Posted by Wittgensteinz on January 9, 2009, at 4:57:51
In reply to Re: What a load of cr##.........!!!, posted by DAisym on January 8, 2009, at 22:18:38
Are kids resilient? Yes, I think they are.
Do they get over things better than adults? I think that's a poor question - what is experienced from a child's point of you will necessarily be very different from the same 'thing' experienced by an adult (and how an adult might experience something will likely rest upon his/her own childhood experiences). Children are vulnerable and impressionable in a way that adults are not - to negate the weight of the effects of childhood trauma by saying "they get over it" is just ignorant. We all know that. A child is an adult in the making. Those things that happen during childhood stay with that person into adulthood. As a fully-formed adult, we always have our past-experiences, our psychological 'foundations' to fall back on in the face of trauma. Children don't have that, especially if trauma is all they've known. I think that's the difference - that children don't necessarily have anything to fall back on. And it's when bad things are taken as 'normal' that a person's very being is damaged - i.e. a child reasoning "bad things happen to me because I am bad". An adult probably wouldn't reach this reasoning unless they'd carried this on from childhood.I can think of contexts where the statement is true, however - take a child and an adult recovering from a broken leg. The child will likely get better quicker. Their bones heal faster, they tend to bounce back quicker. That doesn't mean the psychological effects of receiving an injury will heal more easily.
I think if people take this statement too much to heart, they might use it as an excuse to waiver culpability "it doesn't matter, he won't remember it" or "it won't affect him when he's older" - I've heard these things said in relation to the practice of some medical procedures in very young babies without anesthetic. Circumcision for example. I think people have to be very careful before making such assumptions.
Witti
poster:Wittgensteinz
thread:872772
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090109/msgs/872922.html