I'm totally blown away by the "light reading" I did at the pool earlier this week. It is a chapter out of Working with Traumatized Youth in Child Welfare entitled "Applying Principles of Neurodevelopment to Clinical Work with Maltreated and Traumatized Children" by Bruce Perry, MD, Ph.D.

If you're not familiar with Dr. Perry and the Child Trauma Academy, you should be, especially if you are parenting a traumatized child (one who has been abused or neglected, as many adoptive and foster children are). For the last couple of decades, Dr. Perry has been doing research on the neurological impact of trauma on children's brains. He has come to some profound conclusions. In fact, as I told a friend this week, I think Dr. Perry is probably a genius!

The chapter outlined six principles of neurodevelopment. The sixth one was not at all what I expected: The human brain is designed for a different world. Dr. Perry talks about how because our species was small groups of hunter-gatherers over 200,000 years ago, our brains are meant to be in relationship with small groups of people. In those days, children had about a 4:1 ratio of developmentally mature persons to children around them throughout the day -- adults they could learn a great deal from, both cognitively and emotionally. In modern society, children are put in day care scenarios where the ratio is 1:4 at best for the youngest of children. So in essence babies and toddlers today are getting only 1/16th of the relationship-building interactions as their cavemen counterparts.

Just the sheer "poverty of relationships" as he calls it, can manifest in a host of neuropsychiatric problems. Children are not learning how to relate to others. Healthy neurodevelopment depends on interacting with others. Perry states:

Our human neurobiology reflects our functional interdependence. The most powerful rewards and the most intense pain come from relational experiences. The attention and approval of a loved or respected person stimulates the reward system of the brain, and disapproval or loss of attention and affection activates pain-mediating neural systems (rejection, humiliation, and loss actually hurt). The neural systems mediating stress response, procreation, reproduction, social affiliation and communication are all interrelated; indeed, they often share the very same fundamental neurotransmitter networks and brain regions.

Is it any wonder that neglected and abused children have social troubles, increased stress and anxiety, and communication lags. Of course not...as Dr. Perry points out...it's neurological!