Can trauma pass from parent to child?
It’s an interesting question. Some leading-edge research suggests that it’s possible – trauma felt by survivors might even affect their children’s gene expression.
But we don’t need epigenetics to study how trauma strikes across generations. For example, researchers at Auburn University studied a more mundane form of intergenerational trauma transmission.
Led by Mona El-Sheikh, PhD, a research team looked at whether household stress harms children’s stress response systems. They proposed that children who experience marital conflict will experience stress that results in poorer cognitive performance.
To test this hypothesis, researchers observed 251 children from two-parent homes of various backgrounds for three years.
Between the ages of 8 and 10, researchers interviewed the children every year about the marital conflict they had witnessed. They then measured respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which indicates parasympathetic activity in the body’s stress response system.
Researchers also tested for a relationship between RSA and the ability to regulate attention and emotion. To keep track of changes in cognitive ability, researchers gave the children a series of tests at ages 8, 9 and 10, recording the speed with which the children solved problems and saw patterns in new information.
Was there a connection between cognitive ability and stress?
The findings show that children who witnessed more marital conflict at age 8 displayed less adaptive RSA reactivity (RSA-R) at age 9. In other words, there was a possibility that the stress they experienced affected their stress response system, resulting in a weaker reaction from it later on.
These children with less adaptive stress response systems were also found to be slower in developing mental and intellectual ability, supporting the researchers’ theory that a weaker RSA-R predicts poorer development in cognitive performance.
The results of the study suggest that the stress of marital conflict affects the development of the children’s stress response systems, which help regulate attention and are related to mental and intellectual development.
However, without a control group it is hard to determine whether the children’s stress responses and cognitive performance result from witnessing marital conflict. There might be some confounding variable that correlates with both stress response and marital conflict that we haven’t observed.
This study was published online in Child Development, with a print edition forthcoming.
Have you ever worked with a client whose experience of trauma affected their relationship with their family? Please leave a comment below.
Having been trained by Terry Kellogg & his work with Viet Nam Vets in the ’70’s, linking his PTSD findings to Children of Alcoholics/Other Addicts – it allowed me to develop & provide COA Psychoeducational Programs for Elementary & High School Students in the ’80’s. A favorite was a Group I created/facilitated “Lunch Bunch” where identified by school personnel high risk students gathered with signed permission slips & brown bag lunches for an hour on school grounds with the theme, “What’s Bugging Me Anyway?” School staff as well as the students (& at home parents who were invited to follow-up evenings with addtl psychoeducation) were astounded by the ramifications on the children these kinds of at-home dynamics caused. The elephant in the room was unveiled & talked about. Today, working with adult Alcoholics/Other Drug Addicts in my Private Practice, this “small t trauma” is addressed early in recovery & validated. I call it unresolved issues or “Demons & Dragons.” I actually have a handout that has been created by clients citing the “t” issues experienced by them as children & what happens (in terms of relapse, etc.) if the secrets aren’t revealed in early recovery. It is extremely gratifying work. Bonnie Bianchi, LISAC, Prescott, Az.
My childhood was full of trauma. Already by my birth my farher was under high activation as the hospital doors were closed with my mother struggling from fainting in the car while I was trying to come to the world. Then a lot of hitting, life thretening situations, sexual abuses from neighbouring children, and others followed. I started to work on myself thanks to my daughter and after all these years I got to know that my father was brought up in a orphanage where hitting was a every day event, children were not aloud to speak nor to laugh, they were put into a cellar with rats if behavior was not as expected, if sick they had to eat up what they had trown up and some even died from the hittings but it was then said that they had fallen down the stairs. The name is Rathausen. I can only say that after this there is so much work to do for a relationship to work as one projects everything on the partner. I have been lucky but not every person would have the endurance that me and my husband have had. So yes, if you have no example of a healthy relationship you have to go on the discovery road and find out what that is.
This is fascinating stuff! Kathleen Murray, I share your experience. I have realized that I had this fear of being seen and being shot. Around the ages of 8/9 or so was the assassinations of King and Kennedy. Being seen=being shot. Also a fatalistic viewpoint of perhaps nuclear attack killing me when I was young, from the same Tuck and Duck drills.
