out of university and was a NEET for almost two years. About midway through that I told my parents I didn’t want to be alive anymore and tried to hit my old man with a steel pipe I kept next to my bed when he tried to keep me from leaving. Ended up spending the night in a psych ward. I was well and truly off the deep end and somehow he always managed to keep it together. It didn’t fully register for me until years later how much work he put in to raising his family and how horrible and self-centered I had been to squander it like I did.

>>16357402
The thing I wonder about this system is that it seems to be true for all of life - I’ve seen a lot of disgusting things on 4chan and I’m mostly desensitized to it, but tons of people don’t respond well to that sort of thing at all even past their childhood. How do we delimit who has to take agency for themselves and who requires nurturing? Does it even make sense to delimit it?

>>16357451
Good post, very well articulated. This was kind of my thinking as well - but how do we define levels of developmentally appropriate adversity? You could argue that there are biologically objective criterion for the stages of development (obviously with some degree of variation), but I have a hard time believing that sociocultural pressures don’t play a huge role, which would undermine the reliability of the criteria.

[Anonymous No.16357514]

>>16357499
You just gotta take care of them. Make sure they don't get hurt and don't get into situations they can't handle. Problem parents aren't the ones raising their kids anymore so they have absolutely no idea who they are and what they can handle. School is hell and children should not be subjected to that shit.

[Anonymous No.16357515]

>>16357514
Agreed.

[Anonymous No.16357536]

>>16357515
I get an immediate fight or flight response for a split second every time I hear the phone ring because my teachers would always call my house to tell my parents I had detention, didn't hand in homework or I was late to class or some other bullshit. I've been out of school for 7 years. No matter how long it's been or how little I give a shit about it, it still elicits the same response.

[Anonymous No.16357564]

>>16357499
I'm glad to hear about your transformation, and your having a steadfast father. Brings some faith back in humanity.
I work in a psychiatric hospital and it ain't always easy. It's nice to see some of the patients break through their maladaptive mental schema and thrive. Helps put the job into perspective.

[Anonymous No.16357840]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16358121]

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[Anonymous No.16358763]

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[Anonymous No.16358841]

>>16357388
I'm not really sure what kind of question you're asking in practical terms.
What is it that you mean by insulating from reality? Does it mean you should take your child to the worst neighbourhood to have a look around, so that they know that there are worse places than where they grow up? I need specifics to discuss further.

I would say that humanist aren't exactly about not exposing children to harsh realities. I'm thinking of Carl Rogers, for whom (and other Rogerians) it was important that a mentally well person is present right here and now. They understand what the situation and experience are right now and they also understand that they are ever changing. They may be calm now, and angry a couple of moments later. That's how things go. For humanists also, experiential learning is an important part.
I spend some time in therapy with a Rogerian therapist (he also had experience in psychoanalysis), and what I learned there is that you learn by experience. Can you be angry with your therapist? Well, then you can likely be angry with others as well. The problem that can arise in the upbringing is that the child never experiences the expression of certain mental states and emotions, and that's the reason they later on go into therapy so that they learn those things experientialy.
If I could never express my anger around my father, I will likely have trouble expressing it in general or toward a certain group of people. I need an outlet to learn such expression and let it flow.

That was a rather condensed version of what humanistic psychology is about. It's not necessarily that humanists are looking to hide certain realities from children. It's that the question is what kind of impact it will have on their experiential reality and how it will impact their inner world.
Humanists also bury the old myths such as "all young men should serve in the army for at least a year to learn discipline and gain mental toughness". It's not true, but naturally common folk won't argue with humanists or psychoanalytics because they are not nearly as articulate and intelligent as they'd need to be.
Anyway, not sure if this adds to what you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.16359233]

Most children don't become fucked up because of the harsh world, but by their parents. Don't molest your children, don't be an alcoholic, don't divorce and you are doing fine.

[Anonymous No.16360447]

>>16357388
Ideally kids should be given as many challenges and responsibilities as possible, but sheltered from violence and mentally ill people

[Anonymous No.16360556]

>>16357388
i have all kids should skate-board and have no Internet

[Anonymous No.16361246]

>>16357499

No disrespect but you speak about seeing disgusting things on 4chan growing up, an d then about attacking your father with a weapon.

I'm not saying exposure to 4chan caused your mental health problems growing up, but it probably didn't help your mental health.

I hope you did not go on the cesspool /r9k/. I'm positive that a lot of people on there are sadists who enjoy encouraging people to have depression.

[Anonymous No.16361280]

>>16357388

IMO what is most important is being an emotionally health parent, and giving your children an emotional education and communicating with them empathetically.

Listening to/reading Jonathan Fast and James Gilligan, it's clear how shame and lack of emotional self-care leads to mental health problems. (Anyone with a propensity to violence in a non-professional setting, has a mental health problem IMO.)

