This is a difficult subject. And I may as well say right up front, as speakers often do, I may say things that might not be correct. I may have a perspective at times, and you might say, I don't agree with that, and that's okay. And I truly wanna say things that are as accurate as I can, and certainly wanna say things that are biblical, and of course, helpful as well. So I don't have really a different title than trauma children in the classroom, although I'm not going to overly emphasize the classroom part. We will spend some time on that at the end, but spend some time just discussing trauma children in a fairly broad way. Use this for a little illustration. This is $50. How many of you would take this $50? Raise your hand. Well, you're not going to get it, but anyhow. If there would be one taker, I could give it, but it's just I can't. I don't know what to do. So if I simply crumble this $50. How many of you would still take this $50? That's still too many takers. I put it on the floor. I step on it. And I hurt it. I crush it. I make it dirty. How many would still take this $50? Are you sure? Why would you take this $50 bill, even though it has been hurt and crushed and dirtied and crumpled Why would you still take this $50? It is still worth the same. Yes. Who decided it's worth $50? At some level, the creator of it, right? Whoever gave permission to make this and put the 50 on it decided this is worth $50. There's a value of 50. And by just making it dirty and hurting it and crumpling it, did not reduce its value because there's intrinsic value in this $50. I think you understand the illustration, don't you? These children have value because intrinsically, their creator has given them value. And when they're hurt and crushed to God, they're still His creation. They're still worth $50, but sometimes we're not quite sure that we want it anymore. There wasn't quite as many hands at the end as there was at the beginning. Now maybe that's because you knew you're not going to get it. You're not going to give it to you no matter what. I like to read. A few verses from Mark chapter 10, one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible about children. And I think you know this story quite well, but I want to read it. Mark chapter 10, verse 13 to 16. And they brought young children to him that he should touch them. And his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, for the little children to come unto me Forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. Do you think Jesus, as those children came, sort of sorted them out? Well, we know the answer, right? But can you picture this? Don't you think some of those children were cuter than others? Don't you think some were cleaner than others? Some were better mannered than others. Do you think Jesus smiled extra broadly at a few of those and just took them up in his arms? The Bible says took him up in his arms in another passage. Do you think he just squeezed them a little harder? Just hugged them a little more? Because they're so cute, so sweet. And Jesus had the ability to treat them all perfectly, fairly, and evenly, didn't he? We struggle with this, don't we? But to me, what is so beautiful is just to picture those children coming to him with various needs, various hurts. And Jesus, of course, could see into those little hearts like we can't. But I'm sure we'd all agree that no doubt he loved them the same. He accepted them the same. And cared about them and gave them what each one needed in a way, again, that I know we can't. But as I look back on the years I taught, I'm ashamed at times. I'm ashamed at the children that I didn't love like I should have. The ones that were hard to love, sometimes I did not love as I should have. Sometimes the ones that need the most love, we love the least. The ones that need the most acceptance and affirmation, we struggle with giving that to them. I'm sure we can all acknowledge that. It's hard. But when Christ's love flows into our heart, we can be committed that we will love these children. We will love them with Christ's love and try to see their needs and their hurts. Jesus cares about your child tonight. Maybe you're a parent with a troubled child. a trauma child. Maybe you're a teacher. Maybe you have a relative. But to me, that's also a blessing to know that Christ cares about these children today as much as he cared about them 2,000 years ago. But he's not here to pick them up, is he? Instead, he says, will you be my hands and feet? That is an incredibly sobering responsibility to say, I will step in the place of Christ and I will love these children. I will try to heal their hurts. I can't do what Christ did, I know, but he is calling us to take his place. He's not here anymore. He's saying, will you, will you be my hands and feet instead of me giving them that affirmation, will you? Instead of me taking them and loving each one, will you? What are trauma children? Well, I'm not going to try to box this in. I don't have the wisdom to do that, and I'm not sure how I would even try. What are trauma children? This feels fairly broad to me. It is not just children that, I'm going to use the term, come from hard places. You know what I mean by that, don't you? Children that come from hard places. that we know came in from places before maybe they came into our care. Sometimes those are trauma children. Often they are trauma children. But it's not always just those who experienced that very obvious type of trauma. There are children, and I don't want to say or make us suspicious, but can we just say there's children that do come from dysfunctional homes that might be in our school, and they are trauma children, but we don't really know why. We maybe don't know much of their story. And there are children that we don't know why they struggle with what they do, They behave in ways that seem like trauma children, and there's just simply no explanation. And I don't know what to say about that. It's just, there are those children. I think we frequently, not frequently, but we do hear this sometimes, don't we? Maybe it's your child, maybe somebody in your school, and you say, they didn't come from a hard place, they seem to have a good home, Wow, we just really struggle with this child. Their emotions and their behaviors just don't seem to fall in line with what we would call normal. Now please, tonight, when I use the word normal, I need a word to talk about regular or average. And so when I say normal, I'm obviously not wanting to insinuate not normal as in a negative way. I'm just using it in a comparative way. If I say that, I certainly don't want to say that in a hurtful way at all. So