Setting The Pattern: How Young Children Process Information

 Our bodies receive signals about life and our environment from our brain.  Recent scientific studies have shown that the cells of the body receive and respond to environmental signals which then dictate which action the cell will take.  These environmental signals comefrom our perceptions of life, which are then filtered through the brain and translated into chemical responses.  The cells then respond to the chemicals they are given with either of two responses.  Dr. Bruce Lipton asserts that our cells can either be in survival and protection mode, which includes our alarm modes like fight or flight, or they can be in healing and growth mode, which allows for optimal cell function and exchange of nutrients needed for growth and development, but they cannot be in both stages at the same time. This is very important in understanding just exactly how trauma affects the atmosphere in which our cells live and the long term effects of fear on the body.  He says this: “My research at Stanford showed that these growth/protection behaviors are also essential for the survival of multicellular organisms such as humans.  But there is a catch to these opposing survival mechanisms that have evolved over billions of years.  It turns out that the mechanisms that support growth and protection cannot operate optimally at the same time.  In other words, cells cannot simultaneously move forward and backward.” The Biology Of Belief (2005) When cells are in protection mode, certain cell functions are shut down so that more energy is available for the survival mechanisms within the cell.  The cell is not concerned with exchanging nutrients or healthy reproduction at this time.  This is why we need to make sure our bodies do not stay in the alarm response, keeping the cells in survival mode for long periods of time.  I think it is doubly important for children as they grow and develop.  If a child is ‘programmed’ with the wrong message, then their cells are also receiving the wrong messages.   Dr. Lipton talks about childhood development in The Biology Of Belief (2005): “The responsiveness of individuals to the environmental conditions perceived by their mothers before birth allows them to optimize their genetic and physiologic development as they adapt to the environmental forecast.  The same life enhancing epigenic plasticity of human development can go awry and lead to an array of chronic diseases in older age if an individual experiences adverse nutritional and environmental circumstances during fetal and neonatal periods of development. {Bateson, et al, 2004} The same epigenic influences also continue after the child is born because parents continue to influence their child’s environment.”  Here we can see that an unhealthy environment for cellular growth in childhood, particularly infancy and young childhood, is directly related to chronic conditions that arise as the child becomes an adult.  The cause of this is the atmosphere or environment into which it is born.  When a child does not have a nurturing environment or has been traumatized, the lasting effects on the child act as if the child has been hypnotized or ‘programmed’ from the beginning, not for healing and growth but for protection, thus shutting down optimal cellular functioning and creating a weakened system where disease or illness can develop.  Part of this is the type of learning or brain waves that a young child displays.  This is important for optimal and very quick learning.  Young children display the same brainwaves that we do during episodes of lucid dreaming and deep sleep, where our minds are very open to the powers of suggestion. Dr Lipton further states: “This gives us an important clue as to how children, whose brains are mostly operating at these same frequencies (i.e. Delta and Theta) between birth and six years of age, can download the incredible volume of information they need to thrive in their environment.  

