Ways to Create Resilience After Hard Things Happen (Part 5/5)

Dealing with Adverse Childhood Experiences

Sad­ly, many young peo­ple go through adverse child­hood expe­ri­ences (ACES). While the spe­cif­ic form of ACEs can take on many dif­fer­ent forms—ranging from abuse and neglect to house­hold dys­func­tion, with­out pro­tec­tive fac­tors, the result is usu­al­ly the same – strug­gles with men­tal health, phys­i­cal well-being, lat­er life health prob­lems, risky deci­sion-mak­ing, and more, when risk fac­tors pre­vail. When some­thing is a risk fac­tor, it ele­vates the chances of a neg­a­tive out­come in a person’s life. These can take many forms, includ­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ships and genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tions, but they are always seen as a con­cern that is going to make it more dif­fi­cult for an indi­vid­ual to avoid neg­a­tive out­comes. ACEs are one risk fac­tor that can have pro­found effects, if not off­set by pro­tec­tive fac­tors.

What is Resilience?

Com­mon­ly in main­stream media, the edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, or in con­ver­sa­tion, the phrase, “chil­dren are resilient” will come up when a dif­fi­cul­ty aris­es, and that is the end of it. How­ev­er, acknowl­edg­ing this is not enough. Resilience is the abil­i­ty to bounce back from adver­si­ty. Fur­ther, resilience is cre­at­ed, and not an inher­ent trait. Those seek­ing to improve resilience in young peo­ple who have either expe­ri­enced ACEs or oth­er risk fac­tors, and even for those who have not, can con­sid­er pro­tec­tive fac­tors as part of the solu­tion.

What Are Protective Factors?

A good way to think about pro­tec­tive fac­tors is to imag­ine them bal­anc­ing out the oth­er side of the scale, on the oppo­site end from risk fac­tors. Where risk fac­tors can weigh one side down, pro­tec­tive fac­tors can get on the oth­er side and give the child a fight­ing chance to over­come their chal­lenges. Pro­tec­tive fac­tors can be found across fam­i­lies, friend­ships, and com­mu­ni­ties. While the term “pro­tec­tive fac­tors” is used far less com­mon­ly in gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion, these fac­tors are no less impor­tant. The impli­ca­tions here for an indi­vid­ual are just the oppo­site as with a risk fac­tor – these are pos­i­tive com­po­nents of a person’s life that can make it more like­ly they will be able to achieve desir­able out­comes. For exam­ple, hav­ing a strong fam­i­ly life for sup­port or hav­ing plen­ty of finan­cial resources are pro­tec­tive fac­tors.

What are Helpful Protective Factors?

It’s impos­si­ble to list every­thing that could poten­tial­ly be con­sid­ered a pro­tec­tive fac­tor for a child, how­ev­er, the list below high­lights some com­mon exam­ples:

• Sup­port­ive and healthy rela­tion­ships. Young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced ACEs often have poor rela­tion­ships with some of the peo­ple in their lives, but that doesn’t mean all of their rela­tion­ships need to be a prob­lem. For exam­ple, if a young per­son has a risk fac­tor in the form of an abu­sive rela­tion­ship with a par­ent, a pro­tec­tive fac­tor could be cre­at­ed through sol­id rela­tion­ships with men­tors, care­givers, ther­a­pists, or oth­er adults.

• Safe envi­ron­ments. The two most impor­tant fac­tors in a child’s envi­ron­ment is safe­ty and consistency/predictability.

• Emo­tion­al self-aware­ness. Chil­dren who are taught to be aware of their feel­ings, thoughts, and body sen­sa­tions will fare well in chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions by being both aware of them­selves and able to com­mu­ni­cate their expe­ri­ences.

• Edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties. A good edu­ca­tion is a major pro­tec­tive fac­tor for many young peo­ple. Edu­ca­tion offers not only the oppor­tu­ni­ty for career growth and finan­cial secu­ri­ty but can also help with emo­tion­al growth and devel­op­ment.

• Reli­able cop­ing strate­gies. Anoth­er use­ful pro­tec­tive fac­tor is the abil­i­ty to turn to healthy cop­ing strate­gies, when nec­es­sary. These strate­gies can include being part of a sports team, club at school, or hob­by. These strate­gies can dou­bly influ­ence the child by hav­ing con­nec­tion with oth­ers as well as with a safe and trust­ed adult. These strate­gies can also pro­vide the abil­i­ty for a child to open­ly and hon­est­ly express feel­ings to trust­ed peo­ple as well as engage in pos­i­tive self-care activ­i­ties.

Pro­tec­tive fac­tors are a huge part of sup­port­ing well-being and over­com­ing the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by adverse child­hood expe­ri­ences. Any­one with influ­ence over the life of a young per­son would be wise to work on build­ing as many pro­tec­tive fac­tors as pos­si­ble, enabling that indi­vid­ual to become more resilient and take on what­ev­er life has in store.

What if I didn’t have protective factors as a child and am experiencing the effects of trauma?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, not all chil­dren have access to pro­tec­tive fac­tors and their ACEs may turn into trau­ma. Trau­ma, as not­ed in a pre­vi­ous post, can cre­ate chal­lenges and impair­ments in func­tion­ing. Get­ting trau­ma treat­ment is an excel­lent way to resolve the wounds of the past. Here are some symp­toms to look out for in when decid­ing when it is time to seek help:

• Avoid­ing dif­fi­cult peo­ple, places, or reminders of the trau­ma

• Blam­ing your­self for what hap­pened

• Night­mares

• Dif­fi­cul­ty focus­ing on work or home respon­si­bil­i­ties

• Not being present – at work, at home, dur­ing sex, or oth­er activ­i­ties you enjoy

• Avoid­ing close rela­tion­ships or being vul­ner­a­ble with oth­ers

• Feel­ing irri­ta­ble at every­one or every­thing

• Thoughts of sui­cide

• Feel­ing tired all the time

• Feel­ing hyper­aware

• Think­ing “what’s the next thing that’s going to hap­pen?”

• Dif­fi­cul­ty trust­ing oth­ers (i.e., col­leagues, extend­ed fam­i­ly)

• Won­der­ing if you or your chil­dren will be safe going some­where

• Not being able to say no or main­tain bound­aries

Online EMDR therapist Texas

Dr. Brad­ford Stuc­ki, LMFT, a clin­i­cian at Bridge­Hope Fam­i­ly Ther­a­py has the skills and exper­tise to help you with the chal­lenges you face from your trau­ma. You can expect to receive empa­thy and expe­ri­ence a safe envi­ron­ment as you walk on your path to chang­ing your expe­ri­ences with trau­ma. Online ther­a­py is avail­able to res­i­dents of Texas. 

Reach out to start your jour­ney to resolv­ing your trau­ma today