I think that Alain De Botton is right, in his book The School Of Life: Emotional Education. When he makes the case that it is one of the most important things we can teach ourselves and children.

[Anonymous No.16361313]

>>16361246
Maybe his father was just being a cunt and anon had enough

[Anonymous No.16361348]

Circumcision ruined my ability to feel pleasure during sex. Now I shy away from intimate relationships as I despise the state of my genitals.
t.schizoid

[Anonymous No.16361369]

>>16361348
Why did you do it?

[Anonymous No.16361402]

>>16361369
Why did my father do it? Because a father requires their child to arrogantly resemble them in every way imaginable.

[Anonymous No.16361416]

>>16361402
Did you tell your father about it, did you ask him why he did that to you?

[Anonymous No.16361431]

>>16361416
Sure. The same response was given to him by my grandfather, was also passed onto me. "You're dealt random cards in life, make the best of life with them."

[Anonymous No.16361533]

>>16361431
You should have broken his jaw and then cut off all contact. Also don't forget mothers usually support this and often they are the ones who suggest circumcision in the first place (because to women dick looks better circumcised)

[Anonymous No.16361551]

>>16361533
That's rude. I think this is an Anglo problem that's meant to break men, and in turn women are turned into cooperative hosts to ruin their children because its a normal consequence to fit into society, thus breeding sour men and women.

[Anonymous No.16361637]

>>16361551
It isn't widely practised in anglo countries (among anglos not jews or arabs).
It is also not rude, it is infact a very mild reaction, if anon really wants to get nasty he should just stay childless and fuck up his fathers hope of ever having any grandsons ir granddaughters, even better if anon is the only child.

[Anonymous No.16361807]

>>16361637
the only non jewish/non muslim country that does it as far as im aware is an anglo country, USA. and to a lesser extent anglo canada)

[Anonymous No.16361903]

my mom never hugged me

[Anonymous No.16361931]

>>16361807
Usa is not really anglo country though.

[Anonymous No.16361971]

>>16357499
>I had dropped out of university and was a NEET for almost two years. About midway through that I told my parents I didn’t want to be alive anymore and tried to hit my old man with a steel pipe I kept next to my bed when he tried to keep me from leaving. Ended up spending the night in a psych ward. I was well and truly off the deep end and somehow he always managed to keep it together. It didn’t fully register for me until years later how much work he put in to raising his family and how horrible and self-centered I had been to squander it like I did.
what the fuck is wrong with americans?? I lived there for a while as a young teen, and half of my american friends have similar stories

[Anonymous No.16362014]

>>16361971
American or Americanized school systems are child abuse and produce broken goods.

[Anonymous No.16362189]

>>16361903

[Anonymous No.16362501]

>>16361931
>The definition is usually taken to include the developed countries Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom,[4][5][6][7] and often also the United States[8][9][10][11]

if you want to bicker over well accepted definitions concerning nationality and ethnicity fuck off to /int/

[Anonymous No.16362609]

>>16357514
This, parents who have been trying to preserve their children's innocence haven't been loving or educating their children, just idealizing them since they've actually just totally ignored them.

[Anonymous No.16362651]

>>16362609
That's not at all what I said. You should shelter your child somewhat. When you throw them out and send them to school and they only see their parents a couple hours a day you cease to really be their parents and you're just like another teacher or babysitter. You then have no idea what your child is like or what they can handle and it makes for horrible parenting.

[Anonymous No.16363975]

>>16361971
Unironically circumcision.

[Anonymous No.16364056]

Nobody should stare into the abyss unless they're ready to be sucked into it. Being blackpilled isn't necessary or even good

[Anonymous No.16364073]

>>16361348
Its 90% psychosomatic

[Anonymous No.16364398]

>>16361971
i have a somewhat similar (but less violent) story to OP
i dropped out of university and picked up drinking and smoking and hung around some shitty people
a lot of people can't afford university and i was one of them
i didn't see the point in having a miserable time at uni where i couldn't fit in anywhere or make real friends
all for a piece of paper and at least $30k in debt (even though i was studying a lucrative degree)
the apathy and unresolved issues led to a break down

in highschool i knew kids who did stuff like OP but they usually had ADHD or some familial issue
i just kept everything inside but that caught up to me

[Anonymous No.16365698]

>>16361971
I’m not American, but I know what you mean. There are two men around my age living on either side of my parent’s house and they also struggled with mental health issues that we often overheard (as I’m sure they often overheard me). Both of them are immigrant families from two different parts of the world, but both grew up here - it could be a cultural thing. Most people I know don’t really maintain robust social networks anymore, so I think that could be part of it.

North Americans are also rather permissive as parents because there is a culture of busybodies surrounding the emergence of the CPA that precludes stern discipline. In Canada, parents can even be forced to pay for post-secondary education past the age of majority. Boomers invested a lot in family life and while many of them will talk about their hard lines, I think that all goes out the window when you hear your baby boy screaming that he wants to kill himself.