we can think of, sometimes it's called developmental domains. What are the aspects of a children's life? It's pretty obvious, right? We have the physical domain. We have the emotional domain, we have the cognitive, which means the thinking skills domain, and the social. And then kind of wrapped all around that, or various parts, would be the spiritual as well. Well, you know that trauma affects all of those, some more than others, and in different ways. And that is what I think we all find puzzling, is one child can experience what another child did, and they do not respond the same way. This is not like, here I have high blood pressure, the doctor looks at it and says, here's what's going on. It's just over and over, what a child is facing and trying to understand what might have brought them to this, it's not like it's consistent. So be careful with that, that you don't even become suspicious that, well, that child experienced this, they faced that, and I know their history, so here's what to expect. Be aware, be knowledgeable, but it's not always so predictable. But it will affect them in those various domains to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes, of course, physical, when they maybe were exposed to drugs in utero. or other types of abuse. It does affect them physically. Sometimes it doesn't seem to affect them visibly physically, but it's affecting them socially and spiritually and cognitive and emotional. Sometimes the term, and I'm going to use a few terms that are maybe technical terms, but please don't feel like if I don't know those terms, I don't know what I'm talking about. There's so many terms out there, but ACE is a common acronym for simply Adverse Childhood Experiences. So I would like to open it up, and please, if you have questions as we go along, just say, could you explain that a little more? But what are some adverse childhood experiences that can contribute to this package? Give me some things. Yes, absolutely. The loss of a parent. This child didn't come from hard places. Loss of a parent. And especially if it was traumatic. You can let your mind run some traumatic things children have seen in the loss of a parent. What else? Hospitalization. Yes, hospitalization. As a child, as a baby, or even older. Yes. Again, one child can be hospitalized or whisked away, and I'm just going to mention this right now, whisked away from their mother at birth, and it seems like there was maybe no repercussions. And the next time, there is. It's a question that we often ask when we think of a child who did not come from a hard place, but is showing some very irregular emotional behaviors. Was the child separated from their mother at birth because of trauma? The birth or problems? Sometimes, yes. And it seems like there are enormous consequences to that. Other times, no, not really. And so, again, a range of the ramifications of different things that can happen. What else? What are some more things that we could kind of throw in this ACE? Yes. Yes, foster or adopted children. And obviously we tend to think of that the quickest, but we're trying to broaden it because we need to broaden it. But yes, very good. Sometimes it's just prenatal stress. That's no fault of anybody's. Nobody was being careless. But there's repercussions from that birth trauma. we often throw things into two categories outside of those things, which would be neglect and abuse, which are, of course, two very large categories. I find it so fascinating that many people would say, I can't say from experience, I know this because I'm just simply going by what research shows, that often neglect has greater consequences than abuse. It's a little hard to believe, maybe, because abuse says, I don't like you. Neglect says, you don't exist. And there's a difference of what that does to the brain structure and development of that child. Seemingly, okay, so keep those two things in mind. I don't like you I Might hurt you various ways, but neglect is you don't exist and sets up Needs in that child and brain structure that seems to take a different path than neglect and I'd like to talk about brain development just a little bit. I'm fascinated with this. I'm sure you understand at some levels the complexity of brain development. So, obviously, one of the most important questions that we face over and over is simply this. Is the child responsible? Can they help it? Can we punish them out of this problem? These are very hard questions that I hope you don't think I'm going to answer definitively tonight. I simply can't. If I'd be wise enough, maybe I could, but there's questions I can't answer. But I would like you to appreciate some of the complexity of brain development just very briefly here, so at least we can think about brain structure and what does happen in Abuse and neglect and that can be of course prenatal. So let's start with that early in pregnancy or in utero And again, I'm gonna just kind of jump through a few of these things very quickly There is what develops in the womb what is called the the neural tube neurology neural tube out of that will develop of course the baby or continue to develop and at an unbelievable rate of, and I forgot to check this again, but I think it is 125,000 per minute. There are new cells being born. It's a little hard to understand, but obviously cells come from other cells, right? And so we call them sometimes precursory cells. They're the cells that will give rise to other cells. undifferentiated. That means that they could become anything. You realize that? There are cells that can develop into different kinds of cells, depending where they are being produced and where they land. So getting back to the neural tube and the place where the brain will develop. At this phenomenal speed, there are these baby cells being produced and moved away from the neural tube. Now, I'm just kind of focusing on the brain area, obviously. So as these get pulled away by another very complex process, we won't even talk about that really, but they get tugged away from the neural tube, Millions of them, eventually billions of them. Depending where they settle, land, will depend what kind of cell they become. If they get tugged to the eye, they will become part of the neurological pathways of the eye. They could become the retina of the eye. Depending where they get pulled, they could go to what's called the occipital lobe, the back of the brain. You know what you do with the back of your brain? You see. I know you see with your eyes, but you see with the back of your head. That's why if you really get knocked hard, you see stars. You're not seeing no stars. Your brain's kind of going, all right, settling in as to what's going on. So the very same cells that are being born at this speed, depending where they land, where they settle in, will depend. If it's here, it could be an entirely different type of neuron, brain cell, than if it's here. It could be part of seeing. It could be part of your thinking. All right, your frontal lobes, where you do your thinking, or temporal lobes, where you do hearing and process words. Very, very complex, of course. Eventually, you have about 80 billion of these. How many people are in the world? So, 8 billion, 80 billion. You have how many times more brain cells than there are people in the world? 