Young children carefully observe their environment and download the worldly wisdom offered by parents directly into their subconscious memory.  As a result, their parents’ behavior and beliefs become their own.”  The Biology Of Belief (2005) These are the same types of brain waves that are accessed in hypnosis.  That is how easily our children can be influenced on a foundational level by things that are very ordinary to our adult minds.  And if they should perceive that life is dangerous or that they do not deserve love, they are influenced for life at a very deep level. If a family is fragmented, or a parent is abusive in any way when the child is young, these events ‘program’ the child to believe that it is not safe to be alive, essentially causing the cells to perpetually operate and reproduce from the standpoint of protection and survival.  Dr Lipton says: “When unthinking or uncaring parents pass on those (abusive) messages to their young children, they are no doubt oblivious to the fact that such comments are downloaded into the subconscious memory as absolute facts just as surely as bits and bytes are downloaded into the hard drive of your desktop computer.  During early development, the child’s consciousness has not evolved enough to critically assess that those parental pronouncements were only verbal barbs and not necessarily true characterizations of “self.”  Once programmed into the subconscious mind, however, these verbal abuses become defined as “truths” that unconsciously shape the behavior and potential of the child through life.”    The Biology Of Belief(2005)  On top of that, when children are that little they perceive that ‘the world revolves around them’.  It is the only way they can relate to their reality.  So that if something good happens, it is because of them.  Similarly, if something bad happens it is also their ‘fault’.  Even if you tell them otherwise, it is the only way they know to understand their limited reality.  Imagine if your life had been influenced like this from trauma experienced at a very young age either by parents or people in your immediate life, how your physical existence could be altered on a cellular level where you are not even aware of it.  This is why I am so passionate about this subject.  The implications of unresolved trauma on both the body and the mind are huge.  These quotes show in essence how important it is to shelter and nurture our children as they grow.  As Dr. Lipton says in The Biology Of Belief (2005), “In humans, the fundamental behaviors, beliefs and attitudes we observe in our parents become “hard-wired” as synaptic pathways in our subconscious minds.  Once programmed into the subconscious mind, they control our biology for the rest of our lives… unless we can figure out a way to reprogram them.”   Many times this is further complicated by the fact that children get their perception of God directly from their parents.  If daddy is cruel and exacting, it is not uncommon for a child to grow up believing this about God and they will often seek out a religion consistent with this belief.  If daddy is absent or has abandoned the family, the child will subconsciously expect God to abandon them at any moment also.  All of these things can have lasting effects on a child’s life and their health.  When the body is in protection mode energy is diverted from the immune system, which is part of the health and growth mode, to make resources available for survival.  Obviously staying in this protective condition for long periods of time will create illness because of the suppressed immune system.  Energy psychology techniques are an effective means to change our body responses to trauma.  These revolutionary energy therapies, such as EFT and TFT, its ancestor as well as other emerging modalities, are based on acupressure.  “In a nutshell: energy psychology is a contemporary application of methods that are at least 4500 years old.  Specific points on the skin can be stimulated for distinct neurological effects and this principle can be used for helping to overcome a range of psychological problems.”  The Promise Of Energy Psychology(2005)  How much better it would be if we could get to the source of psychological and physiological problems when children are young.  This may very well avert adult chronic illnesses by eliminating the environment that causes the cells to be compromised over time.  By giving children the gift of tools to help them process trauma through life, we are saving them from trouble and potential health problems later on.  Author Dawson Church says: “Energy medicine is not only the place to start treatment of a presenting condition; it is the place to start before there is a presenting condition.  A person, whose energy systems have been optimized and are functioning well, has established a base line that makes it much harder for disease to take root.”  The Genie In Your Genes (2007) What a fantastic thing to give the gift of health to someone, by showing them these techniques to optimize their health.  It is surprisingly easy to resolve even the worst traumas with energy techniques.  They are generally painless, compared to rehashing the events in conventional talk therapy. Dawson Church says, in reference to energy psychology techniques, in The Genie In Your Genes (2007): “As (James) Oshman explains, ‘stored trauma can be resolved as quickly as it was set in place.  The body is continuously poised to resolve these afflictions and all of the physiological and emotional imbalances they create.  This process goes to the deep energetic level that organizes or incarnates or underlies conscious experience itself.  When this happens, the patient may suddenly know that the issue or discomfort will not bother them again.’ ”This changes the environment of the brain, which sends different messages through the Amygdalae, small organs within the brain that regulate instinctual responses, to the body with hormones and neurotransmitters by way of the hypothalamus and pituitary glands.  These chemicals then influence the cells to return to growth mode.  Gary Craig, et al, The Promise Of Energy Psychology (2005) say this:  “stimulating specific electromagnetically sensitive points on the skin while bringing the psychological problem or goal to mind can help a person overcome that problem or reach that goal by changing the chemistry in the amygdala and other areas of the brain.”

Dissertation excerpt by Kirsten Olsen - For more information on using EFT or other energy techniques with children, please contact Kirsten at 951-265-8361 or visit www.myfirewithin.com.  Complete dissertation also available upon request.