#of course that's going to impact her views self-esteem and behavior

[fromtheseventhhell]

Do you ever think about how Arya being left-handed most likely had an impact on her needlework and other tasks? And how she needed special attention not only because she wasn't as naturally gifted as her sister but because the way she was being taught fundamentally didn't work for her? And how instead of being given the attention she needed she was instead held to an unfair standard by her teacher and used as a measure for bad behavior? And how this all impacted her self-esteem and her views on being a Lady?

[cosmicjoke]

Absolutely brilliant breakdown and analysis of Levi's PTSD. I really appreciate how you went through each instance and example of Levi's actions and behavior and correlated it to actual, existing and documented psychiatric studies and conditions.

I think it's pretty much impossible for Levi not to be suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, given the life he's had, the things he's experienced, and all of it is well backed-up by the evidence you've laid out so succinctly. It's an important post you've created here, for helping people to understand Levi better, to understand some of his behavior better, and to also have a better understanding of just how tragic his life has been. By far, Levi's suffered the worst life out of any of the characters in AoT, and that's saying a lot, because no one in this story has had an easy time of it. One of the most heartbreaking consequences of Levi's trauma is how it's so negatively impacted his view of himself, and also how it's fostered a fear in him of getting close to others. When he says to Armin that if he keeps sleeping, they're going to forget he even exists, it's Levi saying that they would have no reason to remember him if he isn't actively out there fighting. It shows an actually devastating lack of self-worth, that he doesn't think there's anything about him that's worth anyone's consideration other than his ability to be used by them as a weapon.

What really makes this all the more heartbreaking is how Levi's fear of forming "family connections" really contradicts, powerfully, Levi's low self-esteem. Because it shows how much he cares about others. That he's afraid of forming close bonds with them because he knows if they die, he'll be devastated. He knows he isn't capable of remaining detached or unfeeling toward other people, and his desperate attempt to shield himself from being hurt by their loss is to simply keep his distance from them. But of course, even then, Levi feels each loss keenly. It's proof of what an incredible person Levi actually is, that he cares so much, even about people he's not particularly close to. I'll never forget Levi's absolutely stricken expression when Kenny killed Nifa, when he looks over at her dead body just before the battle with Kenny and his squad commences. For an instant, there's a look of utter agony on Levi's face. So while Levi thinks so little of himself and his own worth, the actual weight of his worth is demonstrated by his incredible compassion and empathy toward others. That's a person who's worth is immeasurable, someone who truly feels it and cares so much when others are hurting.

Anyway, fantastic post @darkskywishes Everyone should read it!

Levi and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

TW: mentions of rape and childhood sexual abuse

Throughout the course of Attack on Titan, and even before the canon timeline, Levi experiences innumerable traumas, not the least of which are repeatedly experiencing the deaths of his closest friends and comrades. By the end of the series, Levi has lost every single person he had been close to, being the last of the Survey Corps' veterans. Given the truly immense amount of traumatic events Levi suffers, it'd be difficult to believe that he wouldn't have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and indeed, he does display several key features of the disorder.

Paraphrased, the DSM-5-TR PTSD criteria are as follows (American Psychiatric Association, 2022, p. 301):

Criterion A: stressor (one required)

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s):

Direct exposure

Witnessing the trauma

Learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma

Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

Criterion B: intrusion symptoms (one required)

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in the following way(s):

Unwanted upsetting memories

Nightmares

Flashbacks

Emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders

Physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders

Criterion C: avoidance (one required)

Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Trauma-related thoughts or feelings

Trauma-related external reminders

Criterion D: negative alterations in cognitions and mood (two required)

Negative thoughts or feelings that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Inability to recall key features of the trauma

Overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world

Exaggerated blame of self or others for causing the trauma

Negative affect

Decreased interest in activities

Feeling isolated

Difficulty experiencing positive affect

Criterion E: alterations in arousal and reactivity (two required)

Trauma-related arousal and reactivity that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Irritability or aggression

Risky or self-destructive behavior

Hypervigilance

Heightened startle reaction

Difficulty concentrating

Difficulty sleeping

Criterion F: duration (required)

Symptoms last for more than 1 month.

Criterion G: functional significance (required)

Symptoms create distress or functional impairment (e.g., social, occupational).

Criterion H: exclusion (required)

Symptoms are not due to medication, substance use, or other illness.

--

I've indicated the symptoms that apply to Levi, or that I believe likely apply, based on canon content in purple. Let's go one by one.

Criterion A: stressor

During the canon timeline, Levi was exposed to both large amounts of death and threatened death, primarily due to titan casualties, but also due to the circumstances of poverty and deprivation in the Underground. Notable examples include witnessing his mother die and decay while he starved as a young child; Furlan and Isabel's deaths; the deaths of Petra, Oluo, Gunther, and Eld during the Female Titan arc; the loss of Kenny; Erwin and the new recruits' suicide charge against the Beast Titan; and Hange's sacrifice.

