When Maria, a 58-year-old new grandmother, saw her daughter caring for her newborn, she felt a wave of love and admiration. Finally, she thought, maybe now the cycle of family dysfunction is broken. Generations before her teemed with family dysfunction and adversity that included violence, substance abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and poor living conditions due to poverty. Though unaware of any connection, Maria also knew she came from a long lineage of chronic afflictions such as asthma, autoimmune disorders, ADHD, and anxiety. Maria’s mother had neglected her; she had been cold and unaffectionate, often choosing to be in the company of her boyfriend over her parental responsibilities. When Maria was old enough, however, she understood why: Her mother herself had grown up in a home rife with violence, addictions, and mental illness. Painfully aware of her lack of love growing up, Maria vowed that if she ever had children, she’d make sure they’d feel safe, secure, and unconditionally loved.
She went on a journey of self-healing that included mental health counselling and meditation. Despite popular parenting trends at the time, such as letting your baby “cry it out” to fall asleep, Maria was sensitively responsive to her children. Little did Maria know, her sensitive and responsive nurturing did more than break a long pattern of family dysfunction; it gave her future generations a chance at overall better health and wellness on a genetic level.
ACEs & TOXIC STRESS
For the past two decades, researchers have been studying how parental adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress can affect the health of both children and adults. Adverse childhood experiences are those that involve abuse, neglect, and household disorder, including having a parent with mental illness or addictions. The more ACEs a child has, the more likely they are to develop toxic stress.
According to Dr. Andrew Garner, pediatrician and clinical professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement on Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress, “Toxic stress happens when the body’s response to a threat or stressor is excessive or prolonged. In the absence of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships that help us to turn off the body’s stress response, excessive or prolonged exposure to stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline results in potentially permanent changes in the way our brains and immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems form and function. In the short term, these collective changes might be considered adaptive, as they prepare the body for fight-or-flight. But over the long term, these “survival mode” changes become maladaptive, increasing the risks for unhealthy behaviours, cancer, heart disease, dementia, and most of the leading causes of death in the US (the so-called non-communicable diseases).”
Toxic stress is especially harmful for children up to (and including) three years of age because this is when vital brain development occurs. Growing up in a threatening environment can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, putting the child at risk for stress-related disease, behavioural issues, and cognitive impairment. These consequences can also have long-term effects on the child’s academic performance and achievement.
But that’s only half of the story. Toxic stress can alter one’s biology during adulthood in ways that can affect the development and health of future generations. Excessive levels of the stress hormone cortisol in an expectant mother can change the way her placenta functions in a manner that negatively affects her unborn child’s development. This is later manifested in the abnormal way the child will respond to stress exposure, with high cortisol levels both before and after the stressful event but not during, when cortisol should be at its highest. A father’s genes can also be re-programmed by toxic stress. These altered genes can then be transmitted to the next generation, potentially causing increased health risks throughout life.
The Good News
Like Maria, if you’ve had adverse childhood experiences that lead to toxic stress in adulthood, you can take steps to minimise the potential effects on your children. The key is calming that fight-or-flight stress response. Effective strategies include meditation routines that scan the body for signs of stress, such as:
- Clenched jaw
- Shallow breathing
- Rapid heart rate
Follow the body scan with progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing exercises. There are many excellent smartphone apps for learning meditation.
Dr. Gretchen Pianka, a pediatrician in Portland, Maine, and creator of Resilience University, regularly advises parents on how to develop self-care skills. “It’s important to have compassion for the parents so they know it’s okay when parenting gets hard and messy. We’ve got some tools, and we’re going to figure it out together.” Dr. Pianka’s website, Resilience-University.com, contains a wealth of resources and exercises for parents and their children, aimed at instilling resilience by learning how to calm their physiologic responses to stress.
But perhaps one of the most effective strategies for mitigating the harmful effects of toxic stress is simple loving touch and attentive engagement with your child beginning from the moment they are born. Numerous studies have shown that establishing early parent-child synchrony with frequent close affectionate contact co-regulates each other’s nervous systems. Tempered by oxytocin, cuddling with your baby can dramatically improve their development, sleep, stress resilience, attention, cognitive, learning, and language scores. Studies have shown that mothers also see improved mental health and lower cardiac risk. As children grow into toddlerhood, setting aside moments to engage with them every day, such as reading a book, offers opportunities for synchrony.
Now, two years later, Maria fully understands the impact of her decision to break the family patterns of dysfunction. She gave her granddaughter a gift greater than anything money can buy; she gave her a future with greater chances of physical health, mental wellness, and resiliency—not only for her granddaughter but also for the generations that follow her.