10. So I like to tell students, just to help them think about this when we talk about the brain, of course, other things than this. But I would say, if I don't have a brain, no brain. And I want to get a brain from other people. I need to get 10 brain cells from everybody in the entire world. 10 from you, you, you, 10, 10. Come on, give them up. It's only 10. 10, 10, 10, 10. All over New York, New York City, 10, 10, 10, 10. India to another billion people. You, and you, and you, and you. It'll take a long time. Get 10 from everybody and put them on a pile. How big do you think the pile would be? Huge? Yeah, just that big. You mean 10 things from everybody in the world on a pile would be this big? Yeah, that big. So now you understand a little more how incredibly small they must be. But now these 80 billion cells are only useful if they connect to other cells. So every cell talks to dozens or even hundreds of other cells. Now we have intercellular connections innumerable almost. That's why it's very hard to study the brain. They still haven't traced where all of this goes. Where do these cells need to talk to? But just to give you one simple example, if I would throw something at you, you would blink, right? So as that nerve wave goes from the front of the eye to the back of the head where I actually see it, other messages were sent to parts of our body that make us blink and duck. So one cell communicates with many, many others. making phenomenally complex, intercellular. So now, can you appreciate how quickly drugs can interrupt this complex process and actually change the normal neurological structure of the brain? Sadly, even the mother rejecting the baby and being angry at the pregnancy sets off hormones that affect the neurological development of the brain. Alcohol, AFS, alcohol fetal syndrome, I'm sure you're familiar at least with that term, affects the structure of the brain. So the baby is born with things against them already. Many of these things they've only understood in the last I don't know, 20, 30 years, but certainly not 100 years. Listen, when people say, oh, that baby was adopted at birth, we have to stop saying that. Yes, it is wonderful they didn't face years of abuse and neglect, but it does not mean that they're coming with a clean sheet, not at all. There can be tremendous trauma with that little baby already because of the neurological or brain development that happened during utero. Any questions on that? So the baby's born. Obviously, this baby doesn't know any face, does it? The baby cries, and there's this apparition that shows up and talks to it and says all these sweet things. Conrad, my son-in-law back there, has a little girl, our granddaughter, for, what, three months old? So this is such a fun time, of course, talking to her, and she responds back, and she cries, and sure enough, here comes this face. And after a while, they recognize that face. So much is happening in the brain, especially the front part of the brain, where there is recognition and thoughts eventually are being developed. And while those nerves are already there, the connections between them, what I said was intercellular connections, are being formed at a phenomenal rate. And they happen all through life. But they happen at a tremendous rate when they're young. and that same person keeps showing up, and they cry, and sure enough, after a while, it's a sound they continue to recognize, and they respond to, and they bond with, we call that feedback, right? They cry, here comes this apparition, same one over and over again. Mom comes, Dad comes, they start to trust that. If I cry, there's trust built, because my need is met. What do you think happens when the child cries and nobody comes? Of course, it affects that bonding inside the brain that does not develop properly. And after a while, parts of the brain take over. We could call it, and please understand I'm not an evolutionist at all, but we call it the primitive part of the brain. The lower parts, and we're not really talking about brain structure very much, but the lower parts of the brain that have to do with survival. This is survival. I just gotta survive. The parts of the brain in the frontal lobe that allow us to relax and be okay and feel cared for and loved are not coming together. And that is not easily healed. That is not easily healed. And so now this child is one-year-old and two-year-old, and if it is me against the world, I cry and nobody comes, and I cry and nobody comes. After a while, I stop crying. I got to fend for myself. does almost irreversible damage. Almost irreversible. I'll never forget in 1993, I was in Ukraine, no, I was in Romania, and I had the privilege of visiting some orphanages. If you've done any study on orphanages in Europe, you'll know what I'm going to say. The neglect those children faced was just gut-wrenching. And I can still picture 60 little babies in a crib, in cribs, with three caregivers. I can still picture that sweet little girl. I could cry when I think of her. Little, beautiful, gypsy little girl. Lovely eyes, curly black hair, two years old. She was just starting to pull herself up. Just starting to pull herself up. The nurses seemed to show some love and care, they really did, but 60 babies on the floor and three nurses, metal cribs. This was just at the turn of the changes of communism in Europe. Those of you who remember Gorbachev, okay, it's back in those days, all right. Those ladies went around and they would feel the top of the collar of the clothing to see if it's wet, it's time to change a diaper yet or not. I had the privilege of teaching a boy for a couple years. In fact, I talked to him just the other day on WhatsApp or some back and forth from one of those places. He would have been adopted a little later, but still had the repercussions of that type of care. Those effects will always be his, even at 30. He's a very nice Christian boy, but those effects are always there. I'd like to share a very personal thing to just help you understand a