Levi experienced multiple instances of serious injury, with the most significant being his injuries resulting from the thunderspear explosion and the Battle of Heaven and Earth. Given the nature of blast injuries, it is likely Levi suffered from internal damage—in particular, rupture of the respiratory and hollow organs, such as the lungs and bowels. We're also shown he suffered complete separation of the index and middle fingers of his right hand, as well as ocular damage to his right eye. A concussion and perhaps a traumatic brain injury following the blast is also likely, as well as hearing damage. Following the Battle of Heaven and Earth, he also experienced significant injuries to one of his legs, necessitating the use of a wheelchair three years post-Rumbling.

In regard to actual or threatened sexual violence, Levi was born and lived in a brothel, in which his mom was a prostitute. It's not an exaggeration to say Levi was likely the result of rape. Given the circumstances of his upbringing, it's also likely he witnessed the sexual encounters between his mother and the brothel's patrons and was perhaps sexually abused himself when his mother was unable or unavailable to protect him. Given the Bad Boy panel previews, we also know he was directly threatened with sex trafficking on at least one occasion.

Only one stressor is required to meet this criterion, and Levi meets all of them. He very much fits the profile of someone with complex trauma or C-PTSD, although that diagnosis has not yet been added to the DSM.

Criterion B: intrusion symptoms

Canon evidence of intrusion symptoms is a bit harder to find, given the heavy plot focus of Attack on Titan; however, I do believe there is enough to make some inferences.

During the Uprising arc, Levi takes note of a starving woman with her baby on multiple occasions, who appears to remind him of his mother. This indicates to me that he thinks of his mother and the circumstances in which he grew up with her with some regularity.

When he later confronts Kenny in the same arc, he specifically questions Kenny regarding the relationship he had with his mother, again indicating that Levi's mother took up significant space in his thoughts.

While we know Kuchel chose to keep Levi (rather than abort him), thus indicating Levi was a desired baby, it's evident that Levi's upbringing overall was damaging and distressing due to the severe poverty, food insecurity, and violence he endured as a young child. Accordingly, it's safe to assume that these memories related to his mother were likely to be both unwanted and upsetting.

We also have this panel during the War for Paradis arc, during which Levi ruminates on the deaths of his comrades and the purpose behind having saved Eren's life so many times. His facial expressions are truly crushing and filled with deep despair.

In terms of nightmares, we know that Levi experiences some truly disturbing dreams from the "Smartpass Good Night, Dear and Sweet Dreams Vol. 02" short story, in which he envisions his closest comrades all morphing into a sea of blood on a red carpet. Clearly, the affect of his dream has been influenced by the specter of death constantly looming over him.

Criterion C: avoidance

The full phrasing of this symptom (trauma-related external reminders) is, "Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders (people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s)." Similar to the unwanted upsetting memories symptom under Criterion B, there is not direct canon evidence, but I do believe there is enough to make some inferences.

Primarily, what sticks out to me about Levi is the fact that no one near him seems to have knowledge of his past, which indicates he does not talk about it. When his past is brought up, it's always people who have some direct knowledge about it speaking on it (e.g., Kenny or Erwin). This is shown both directly in canon, such as when Petra speaks to Eren regarding the rumors of Levi's recruitment into the Survey Corps, and in supplemental Smartpass content, like the Close Up interview with Erwin and Levi.

This comes across to me as an effort to avoid conversations, and thus, reminders and memories about the topic.

Criterion D: negative alterations in cognitions and mood

There's quite a lot of evidence for these in canon.

In terms of overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world, Levi has plenty. He appears to have the persistent belief that he only exists to be of service and use to others; he views himself as a tool, one which has no value if he is not directly contributing to something. This is exemplified by the following panels:

When Erwin asks Levi if he would be willing to be in charge of keeping the titan serum and determining whom to use it on, Levi answers with, "Why would you bother asking me?" This shows that Levi has no regard for his own personal feelings.

When Erwin and Levi are discussing the plan to take down the Beast Titan during the Reclamation of Wall Maria, Levi expresses his agreement with the plan by remarking that taking down the Beast Titan will act as him "[making] amends for failing to kill that armored brat earlier." This shows that Levi viewed it as his responsibility, and thus, his failure to take down Reiner. He placed an undue burden on himself here, casting blame for outcomes that should not be solely attributed to him.

And then there's this panel in the lead-up to the final battle, in which a severely wounded Levi is being reprimanded by Armin for being reckless and not resting, in light of his injuries. Levi responds, "... You want me asleep in bed? You're going to forget I even exist if I rest any longer." Levi suffered truly disabling injuries, and yet, he shows complete disregard for himself—concerned that no one will remember him if he is not actively fighting. This shows a projection of his own lack of self-worth onto how he believes others view him: if he is not useful, then he does not matter. Levi also shows disdain at the concept of resting and having been asleep, as if that's somehow a sign of laziness on his part, which is of course, untrue. No one would have faulted him for resting—he truly needed and deserved to rest.

