Research shows that children experiencing toxic stress are at risk of experiencing alcoholism, depression, heart disease, and employment instability in their adolescent and adult lives.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) such as bullying, neglect (physical or emotional), household dysfunction, abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual) result in toxic stress.
Aggressive and destructive behaviours, explosive anger outbursts at school and home and susceptibility to triggers of fear of unsafety and insecurity are clear signs that a child could be experiencing toxic stress due to exposure to intense experiences of emotional and psychological distress.
Parental depression is a major risk factor for overall health and wellbeing challenges and difficulties in the lives of their children. It can have major negative implications on the child’s attachment to her/his parents.
As parents please ensure that you are seeking professional help to address your own depressive symptoms and emotional dysregulation. If you are often triggered by something your child is saying or doing, GET HELP. Your child is an innocent victim of your unhealed pain.
Toxic stress has a direct neurobiological impact on the child’s brain development and overall health, including her behavioural and emotional responses and reactions.
Different parts of child’s brain may be negatively impacted, such as the hippocampus, which processes all that is perceived around her/him (‘who’ and ‘what’) and provides context to all she/he can anticipate or is experiencing, whether in reality or imaginative.
The pre-frontal cortex of her/his brain would provide reason to that perceived reality, the ‘why’. Finally the amygdala of the brain consolidates the perceived reality and the contextualised reason for it, gives it meaning which then consequently activates her/his chemical and hormonal responses, including her/his thoughts, words, and actions, through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Seeking professional help
As a qualified psychotherapist I encourage parents to be mindful of the negative behavioural signs in your child and seek professional help sooner rather than later.
Rest assured that your trusted Muslim psychotherapist will ensure that your child experiences a safe and beneficial therapeutic space in which a trusting therapeutic alliance is formed with your child.
In this safe space your child will receive trauma-informed care that is age-appropriate, ethical, and responsive and one that assists the therapist in understanding the root causes of the child’s traumatic distress and the aftermath impacts they could have on her/his development.
A healthy therapeutic relationship ensures that your child will be allowed agency, autonomy, authenticity, acceptance, and feel empowered to view perspectives and alternatives when making choices.
In building this therapeutic alliance, the right psychotherapist would display four proven counselling qualities:
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- have reasonable self-disclosure which then invites vulnerability from your child;
- display respect, warmth, be present and responsive through verbal and non-verbal interaction which would put your child at ease and make her/him comfortable;
- be open, authentic, show genuine care, show understanding and accept her/his presence without any judgement;
- maintain professional boundaries and stable composure whilst always having a person-centered approach.
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