little more. The effects of trauma is not just on children. So years ago in our family we had five children and our youngest Of the five, it was one year old, and then two years old, and three years old, and we started to really wish for another baby. We prayed for a baby, and our whole family, you know, we were out of the diaper stage by now, kept praying for a baby, and when our youngest son, Patrick, was five, we had another baby. We were the happiest family in town, I assure you. We had three boys and three girls, and boy, oh boy, did that boy, he was spoiled. They would all come home from school and put glasses on him, and we enjoyed him immensely, of course. When he was three months old, he died. He died of SIDS, and we found him gone. Our daughter found him. Obviously, something we never imagined we'd face. Our miracle babies, we called them, was gone. A year and a half later, God gave us another baby, another boy. You can only imagine the amount of times we jumped out of bed to go check him if he's still breathing or not. I would wake up at night, out of bed, over to his crib, is he breathing? Oh, yes, he's breathing. Okay, okay, go back to bed. Out of bed again, is he breathing? You might say, why weren't you spiritual enough? You're a big man. I was in my 40s. Aren't you spiritual enough? Just trust God. Just get over it. If that affected me in that way, and I'm not saying I was just spiritual through all of that, and I'm not saying I shouldn't have trusted God any more than that. But I think God allowed that for many reasons that I certainly don't understand. But it has certainly given me more of a heart for what trauma does to our thinking and to our brains. If as an adult, it affected me and my wife that way, how much more to that little baby or that little child with a developing brain that faces trauma? So moving along in the life of the child now just a little more, there's two ways that I think we can think of this. And I think these two phrases help us at least to think some about this. A child would do well if they want to. Or a child would do well if they can. Do you see the difference? A child will do well if they want to. Oh yeah, if you want to, you can quit acting like this. Or a child will do well if they can. Now there's some truth in both, I know. But if we are stuck on the first one, a child will do well if they want to, then our job is to do what? Make them want to. How do we make people want to do something? Come on, we figured this out a long time ago, haven't we? Yes? Somebody else, try again. Wrong answer. Punish them. Consequences. One day they will decide that I don't like all these punishments. I don't like getting spanked over and over again. I guess I'll stop and I'll be a good boy after all. Has that worked? Have you ever seen where it hasn't worked? Now, here's where I'm going to be misunderstood, I'm afraid, but please don't be too hard on me. I'm trying to be fair. Can you understand from what I explained before? Here's what we say. Well, they will eventually connect the dots. I would suggest that maybe there are no dots to connect. Do you understand what I'm saying? If there's no dots to connect, in other words, there's no brain structure to go ahead, oh, oh, that's how it is. I'm going to pull a little bit on this side, then I'll try to balance up a little bit. Could it be somewhat like telling a blind person to just see anyhow? Just choose to see! You say, well, how ridiculous. They don't have the ability to see. Maybe it's an eye problem at the front with the lenses, or it might be the retina, or it might be other things. But you would say, of course you don't expect them to see, they can see! Is there at least something to learn from that? That maybe sometimes they don't have the ability to connect the dots, and when you punish them, and you get frustrated with them, and you bring pain to them, it's not making connections, it's not even building the dots. In fact, it's maybe tearing them, the little bit that's there, you're tearing them down. Now that's way over here, I know. And I know we need to be over here, okay? I realize that. I'm not way, way over here in my thinking, at least I don't want to be. The Bible does teach discipline. Listen, I spanked my children, and I sure hope my granddaughter gets some spankings too. Well, yeah. He was a teacher, I think she will. if that's what it takes, and it normally does. Normally, okay? But we do not spank a six-month-old, right? Why don't you spank your six-month-old? Because they don't have the ability to connect the dots. The framework's not there. They're wild. I don't know what's going on, I'm hurting. Could it be that a six-year-old could have structurally, at the part of the brain that regulates behavior and emotion, is a little more like a six-month-old? I think so. Now please, again, don't hear me saying that they're not disciplined and developed and mentored. These children need rules. They need authority. They do not need a pushover. They do not need authority in their life that says, oh, OK, but then you don't like that? OK, then let's do this. Or always just trying to avoid a conflict. No, no, they don't. They need the security that this is what you need to do. But how you get them there might take a little different path than it does for another child, who one good spanking or one good discipline will get their will under control, and they will then want to. The second phrase, children would do well if they can, I would like to suggest, it is our responsibility to try to position them where they can. I am convinced some of these little children want to so badly please you. They just haven't figured out how to do it. You say, well, duh, just do what I say. It's just not that simple. I'm convinced some of these children come to school and wish so badly they would know how all the other children stay out of trouble so well. Do you really think a third grader comes to school and he just wants to be a rascal? He just wants to be bad every day. He wants to end up in the principal's office, he wants to be sent home, he wants to do all kinds of stuff. That's what he wants, sure enough. Next day, I'm just going to do it again, just going to do it again, just on and on. Is that really the heart of a little child? Now listen, I know the Bible says that we have an evil heart. I know. I have seven children. They are rascals. They are naughty at times. They do have a bad heart and they need to be disciplined. But there is something also to appeal in their heart that wants to please. Don't your children want to please you? And when we can work with their will, and we discipline them, and we bring them in the