We also know that Levi blamed himself for Kenny leaving him, which can be surmised from interviews with Isayama and the expression on Levi's face when Kenny abandoned him. Levi also asks Kenny why Kenny left him, which shows a certain preoccupation on Levi's part, wherein he worried there must have been something inherently wrong with him to make Kenny leave.

On the topic of Kenny and Levi, Isayama is quoted as saying:

"Levi still had the experience of being separated from Kenny during his childhood. He was constantly troubled by the thought of "Kenny left because I couldn't fulfill his expectations." When the Uprising occurred within the walls, and he confronted Kenny again as an enemy, Levi sought to meet what couldn't be satisfied previously." (x)

Regarding both negative affect and difficulty experiencing positive affect, Levi's expression and mood is frequently shown as depressed. There's a great post by @cosmicjoke on the topic. In terms of the latter, Levi laughs and smiles so infrequently that it's a significant moment at the conclusion of the Uprising arc when he smiles after Historia playfully punches him.

For decreased interest in activities, the full phrasing is, "Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities." Levi's character is contrasted with all the other characters in the series in the sense that he has no dreams of his own. Both Armin and Hange have that greater curiosity about the unknowns of the world, represented by the sea and titans; Erwin is similar in that he desired to validate his dad's theories about the outside world and the existence of other humans; Eren craved freedom above all else; etc. Levi, on the other hand, is never shown as having those same dreams and ambitions. Hence, I would say he demonstrates a markedly diminished participation in significant activities, as even though his complete lack of self-interest is immensely admirable, it is also deeply tragic—particularly as dreams and ambitions are often crucial for one's psychological well-being.

And then we also have feeling isolated, for which the full phrasing is, "Feelings of detachment or estrangement from others." On the topic of Levi and relationships, Isayama is quoted as saying, "It’s likely because he is afraid of forming close relationships. Because he exists in a world where one can be eaten by a Titan at any time, he consistently avoids building 'family'-like connections with others." (x)

This manga panel is a good example of how Levi views himself as detached from others. Pay attention to the phrasing: "And I doubt normal people think about these things on a daily basis... So that means I'm abnormal... Probably because I've seen far too many abnormal things."

Criterion E: alterations in arousal and reactivity

With all of the above laid out, Criterion E becomes very easy to meet.

For irritability or aggression, this is one of Levi's known character flaws, borne as a result of his upbringing.

For risky or self-destructive behavior, we have clear instances of Levi engaging in battle to the detriment of his physical well-being.

For hypervigilance, the last manga panel I attached provides a good example of that.

For difficulty sleeping, Levi is famously an insomniac, often quoted as getting 2-4 hours of sleep a night.

Criterions F, G, and H: duration, functional significance, and exclusion

Have the duration of Levi's symptoms been greater than one month? Yes.

Do the symptoms result in distress or functional impairment? Yes.

Are the symptoms more attributable to the physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition? No.

Thus, Criterions F, G, and H are met.

Citations

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Trauma- and stressor-related disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.).

[quenthel]

Analysis of the mongrels from Wrath of the Righteous- Lann and Wenduag

Most companions in Wrath of the Righteous in my opinion reach a level of depth and nuance that is rare in video games, even in rpgs. While other games have tried to create narratives where you have to pick one out of two potential companions to accompany you further, usually their impact on their own story but also the overall narrative is somewhat minimized (I’m looking here at mass effect primarily).

(minor tw for discussions of suicide)

Wrath of the Righteous offers a similar choice very early on- the first important choice of the game after all. Do you pick Lann, or Wenduag? This choice is also somewhat tied to which mythic path of the two available to you at this point of the game you want to pick or utilize. This early section generally speaking is pretty good at teaching about game mechanics (including tutorializing story choices, since some choices are tied to mythic powers, and some companions can and will leave you if you make bad choices. Initially I wanted to make two separate analysis posts about each of them, but because their stories are intertwined and reflect on each other, I figured it would be better to just analyze the both of them at the same time.

On a surface level the choice between Lann and Wendu is tied to alignment- Lann for good characters and Wendu for evil characters. However simply based on the fact that Lann and Wendu both will go with the commander depending on which one they trusted, and will stick by them (more or less) indicates, that there is more going on than simply one of them being good and the other being evil.

For starters, Lann’s alignment is Lawful Neutral. While Wrath of the righteous uses the same alignment chart that is usually used in Pathfinder (and DnD ofc) the game’s story does more with these rankings that it first meets the eye. Lann’s lawfulness for example very explicitly manifests in his judgemental nature. He is also very keen on established hierarchies and likes when these hierarchies are enforced (thus his liking of the Hellknights). He is not opposed to being cruel at times either, but he also has a very strong moral backbone. Generally his worldview was clearly reinforced by his upbringing as a mongrel in the caves, where people have to rely on each other for survival. He is very community centered overall, to the point where he determines his sense of self within a larger community, be it the mongrels or as a part of the commander’s squad. (I often joke about him being a tankie also lmao.)