[Anonymous No.16365723]

>>16361246
I didn’t really use 4chan growing up - it was mostly during that two year period and then on and off since then. What I mean is that initially when I first saw someone die on 4chan, it was psychologically traumatizing - I didn’t know how to process it and ended up obsessing over it - but that obsession was more a symptom of being unwell than a cause. If I saw the same thing today, I would be broadly desensitized to it, because I know how to compartmentalize. I’m still not well-adjusted by any metric, but I can generally get through the day.

[Anonymous No.16366123]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16366534]

>>16365723
I've seen some fucked up stuff in my time on the internet, but seeing some webm of a man being skinned alive, primarily at the belly... That fucking stayed with me for days, I just felt sick and morose. Poor guy.

[Anonymous No.16366681]

Children MUST be insulated from outside forces there is no other way around it since the moment they are born, they are completely helpless. For humans this more important than any other species on the planet. A human mother would have to go pregnant for 20+ month until a child would have the same skills as a newborn chimpanzee, A newborn deer that can walk within moments of his birth is an entirely different magnitude of self-sufficiency right from the get go.
This early development that is intrinsic in all of us is one of the reasons why we all seek to enter again that place where we are cared for, giving birth to the first concepts of family, clan, city, nation.
And even after a child leaves family and seemingly goes into the wide world it is still within boundaries where it is being cared for.
Sloterdjik talks about this phenomena a lot in his main work Spheres and uses it to construct a, in my opinion, pretty solid system to describe human relationships.
Our evolution basically makes it impossible to not be molly-coddled up until a very high age.

Exposing a child to harsh realities can mean a lot of different things and probably happens even in the families with the best intentions. What constitutes as a positive "trauma" and a learning experience is very much up for debate and but all in all I would say it's not very helpful to deliberately toss a child into situations of extreme emotional abandonment and helplessness.

[Anonymous No.16366909]

>>16366681
Does he offer any prescriptions for initiated leaders? Presumably empowering the wisdom that comes with age?

[Anonymous No.16367072]

>>16357388
Kids should be treated like adults should be treated like,

that is, not as adults today, nor as kids today

look to the past.

[Anonymous No.16367087]

>>16366909
>Does he offer any prescriptions for initiated leaders?
No but being an initiated leader would mean that the person already knows what the initiation entails and how/when to impart it to others right?
Thats how the whole line of tradition forms and all that right? Reading about it from someone even if the person is knowledgeable would defeat the whole purpose.
P. SL. only describes the underlying mechanics he observed when looking at human developement throughout the ages and how that still works in todays environment.

[Anonymous No.16368244]

>>16365723
>>16366534
I've seen fucked up shit and it disturbed me but I pretty much get over it. I've never had nightmares of obsessed for days. Even the first time. Is this good or bad

[Anonymous No.16368476]

>>16368244
It’s probably fine unless you lack empathy across the board. I wouldn’t overthink it.

[Anonymous No.16368812]

>>16357388
What kind of answers do you expect from /lit/? Few here read psychological papers.
Besides:
>exposing children to harsh realities
>Should children be insulated from reality by their parents?
'Reality' is a vast field, isn't it? I am pretty sure that bestgore videos are going to be traumatising to a child and much less to a 15 year old teenager and even less traumatising to a 19 year old adult. Unless your child would support a cartel by buying drugs there is no need to shock them with execution/torture videos.
Children play and their plays involve death. They can be very rough and punishing to each other.
Furthermore they do experience harsh realities - especially in school. I do think that most adults wouldn't be able to cope in a school-like system and would try to kill themselves after some time if they were in situations like bullied children - for years almost every day. The psychological stress can be enormous. Prisons in the west are more humane, since they offer you easy ways of being alone and not having to deal with bullies all the time, forcing you to be vigilant every second. Being bullied didn't make these children tougher, cleverer or better in life and few people can cope with these situations. I had good times and bad times, made lots of friends and remember the good times more often than the bad times. My greater problem is the wasted time, lack of proper skills and bad career advice due to the teachers and the schooling system but that's another topic.
See anons advice here >>16367072. People (including children) used to see dead people - it happened more often. Many people in industrial countries haven't seen a dead human body in real life once. And even then in most cases it was just a grandparent in their coffin with lots of makeup...
My advice: Don't shock them, and if it happens help them; talking to their father helps. Children often aren't capable of putting their (subconscious) thoughts into words properly, so you have to think around the edge as well. Keep them from harm and show them why you do it - don't hide it, be their mentor. Everybody knows these kids who had overprotective parents, which sheltered them from all kinds of modern vices, and all that protection vanished the moment these kids set a foot outside of their parents realm. Everything at the right time.