line, we have the joy of that relationship, and it works. It's a Bible way, and we bond with them, and they learn. But when it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and it doesn't bring the fruit, then maybe that child is not in a position that they can benefit from that particular discipline. I didn't say discipline. I'm saying that particular discipline. A child who was abused, I think there's fire alarms going off in their brain sometimes. They're being hurt, and all that they know is their brain is just telling them, I'm being pounded, I'm being hurt, I'm being abused. It hurts. Somebody's angry at me. And they scream and yell and bite and spit. And we just think we can just bring them under control. But their brain is just completely unrealistic. And there's no rationale to appeal to. Again, I'm talking about extreme cases. But have you heard of extreme cases or worked with them? Okay, so I would like to suggest that you can take children that come from the best disciplined homes and some of the not disciplined homes, but they still sort of behave in a range. So from really good angels here to not so good angels. But when the behavior is way over here, something's wrong. Something's wrong. It's not that I can just give a couple things of discipline and a couple spankings, whoop, sure enough, there they are. They're inside the normal range of behaviors. Making sense of what I'm saying? Now, I'm obviously talking about some more serious cases. And please understand, there are children that are trauma children that have been worked with and are there's some healing happening, and there is some discipling happening, and those parents do discipline them with spanking, or the school, and it is successful, yes. But I would like to suggest, and I'm not saying this is how it is, I would like to suggest, though, that the fruit of the discipline, at some level, indicates if it's the right path. Okay? The Bible says it brings a peaceable fruit of righteousness. Is there success in what I am doing? If there's not, then maybe it's not what the child needs at that time. Just because you don't spank a six-month-old doesn't mean you won't when they're older. But you're trying to ascertain, when is there fruit of my particular discipline? Other questions? Again, I'm very quick to acknowledge that this is complex. It's not always, oh yes, I'm sure that's, I don't think everybody agrees with me out there. I can't quite tell. Some people are just looking at me. I care so much about the subject, but I do also have a lot of fears. What if I'm saying something that's not quite correct? Or maybe it's very incorrect, and I really do care about that, yes. Yeah, and please don't hear me saying that, oh, he doesn't believe the Bible way works. I have not said that. Timing really matters. Timing. Exactly. Particularly at those given points, and with some really severe cases, it does not seem to be the method. When God gave those directions, he is giving that in the context of a whole situation, I feel. Parents, happy parents. Children that are in the, again, the normal flow of life, and they're developing as children should develop. When you have an anomaly like this, it's so far off. Then I think we say, well, what are the ways to bring them into a way that they can be worked with better? Teachers. A couple things from your perspective, a couple things from parents' perspective, and then I do wanna look at just some more, maybe some more practical things. Something that tends to happen in these tough cases is their behavior at home and their behavior at school is not the same. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's bad, bad. But sometimes it's good, bad. And sometimes it's bad, good. And this is where we must somehow learn to work together. And this grieves me. When I realize, when this happens, that as we watch each other, we start to distrust each other. And after a while, the problem is not the child. The problem is who's right up here. This happens so quickly. So maybe the child does behave well at school, and they go home, and he turns into a little tiger. Remember, one mom said, Oh, if I just have that sweet little boy at home, oh. I know the situation quite well. Watch this little boy. What a cute little guy he is. Smart, witty, but he gets on the school van and blows fuses left and right. Very hard to control. What could the teacher say? If you would just have a disciplined home like I have a disciplined school, you would have that same boy at home. Right? Hmm. There could be some truth to that. Sure, there could be. I don't know. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Good point. He has tried so hard to not get in trouble and somehow, manages to pull it off, and the trigger points happen at home. Why? I don't know. Do you know? I don't know, but I don't want to blame them. We ought to come alongside of them and help them think through it and support them, but not accuse them. It goes the other way sometimes, where a father or mother will say, listen, we just don't understand what's going on. We keep getting phone calls saying, he acts like this, and he acts like this. That's not our boy. if only the teacher would build a relationship. Like, I have a relationship. Not remembering that you don't have 16 children at home to have a relationship with. And the teacher does have 16 children and is teaching classes, by the way. I mean, really? Please, teachers and parents, boards, don't tell your teachers this. Just get a better relationship. Try to have a relationship. Now, obviously, if something is wrong and the teacher doesn't like the child, there's trouble. But don't put weight on the teacher that you would fix the problem if you would just have a good relationship. I don't know, go out for a cheeseburger or whatever it would take. But that's just not fair to right away attack that's sort of your problem. We just must support each other on these tough journeys and not accuse. And what is such a burden to me, and I hope you can understand this, somehow, it seems to me, we must see, especially these really tough cases, as being a community project, not just a family project. And if I can just kindly say that. to be open as a family. Here's what could happen when my child comes to school. Listen, what I think happens is we want to treat them normally, right? So we don't, so they're brought into the home, and it's not always an adopted or foster child, okay? Whatever it is, but let's take again kind of your extreme cases. We try to hide it at church. Oh, you know, we think they're whispering about us, but oh well, you know, we're doing our best, and they get to school, and we