Wenduag from the off just seems evil. She is abrasive, seems to almost worship strength, both in herself and in others, seems to have more of a social darwinist view on the world, and she is a liar. While Lann’s worldview is enforced by his place within larger communities, Wendu almost takes pride in NOT belonging anywhere. She is also much much more ambitious, and treats that as a quality that sets her apart from the rest. However, over the course of her quest it becomes clear that she in fact longs to belong, and cares a lot about everyone, she just simply mask it with abrasive behavior.

This difference is most striking when considering their worst outcomes (minus the worldstate where they die). If Lann is left behind in the caves, he clings to that rapidly deteriorating community desperately. When he is rejected even from there he seeks to better himself so maybe he can in the end save his clan by dying. He is, even while with the commander, actively suicidal. The game also pulls no punches when it comes to portraying his mental state. Almost all his dialogue where he talks about himself and the jokes he tells very clearly indicate his low self esteem and his suicidal tendencies. And when he is left alone without a community to belong to, or with a close friend or lover to guide him, he submits to those urges completely. While he is the more resistant to change out of the two of them, thanks to the strong sense of what is right and wrong, in this case he is willing to submit his sense of self to the community. If the mongrels under Wendu are more war like but free, he is willing to join them, even if that in the end (post-game) does usher him into suicide (or becoming an alcoholic).

Wendu reacts similarly of course. Wendu’s whole worldview rests on the fact that she is strong enough to be better than everyone else. The commander’s presence and their push back against Savamelekh is a threat to that idea as a whole. At first she becomes obsessed with killing the commander, then with killing the demon. She trains alone relentlessly, and hopes that in the end, the commander will recognize her as somebody worthy. While she also succumbs to her worst instincts, because of her ambition she can more easily pull trough, and even in the post game manages to try and chase her dreams further. While Wendu has a LOT to gain from the companionship trust and maybe love of the commander, she is also the one with less to lose if she does not have those things.

The two of them also have a different place within the mongrel tribe, and have different personal philosophies for this reason. While Lann is treated as an outsider, he is less accepted but never the less respected in his tribe, due to his prowess as a hunter and by becoming a value member of his little society. Its a position he has to work for however, and while (especially Sull and himself) talk about him very harshly, the ease with which the mongrels accept his leadership showcase, that he is not as much of an outsider as he thinks. His low opinion of himself clouds his judgement. ( Another clear example of this is his constant insecurity over his looks, even if the commander if flirting with him, while Wendu describes him as a very attractive, albeit dumb guy.) Wendu in contrast was always favored within the tribe for her skill, but her emotional needs were always neglected with her mother not around, and her father dedicating himself to the wellbeing of the tribe. While Lann thinks survival rests in cooperation, Wendu believes that survival means personal excellence first and foremost. While both of them strive to be the best version of themselves, Lann vies personal betterment a net good for the entire tribe, while Wendu believes it secures a higher place within the hierarchy of the tribe, and strengthens her position.

I talked about the worst version of them that can happen in the game. But what about the best and what does that mean for their respective stories?

Lann’s triumphant moment shows him that he has a place in the world, even if he is not perfect. Wendu’s on the other hand shows her that she does not have to grovel before those who are stronger than her in order to solidify her position. Both stories therefore are about acceptance and rejection. Not only by the commander, or by the uplanders, but also by the tribe itself. They both become good leaders of the tribe, even Wendu, who remains cruel, but also somebody who becomes dedicated to the good of her whole tribe, just like her father. Lann on the other hand brings the mongrels into the wider society of the uplanders, creates space for them where they are able to cooperate with others. In some way, the best outcome for their stories embody the best possible outcome for their personal philosophies.

At last, I’d like to talk about how each of them expresses love and emotions. Lann is the more “straightforward��� of the two, mostly because he is more emotionally intelligent than Wendu (but thats not saying much). His love for the commander (if romanced) is more akin to worship than love. He seemingly has a tendency to create idealized versions of people, and when they fail to meet that (and when they do something that compromises his moral values) his opinion drops harshly. His self esteem problems make him vulnerable to love, while his judgemental tendencies make it easier for him to cut people off (like he does with Wendu). This is the part of his writing I think could have been done better, because he is clearly struggling with self image issues and depression, yet even a romanced commander can’t really address that, or even compliment him. Overall, by the end of the game he is much more emotionally stable since he has a support net of his tribe, the people in the party, and even his mom.

Wendu on the other hand, is a huge mess. She claims she does not care about other people’s opinion, yet takes offense easily. She worries a lot about being accepted and respected by others. This is especially easy to see during her romance conversations and events, since many times she is testing the commander to see how much she means to them in small ways, while also showing a more vulnerable side of herself. She clearly struggles with that and with showing love however, because love and hate (as well as pain and pleasure) are closely intertwined for her. One of the reasons she acts as abrasive and mean to uplanders is because by coming to the surface, she lost all of her social standing as a good hunter, and as an attractive woman. She is dropped into a completely alien environment, and she is trying to do her best and make sense of it in the only way she can, and that is by acting though and showcasing her strength and value. She has her schemes going on too, but is willing to abandon them ultimately, if a better opportunity presents itself. Her sense of self preservation is incredibly high after all, as well as her ambition, and those things remain a driving force for her throughout the story. However she is clearly emotionally neglected as a person, and because of that neglect has become incredibly cruel and selfish. During her romance she is able to break trough that selfishness however.