As an adult massage therapist, I specialize in Myofascial Release as taught by John Barnes. This modality has led me into my own ‘stored’ trauma, and developed an awareness of how many of my clients have their own. I learn as much as possible so I can help in any way I can. I also have a list of mental health practitioners who have an awareness of trauma to refer.
Thank you for this work, and this opportunity to read what you think.
Ami
Hi everybody
I am so glad I found this website and your series, fantastic… I am researching complex trauma for many years, being a survivor myself (and now a “thriver”). I was able to turn around my liabilities and turn them into assets, so glad to help many more people now on the way to wellness and contentment.
As I was in a difficult relationship until last year with a still traumatised adult, I hope to get answers on how we can support the person, when he/she is still stuck in the time warp of past childhood trauma and not able to recognize it.
Happy for any comments
Cheers
Ziggy
Hi Ziggy.
My name is Brenton O’Brien.
I hoped to find you somewhere tangled within the Interweb!
My Email is
Brenton.obrien3377@gmail.com
I hope to make contact again and enlighten you with my small talk!
Thankkksss.
I am a survivor of child abuse and the trauma I experienced severely affected my ability to 1. choose healthy relationships, 2. be calm in the face of stressers, 3. be able to effectively solve problems within my marriages, and 4. be able to parent my children with love and kindness when I was under stress.
I had 3 children by 2 unhealthy marriages and it wasn’t until my oldest was 9 years old that I was able to find effective help and begin my recovery from my childhood trauma. My 2 oldest children are still affected by the things they saw and heard, and by the traumas they experienced as children. They have, each, battled with depression and problems in finding and retaining healthy relationships. We had many discussions, as they grew up, about the abuse and trauma and decided, together, that as a family the cycle would end with us. Having open communication has helped.
My youngest was exposed to very little trauma after his 2nd birthday and was given lots of love as he grew (as were the other 2 during and after my recovery.) My youngest is, actually, the most balanced and grounded of my children.
I am grateful for the opportunity to work with clients who have been affected by trauma in their life experiences. There are many…and each of them have trouble in their personal and intimate relationships…many times due to their inability to trust. Thanks for providing these informational trauma webinars!
I wonder how many ADD diagnosed kids come from homes with marital conflict. And why varieties of treatments aren’t more readily available.
Also, there are so many of us who slipped through the cracks, unrecognized as having problems, because we were able, to a degree to compensate in various ways.
Hi Janet – “compensation” = RESILIENCE & I speak from my own experience. Being in 12 Step Recovery plus twice a week therapy for two years & then Spring Tuneups to support my resilience, I can honestly say my life is good today. I know, at a very deep level, that none of what happened to me was my fault and that I deserve a life of contentment, serenity and a whole lotta healthy fun. I send along that message to you as well…Sincerely, Bonnie B.
I’m so glad this area is being more fully addressed. I was brought up in a home where my mother had been separated from her mother when she was 7 and then been in a factory that was bombed during the Second world war. Her mother lost two husbands and six children because of the First World War. Marital discord just added to the mix. All this trauma definitely affected parenting skills and i see the results in my clients all the time, down through the generations even with young clients whose grandparents suffered from deep trauma.
I wonder if Wednesday’s seminar will address why it is some people seem more resilient to stressful childhoods than others?
Thank you so much Ruth and others for your wonderful sharing and caring!!!
Never tired of new perspectives.
One area of childhood trauma I’m interested in is the effect of growing up in America during the nuclear age, when we used to have to “duck and tuck” in classrooms. When I was a child I didn’t think I would have a chance to grow up – I had ongoing fear of the “end of the world” and nuclear destruction. This continues to play out around the state of the world today in with planetary destruction may not be a “childhood fear” but a possible reality.
The vulnerability to this, of course, was built upon living in an environment of parent’s marital conflict and some domestic violence in the family history.
Your series is very good. One important are I don’t see addressed, however, is in the area of suicidology. Suicide is such a major issue in the military and with today’s teens.
Keep up the good work!
FM
This is such an important area of study! I hope our policy makers are paying attention because the implications are vast. Thanks so much for sharing.
i love your series. i am very much interested in them,.i am able to learn a lot.
thanks,
usha