don't, if we treat them normal, then they'll be normal. That's the best chance. Just don't say what's wrong, then the teacher won't have any idea. They'll treat them normally, and it'll all go okay. Have you ever seen this happen? Oh, I sure have. They get into first grade, you get a couple days into school, it starts to fall apart, and the parents are like, oh, no, it didn't work after all. And soon there's some, you know, back and forth, or the teacher waits and waits and waits until finally she's frustrated, about ready to quit and in tears, and the parents, yeah, well, we thought this could happen, but we didn't want to say anything. It's just a mistake, I think, don't you think, to not talk about it, not be honest. I would just encourage parents when they even consider getting into some of these things, again, when they're bringing a child in, talk to your community right up front. This can mean some swear words at Sunday school class. This can mean kicking in some walls. This can mean I shot you. I mean, listen, if you're shocked, why keep listening? I'm not making this up. I know you know enough. Let's be honest. Can we make this as a collective effort? Will you support us if we do this? Will you give us respite care in a crisis and give us a break? There is an enormous cry for this right now. Respite care. Can you help us at least for the weekend? Can you just give us a break? We have to get a breather. But if your community hasn't been brought into the discussion, they're scared. They're scared. They don't know what to do. But if they could have been brought along all along and helped and loved you and cared about you and talk and share in the journey, then maybe they could offer some help. There's so many calls going in for help in other places, way more than can be handled. Can the community help though? Not always. I'm not blaming anybody, but if we could do this together, and make it a community project and develop resources in-house, at least we could try to help each other. That doesn't mean we never need help beyond our community, but we could maybe try to start there and let it grow, and then if we need help beyond that, then we need help beyond that. So again, back to let's not fall into a trap of accusing each other. but rather supporting and please be so careful. I think one of the loneliest or one of the challenges is the lonely journey of the family with the trauma child. So often they feel alone and they feel mistrusted and they feel like there's whispering going on around there and they see somebody talking. They need support, not whispers about everything that they're doing wrong. And they just don't discipline their child. And they just let that child go. But the parent knew they would address it, it would hit a trigger, and suddenly they would have a scene. And so they took care of it later. Oh, but they didn't discipline their child. They just let him act like that. Well, maybe they were just trying to get out the door so they could go home and take care of it. Okay? Not doing it visibly. And it looked to you like a parent who doesn't care. Now, I know there are parents who don't do as good of a job as they should, of course, but are we going to help them by accusing them and gossiping about them and ostracizing them? No, we're going to help by blessing and encouraging and lifting up those heavy hands that are falling down and falling down, and they're just worn out. And then we just beat them up one more time. Just lift their hands up. yes please yes yes It could be true, but I think we really need to guard against that. Just the way it sets the stage. When I say that sort of thing, I'm not setting the stage to be helpful. I'm setting the stage to say, there's no hope. Yes. Thank you. Labels really bother me. Yeah. This is the trouble. It's 8 o'clock already. Do we have a little bit more time here? Yes, you will care at some point. And I'm going to care, too. I am glad you brought the labels. I have this on my notes somewhere to go ahead and talk about this. Listen, I don't know what to say about labels other than I agree I don't like labels when it goes that direction. AFS is a very real thing. Alcohol Fetal Syndrome. There are certain physical characteristics that go with that. There's certain behaviors. That is a more defined issue, okay? Where there can be a brain scan will show the anatomy issues there, all right? When you start using terms, let me just talk about a couple of things. How many heard of RAD, Reactive Attachment Disorder? Okay. I would like to suggest that that issue is one of the biggest issues that we are not understanding and addressing. Now, please understand, this is understanding the child, not excusing. All right? This issue goes really back to that little child who cried and nobody came. And they set up in their heart, in their mind rather, because they're not thinking logically, that it's me against the world. You can give that child all the food they want. They're still going to sneak food and put it under their bed. They are still going to pick up chips off the floor and stuff them down there and eat them in school and be laughed at. I've seen this. You cannot tell them. Listen, you have everything you need. There is something that did not form that allows them to trust. This breaks my heart when I see children grow up. They are such sweet, charming little things to everybody else. But to mom and dad is who they turn on, the people who try to help them the most. They hurt the worst. It's so sad. I could tell you stories of just the last months of situations. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Swearing and cursing up mom and dad, and they gave them what they thought was everything they could do. But when they were taken off the streets and had those years of neglect, that trust factor just didn't form. And I would urge parents that have young children to study what they can. I know there's books that people have shredded, and no book is perfect, but I think they have some valuable things. How many have read the book, like, If the Foundations Be Destroyed? Okay, now maybe you think, oh, you like that book? Well, I'm just saying, read it. You'll learn something. And I've been alarmed with how much some things aligned with Dr. Perry's book, who's not a Christian, who wrote the book, The Boy That Was Raised as a Dog. You want to read a book that will keep you almost awake at night? Read that book. It's not from a Christian perspective, but what he talks about happens in the development of children, aligns with some of the things that we see. I am not, I hope I'm not, a modern psychologist that says, it's all okay, I hope that's