Another interesting thing about Wendu is her relationship with sex and sexuality. From conversations both with Lann and Wendu (and between them and the rest of the companions) it is a little bit clear, that the mongrels are a bit homophobic, or at least that this is a taboo topic. (Main sign pointing to this is Lann’s cluelessness about his own attraction towards Daeran, but this is mostly a hint and not actually stated in the text.) Wendu’s bisexuality does come up in dialogue a little bit, and this might be another reason why she is even within the tribe a bit of an outcast. Also hints at this the fact that the only female sexual partner she ever hints at is the cultist woman from the labyrinth, who is not part of any mongrel tribe. She also openly talks about being kinky, so her groveling behavior has a sexual angle as well. This also showcases that for her pain and pleasure are mixed together. While this alone does not mean anything unhealthy going on with her, it also parallels with her chaotic emotional state, since loving and hating are also things that are intertwined for her. We can see this in the way she talks about her dad, in the way she talks about and to Lann if chosen (seemingly hating him for giving up and not liking himself, and not for any other reason), and in the possible jealousy dialogue as well, with her being the only companion that gets incredibly angry and yells “I hate you!” at the romanced commander. Interestingly enough, while she is not loyal to people, she has a hard time letting people go who are close to her. While Lann will not hesitate to kill her if given permission or excuse, Wendu has a hard time doing so. She is also much more willing to change for the people whom she loves, even asking Lann what he thinks of her now before blowing him off anyway to keep up appearances, and asking the commander if they want her to be “good” in the last romance scene.

Overall, both of them are very interesting companions, and I recommend playing trough both of their content at least once.

[animeyanderelover]

Naru/Hina and Mina/Kushi sharing a darling who is an experiment from another world and just wants to feel useful by helping them. (Bonus if their powers are that of Azur Lane or Kancolle)

Parents and son and all of 'em are sweet. Btw, I did not include those powers since I do not know those games. Hope it still turned out fine😖.

Tw: Yandere themes, obsessiveness, possessiveness, overprotective behavior, sugar-coating, s/o being an experiment, low self esteem, reader being mistreated

Experiment

Minato Namikaze&Kushina Uzumaki

⚡️🌶Those two might be able to be at one point open with their relationship and love for their darling, but the fact that they're from another world and were merely treated as a test subject is something both would like to keep quiet about. It's not only because this might stir some people and even villages up to want to hunt their darling down or capture them, greedy for their knowledge and the special abilities that were created due to this, but mostly because they know how hard this all was and still is for their darling, having left a heavy impact on them. You do not have to tell them of course as long as you are not ready, but both of them also feel like talking might help a bit and are always there if you need some sort of comfort. And whilst Kushina has a rather open otburst once you do tell them about how you were treated, cussing and yelling at those people, Minato tries to keep control, though he is certainly seething as well, not believing that someone would do this to you.

⚡🌶Given the fact that you were only being seen as an experiment and nothing more, from a certain point of view both understand why you are acting with such utter desperation, always rushing to help them so you can feel useful. And whilst other people might just see you as a very helpful person, Kushina and Minato are both able to tell that you do it so you can feel like you have some use for them as well. It is extremely saddening for them to see how messed up your past was that it has escalated to this point and both of them don't support this at all. Both just often have to sit down with you and try to explain to you that you don't have to do this and that they love you no matter what and if you get desperate, they get as well. For Kushina it is heart-breaking to the point where she tears up whilst Minato watches with a painfilled expression. But they're determined to prove to you, no matter how long and if they have to be more smothering and have to force you to stop and just do nothing except to be with them so be it.

Naruto Uzumaki&Hinata Hyuga

🍜💘Naruto might prove to be at the beginning some sort of problem because he is one of the most delusional Yandere in the whole Anime and so he might really just believe that his darling is some sort of soulmate for him and Hinata given the fact they were teleported in this universe. Luckily Hinata is a bit more aware and knows that this is not the case, though she can't really convince her husband otherwise. With those two as well the relationship will be made public very quickly and no one will really mind since both are just extremely in love with their s/o, though they as well will have to keep quiet about your real identity and powers. But for Naruto it is much harder to stay calm whilst knowing how cruelly you were treated, leading him to nearly going berserk and if there wouldn't be a dimension seperating him from those people, he would totally lose it and kill them all. Hinata manages to calm him somewhat down, though she is horrified for you when hearing this.

🍜💘Naruto and Hinata just try to make their darling feel better by being extra lovely and affectionate with them, all to make them feel loved and cherished and forget about their past. It is Hinata who is surprisingly the one who stays calm when noticing the signs of low self-esteem from her darling since she used to be that way as well and for that has the better understanding of this situation. Naruto on the other hand kind of goes desperate as well when witnessing that you try to prove your worth, blaming it with all rights on the persons who did this to you in your world and he grows more clingy, thinking he has to make his feelings more clear and he asks Hinata for help as well. Hinata feels the same, knowing that low self-esteem is not easily removed and she is the one who can talk with you about it since Naruto can be more overbearing than she can be. Both go with a similar method like Kushina and Minato, spending lots of time with you and forcing you to stop helping them constantly to realize that you don't have to do so. Naruto grows additionally more vicious against other people who are mean to you, knowing how you might feel about this.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

My friends and I occasionally play that made-up game called "Kerfuffle" - A bit like DnD but with everyday life tasks and not as nerdy (sadly :D). You pick a random politician, TV char., etc. and try to overcome some challenges in a way you assume they'd do it. Last time we played, I obv picked s.o. from ST - Joyce. That was when a random thought crossed my mind: If s.o. were to name each ST main character's greatest weakness/ strength, what would be the outcome? I immediately thought of you. :D

Ok, now that the election is over, and my anxiety has come back down to its usual “only a little high” status, it’s back to business here. This is an interesting question from my pal @sollody here. I’m not going to be able to go too much into depth given the breadth of the question here, but it’ll be a nice look at several characters. Perhaps this will result in requests for more in-depth looks at some of them individually. For the sake of having a defined meaning of “main character,” I am only going with characters who were in all three seasons and were directly involved in the action (sorry, Mr. Clarke). I will make an exception for Max, as she’s just too central to leave out.

The Party

Mike

Greatest Strength: Determination. Once he sets his mind on something, he does everything in his power to see that it happens. Do not try to come between Mike and his objective. God help you if you try to stop him when his objective involves Will or El.

Greatest Weakness: A lack of emotional intelligence. Mike reacts to his emotions as they come. There’s no apparent self-awareness, and this results in impulsive behavior that leads to negative outcomes for himself and his relationships. The feelings themselves aren’t the problem. Mike just doesn’t understand them enough to react appropriately.

Will

Greatest Strength: Quick thinking. I was tempted to mention his compassion, but really Will’s greatest asset is his mental acuity. Since season 1 he has shown an impressive capacity for quick thinking in stressful situations.

Greatest Weakness: Insecurity. Will has self-esteem issues resulting from not only the Upside Down situation, but also more mundane personal and family experiences. He worries about how people view him and fears that he’s being left behind. This leads to him keeping important things to himself, things nobody, especially a child, should be expected to deal with alone.

Lucas

Greatest Strength: Rationality. Lucas has generally been the member of the party with the most down-to-earth mindset. Regardless of all of the supernatural goings on, Lucas has tried to view things realistically. His approaches to the events of the series have typically been the most practical, skeptical, and grounded. Ironically, this actually does make him a good Winston, though I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him this.

Greatest Weakness: Overconfidence. Lucas is very sure of himself, sometimes too much so, even when warned off by others. From being sure that El was trouble, to risking a beating from Billy, to thinking he’s some suave expert on women, Lucas has made trouble for himself and his friends. He doesn’t meant to, of course, and a lot of this may come from some desire to “be a man.” Lucas needs to learn to accept himself as he is.

Dustin

Greatest Strength: Curiosity. Dustin is always looking to learn more about anything and everything. Nothing is too weird or off-putting for him. His knowledge has come very much in handy for the Party, and this general attitude has led to him accepting the supernatural events in stride.

Greatest Weakness: Recklessness. Dustin, in his pursuit of satisfying his curiosity, or some other goal, can fail to see clearly obvious dangers. Find a strange creature? Raise it yourself. See a strange growth in the underground tunnels? Go get a closer look. Find out about a possible Russian base in the mall? Let’s go check it out! His goals are often admirable, but his approach is often foolish.

El

Greatest Strength: Adaptability. El has managed to escape a government facility, survive in the woods, and travel to unfamiliar locations despite her young age. While she has been somewhat dependent on her powers, she’s managed to accomplish some impressive feats for someone who hasn’t had anything close to resembling a normal upbringing.

Greatest Weakness: Ignorance. This isn’t the “you’re so ignorant!” meaning of the word. I mean it in the truest sense of the word: El just lacks a lot of information in life. Most critically, she’s emotionally and socially unaware. A lot of her schemas for relationships come from TV shows and what little she picked up from Mike in season 1. She’s gotten somewhat better as the seasons moved on, but there’s just a lot she doesn’t know. This had led to her being suspicious, angry, and possessive (specifically of Mike), harming her relationships with others.

Max

Greatest Strength: Acceptance. Max doesn’t unduly judge anyone. Her issues with Mike stemmed from his treatment of her. Aside from that, some light teasing aside, she was more than happy to accept the Party as her friends. She didn’t let Lucas’ race get in the way of their mutual attraction, despite knowing what Neil and Billy would think about it. She wanted to be El’s friend from the start, and, despite being harshly rebuffed at first, she accepted El when she sought Max out in season 3. It’s really a testament to how determined she is to not continue the cycle that Neil and Billy brought into her life.