not what I'm saying tonight. Where I would like to suggest there is a difference is when we say behavior is okay and it's not sin anymore. That is when we have crossed lines for sure. All right? When we say, it doesn't matter, it's not sin, his line, it's okay because that's just what he does, that's how he copes, he lies, it's okay. That's what modern psychology says. I think we should be saying, it is always wrong. It is always wrong. But how we disciple that child and help them come to an understanding of what they are doing It's a different path than maybe the child who learns pretty quickly that you better not lie, you better just be honest with what you did. It's not you against the world. You're on the same team as mom and dad. But the child who doesn't know that, it's a long, hard journey to get them to understand that. But we always call sin, sin. It's always wrong. It always must be addressed. Is that making some sense? So Rad, I'm very, very interested in that discussion. I would encourage you, if you have a child that resists, listen, even if they're as sweet as can be at three, four, and five, adolescence, 13, 14, is where it crumbles pretty often. Thank you. Do something when they're little. I think there's people here that we could spend all night just drawing from your experience. I'm sure we could. There's lots more information out there today. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Many parents have said what you're saying. Many. If only we would have known. They were so sweet. They were so lovable. We just thought we're saving them. It all changed when they hit adolescence or other trigger points in their life. I don't want to talk too much. No, no, yeah, go ahead. I don't have anything against the diagnosis. Right. That's proper. Right. I guess it's the labels of, well, he was black, or this person was rad, or in public, in an article way. No, I'm hearing you. The diagnosis is correct, yeah. Yes. We need to be willing to admit my childhood. We may struggle with some of that, even if it's not extreme, because it does help you to figure out why Correct. Correct. Yes. No, I don't think we're misunderstanding that. What you said is very good, very true. And this isn't quite the way to say it, but maybe we could think of it somewhat like this. A label describes a behavior, not a cause. OK? So if you have a red nose, I could say you have a red nose, but I don't know why you have a red nose. Do you got a cold? Did somebody punk you in that nose? Or do you just have a red nose? So a label describes a behavior, ADD, ADHD. I really understand ADHD. My name is Anthony Dean Hurst, ADH. Come and ask me. It just happens. It describes a behavior but doesn't really describe a cause. So Ritalin is often given for hyperactive children. Well, doctors would freely admit that there's way too many children on Ritalin. But when that little fella comes in to the office and he's bouncing around and no, he doesn't pay attention, he can hardly sit still, he's always looking out the window and he's distracted, there could be multiple reasons. I mean, we all have a little bit of this, don't we? Right? Some more than others. But why? And so, yes, we can understand some behaviors, and even some, so what is going on? It helps us ask good questions. Absolutely. But let's not take a word, excuse as a behavior, is what, and I think we all agree with that. Oh, well, he has RADs, he has ADHD, no wonder he acts like that. No wonder he doesn't listen to his mom. All right, that's why he just tears away and slams doors and won't pick up his toys, because he's bouncing over. You can never get him to slow down enough to listen. Oh, please, no, no. No, that's not going to work. We're not helping our children if we do that. Listen, we live in a cruel world. When these children grow up, these labels aren't going to save them. No. Yes? So what should you do? Would you please tell us? I don't know. Okay, okay, yes. Hard questions, hard questions with that whole medication thing. Do you want to discuss medication? No, let's not discuss medication. I would love to have an evening to, what's that? I understand. I wish we'd have time to draw up on the board here some anatomy and neurotransmitters and talk a little bit about what does medication do to the brain. We don't have time to do that tonight, obviously. I'm not going to simply make comments that could be misunderstood. It's not as scientific as some people believe. The neurotransmitter issue, the chemical imbalance, I'm not saying there's nothing like that. I'm just saying it's not as clean and scientifically diagnosable as what many of our people believe, and that's unfortunate. But I'm not saying there's no place for it. Like SSRIs, I'd love, again, we just don't have time to talk about that. But, yeah, okay, yes. And one thing I thought of was, I think we kind of agree that men and women think differently, right? Their brains are different. Right. I think so. If we would have a, if this whole room would be four men, and there'd be one woman in there, why doesn't she just think like that? And it's the same even, I guess, as we're married. Do we try to, do I try to change my wife so that she thinks like me and fix her? Thank you. Right. Yes, yes, very good point. And so the challenge sometimes is where do we accept and where do we try to change because they need to to function well as an adult. And where do we say, well, here's something we can't really change. Sometimes it's hard to ascertain that for sure. Yes. Just the simple example of an adoptive child being adopted at three days old. He's already describing how they've already had diamonds of embellishment already formed, basically, that they do not have a clean slate at birth. I'm just not sure what all to talk about because I'm not quite done with my notes and some of this will address these very issues from various angles. Very good question. We can certainly understand that if a child does not trust The spiritual ramifications are enormous, right? Because healthy spiritual position, disposition, is built on trust. I can trust my mom and dad. I respect them and obey them. I can trust God. When that isn't there, everything crumbles. Honesty, obedience. It's me against the world. Okay? And you understand how those, that physical does play into the spiritual? Now, I know our minds, and again, this gets complex, I don't know how to think about this. Our minds do transcend our brains at some level. At the same time, our brains are the tool to think. Let's see if we can just hit this from a couple angles. I'm gonna try to move through this pretty quickly. As parents and teachers, a little more in the