Greatest Weakness: Family. Honestly, Max’s biggest drawback is her home life. She’s worried that she may end up going down the same angry, abusive road as Billy and Neil. She’s mistrustful, snarky, and blunt even when not worked up, behaviors she likely developed due to exposure to Billy and Neil. She also seems to still love Billy despite his abusive behavior. This sort of family dynamic can be very damaging (and it was probably just as harmful to Billy). Hopefully, Max’s found family serves to offset the harm done by her “real” family.

Older Teens

Nancy

Greatest Strength: Determination. It must be a family trait. Nancy is relentless, and she will get to the truth of the matter, one way or another. Nobody, and indeed no monster, will keep her from what she’s after.

Greatest Weakness: Egocentrism. Nancy can easily lose sight of how things impact those around her. Her desire to prove herself has left her somewhat blind to the difficulties other people face. She has trouble relating to people from other situations.

Jonathan

Greatest Strength: Compassion. Jonathan has sacrificed a great deal for his family, and he’s apparent done it without any noticeable resentment. His treatment of Will resembles the ideal that a lot of parents hope for in their kids (though in reality Mike/Nancy or Lucas/Erica is the more realistic outcome). Jonathan just wants those important to him to be happy.

Greatest Weakness: Social Awkwardness. Jonathan has a great deal of trouble interacting with other people. This likely stems from his family situation, as his father leaving left his family as pariahs of sorts, and it also left him having to be a sort of father figure when he should have been able to be a regular teenager.

Steve

Greatest Strength: Courage. Yes, Steve has been freaked out by everything, but that’s irrelevant. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the ability to feel fear and not let it control you. Steve has willingly put himself in harm’s way for the sake of others in all three seasons. The only thing that scares Steve too much to overcome is social judgment...

Greatest Weakness: Insecurity. Yes, our buddy, King Steve, has self-esteem issues. This is why he’s always trying to play himself off as a hotshot. He’s simply too afraid to just be himself. Sadly, it’s only when he lets this guard down that he’s at his best. He’s made some stride at overcoming this, and I’m hopeful that he continues this in season 4.

Adults

Joyce

Greatest Strength: Ferocity. Do I even need to explain this? Do NOT threaten Joyce’s loved ones, especially Will. Just don’t.

Greatest Weakness: Emotional Reactivity. When stress hits Joyce, she reacts hard. It’s perfectly normal, given the level of stress she feels, but it leaves her seeming “crazy” and makes it hard for others to understand what she’s trying to get across. As a result, her message, warning, etc. is lost and her credibility is damaged. In less serious occurrences, she instead just comes across as belligerent or annoying, even though she’s generally right about whatever she’s on about.

Hopper

Greatest Strength: Compassion. Hopper is at his best when he’s trying to protect others. Despite having worked to close himself off from the world after his personal trauma, Hopper still feels compassion. He probably never wanted to feel anything for anyone again (perhaps why he returned to a boring town like Hawkins), but when tragedy struck it brought out the best in him. Though, that brings us to his weakness...

Greatest Weakness: Insensitivity. Perhaps ironically, Hopper’s weakness is the complete opposite of his strength. Hopper is a man who runs hot and cold. Which version of him that you get depends on his mood. If you get his bad side, prepare for harsh words, and perhaps harsher fists. This may help him get the job done at times, but it harms his relationships. He has a tremendous fear of loss, which results in him lashing out fiercely at those he cares for if they do something to that risks him losing them.

Ok, that’s the best I could come up with. I’d love to read other people’s thoughts on the matter.

[mbti-notes]

[1] Hello, INTP here. I have a problem that seems to be related to underdeveloped Fe. For basically all my life, I feel like I can’t connect with anyone and wouldn’t miss them even if we parted ways and were to never see each other again. I know it’s egoistical, but I don’t know how to change it.

[con’t: The main problem is about my mother. She’s a person who really cares about others and misses me a lot ever since I moved out. However, I don’t reciprocate her feelings and I feel incredibly bad because of this. I grew apart from her when I was about 13 because she became emotionally manipulating and controlling because of some personal matters that spiralled into paranoia. I know she didn’t have ill intentions, but it still screwed me up and made me distance myself from her. I think this has also contributed to the problem mentioned before (at least, regarding her). The thing is, I know I should miss my parents like they miss me, but I just… don’t. My mother gets incredibly upset and starts crying whenever I tell her this, and I feel bad for doing so, but I think it would be harder and crueler for everyone in the long run to just fake emotions I don’t actually feel. I’m tired of being so emotionally numb, but I don’t know how to change it. The most surprising thing is that I’m not a cold person regarding other aspects of relationships (I’m usually genuinely kind and respecting of others, for example), only when it comes to get attached to them. Do you have any advice on how to start bonding appropriately with people? Thanks in advance.]