school, academic, I want to encourage you, set goals together. I think it's wonderful if at the beginning of the year you can meet and set the goals, even share them with the children. Some parents will do this with the teacher, with the student, eventually when the child is old enough. What are the goals? for the year. What are we going to do when we don't meet them? And then review those goals. Again, going into the year just hoping it's all okay. Might not work. First grade, maybe. Fifth grade, sixth grade, we had a rough year last year. Had a break over the summer. We're ready to begin again. Oh, we just hope it's all okay. It won't be okay, probably. What are the things we faced? What are the goals? How are we going to communicate? I love when there's a journal that goes back and forth. It can be a journal that the child doesn't see, of course. And I know this is a lot of work. Maybe you can't do this every day. I'm not saying it has to be this way. It's just a suggestion. Where the teacher writes down a little bit how it goes. The parents write down how it went last night. Got to bed a little late. Didn't go real well this morning. I think it's pretty touchy. Or, ah, she seems very calm. I think you'll have a good day. Just communicating, communicating, back and forth. Builds trust, and the child knows that, hey, everybody's on the same team trying to help us. Sometimes it's called TIC, trauma-informed care. Connect, then correct. See, we're busy. We're busy as parents, we're busy as teachers. We want to correct and move on. Connect, then correct. Take time to calm the child down. Look them in the eye. Spend time to just get them, their heart rate down a little bit, their breathing relaxed, and then talk to them. You can't do this on the fly. You can't do this when the emotion's all way up there. It takes a lot, often, to settle the child. So connect, then correct. Give them a second chance to redo what they did wrong. I think it's pretty important. The child crumbles the paper. I'm not doing that. Oh, let's punish him. Or should we say, well, that's not how to act. Let's try this again. And don't overly ask why, why, why. I was talking to a school the other day and, well, the teacher asked why he throws his shoes around and he just doesn't know. Well, of course he doesn't know why he throws shoes. I mean, he throws shoes because that's what's happening. I mean, you can't ask him, why did you crumble the paper? Do you have a bad attitude or what's going on? They don't know why. They can't ascertain that. You know why, Mehdi. But they can't explain that. Don't try to tease out of them things that they simply cannot conceptualize or they cannot verbalize. Give them a second chance. Here, let's try this again. Here's your paper. What are we supposed to do? Calmly walking them through. Good job, you followed. What are you supposed to do? Giving them a second chance rather than just punishing moving on. I think sometimes helps to hit the reset button and gives them a chance. Safety, a calm atmosphere. I wish we could talk about this a little more from the school standpoint. Teachers, it doesn't do these children good, the parents know this, to have a lot of surprises and a lot of fun things going on, does it? So tomorrow, we're going to have a fun day, students. It's going to be fun, fun, fun. What are we going to do? Oh, just wait. It's going to be a day like no other. Some children go home and they're happy. That little child won't sleep. Yes. What's going on? What is it? What are we going to do? They don't see that this is going to be a great day. They are worried. I know they're control freaks. I know they are, but it doesn't help to do that to them. A steady, predictable day after day is what these children need. You might not be able to do some things that you can do with one group that you can't do with another group because of even one child. Warn them when there's going to be a fire drill. Warn them. Nobody else knows it. They better know, maybe. Because when that fire thing rings, who knows what comes back in their mind? tell you terrible stories and you probably know terrible stories of what comes back to children's minds when those things happen. Exactly. And then, then you can't, then what are you going to do, right? How can you clean it up then? Observe trigger points. We had a student that any word like blood, that child would disassociate, if you know what that means. They just kind of go into another world. Dear little girl. Oh, just so sad. She had seen, before she was taken into care, blood as a spelling word. No, no, no. Know your trigger points when you can. Document them. Today went bad. What ought to we do? How did the day go? And try to understand what are the triggers. It often is trigger points. It sets off behaviors, things that we don't understand. But if we can follow a pattern, then we can start getting a hold of it then. That's when it happens. It might be words. It might be smells. It might be sounds. That sets a child off for reasons that we really don't always know. Sometimes we do. Often, I think we don't. Maybe don't ask them why. I mentioned this and I'll just say this real briefly again. Tell these children what they did wrong, not why they did it. Why did you do that? They don't know. Exactly. So you went past the window. What did you do? Nothing. Yes, you did. Did you stick your tongue out? No. Oh, now we've got to spank you because you lied. Well, what else are they going to say? I mean, it's me against the world. I know they shouldn't say that. I know, I know. But maybe we should say, Now listen, I want you to listen carefully to something that happened. I'm going to tell you what you did, and don't answer right away. But a teacher saw you stick out your tongue. OK? You did. You stuck your tongue out when you went past. The teacher saw it and told me. Don't say you didn't. Do you remember that? Yeah. OK? And then we work it from there. But we spring things on them. Did you do this? I'm not saying they should lie. I'm going to say, but they're going to. And then that's not really the problem. The problem isn't that they lied. The problem is their self-regulation before it happened. But suddenly we have two problems to take care of instead of just one. Don't shame them. Last of all, I think we just need to stop. Don't shame them. Shame is not a tool. Shaming these children is not a tool. Children often get very angry when they're shamed and made to look stupid in front of their peers, whether that's a church or elsewhere. Yes, sometimes they need to be embarrassed, I suppose, but not shamed. Shaming is not a tool. Thank you for your input. May God bless you.