Yes, Fe problem, which also means Ne problem. INTPs are emotionally blank when they severely lack extraverted development. Being an Fe type means that you have to engage with the world in order to feel things, you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zones in ways that trigger (new) feelings and emotions. Inferior Fe essentially boils down to deep-seated fear of emotional life. Being existentially scared of feelings and emotions means that you don’t get to have them unless something literally forces you to have them by smacking you upside the head, therefore, many TPs perceive emotional life as being quite unpleasant and, of course, don’t want anything to do with it. Then you’re always reflexively pushing feelings away, ignoring them, downplaying them, devaluing them… until you can’t feel anymore (use it or lose it). When you can’t feel, then you’re lost, because you’ll have absolutely no idea how to care for yourself and your psychological well-being let alone others’. If only for the sake of knowing how to take care of yourself, you should want to have a healthy emotional life - that’s a big part of what it’s there for. You call yourself “egotistical”, which is kind of funny since an egotistical person only cares about themselves, yet you are actually incapable of caring for yourself.

You can’t force yourself to feel. Feelings must arise organically. However, what you do have control over is how OPEN you are to feeling feelings. If you don’t develop your extraverted functions, you have no openness, your existence is completely closed in upon itself as Ti-Si loop just stays in a self-defined “safe space”, never feeling, never impacted, never moving, never changing, never growing. Be honest, is that really where you want to exist for the rest of your life, essentially never mattering or doing anything that matters? Do you really want to live your life as though already in a coffin? Using the inferior function has a high chance of failure, so your attempts to use Fe haven’t done enough to make you understand how important relationships are to living life fully. To live life fully means that you must engage with life, and that is what Ne forces you to do. Ne is your bridge to Fe. You must open yourself up by choosing to take an interest in the world, by making commitments, by doing things that matter (through the impact that they have). The way to disarm Fe dysfunction is to develop auxiliary Ne so that you are able to think in possibilities, rather than just defaulting to the unhealthy Ti paranoia of believing that the whole world is conspiring against you. Developing Ne makes your judgment more accurate and objective by ensuring that you’ve tested your ideas properly, especially when it comes to the way that you judge people and relationships.

I can’t comment on your relationship with your mother because I can’t be sure that you’re giving me an objective view of the situation, since it’s likely that your judgments are distorted by Ti-Fe dysfunction. It could be that your mother is dysfunctional, it could be that you are, or it could be that you are both screwed up. Therefore, I can only address your side of the issue. If I had a dollar for every time an INTP complained about being “manipulated” by someone, I’d have a much nicer home to live in, it’s almost gotten to the point of sounding cliche. Dysfunctional Fe results in grossly misjudging people and social situations. Whenever I have the opportunity to hear the other side of the story, it often turns out that the other person was simply trying to show that they care, though, to be fair, they perhaps did not choose the best way. And without fail, the dysfunctional INTP always interpreted normal caring behavior as “invasion” or they might say something like “I didn’t ask you to care about me”, which is basically like shouting to the world “I don’t want to be cared about!” If you go through life not wanting people to care about you, don’t be surprised that you end up feeling alienated, since dysfunctional Fe eventually morphs into Fe grip - the voice that continuously haunts you with guilty feelings about being a “useless piece of trash”, which doesn’t bode well for your self-esteem. Perhaps you think it easy to ignore those feelings so far, but I guarantee they only get louder the longer you put off dealing with the problem. Are you resigned to this ending? Are you putting effort into a different ending for yourself? 

Being in a relationship isn’t only about the other and “doing your duty” out of guilt. This is a very narrow, limiting, and one-sided way to conduct a relationship. There are two components to consider in relationships: 

The Social: performing the “contractual” duties and responsibilities appropriate to your role in the relationship. Knowing obligations and carrying them out ensures that both parties benefit relatively equally; on a larger scale, this is the foundation of social stability, and everyone reaps the benefits of living in a stable and healthy society. Your role as someone’s child, sibling, friend, colleague, etc, comes with certain obligations. When people fail to carry them out, the relationship tends to become one-sided, either you take and don’t give, or you give and get nothing, which leads to resentment and unwillingness to continue with the relationship. You make the choice to commit yourself to relationships when you understand that they are necessary for good psychological well-being, and performing your duties well is good for other people’s well-being, i.e., you’re doing something that matters, which lends substance to your existence.

The Emotional: fostering the feelings and emotions that are necessary for building and maintaining a sense of connection with people. Knowing how to nurture care, love, concern, empathy, compassion, etc, ensures that everyone feels invested in the relationship and motivated to continue it. A large component of human motivation is rooted in feelings and emotions, so if your emotional life is dead, motivation to do anything becomes very hard to sustain. If there is no feeling behind the relationship, then it becomes empty, just going through the motions, eventually realizing there’s no good reason to continue. Of the INTPs I’ve spoken with, the biggest obstacle in this department is usually Si loop. They harbor many old resentments, old pain, old failures, old fears, old betrayals, etc, that they don’t want to confront and resolve (due to fear of feeling). Being unable to let go of the past means that you cannot build something new for the future. For example, it’s hard to love your mom when you’re holding old resentments against her, isn’t it? 

If your relationships aren’t or haven’t been mutually beneficial and rooted in love, why not? It can’t always just be the other person’s problem. What about your side of the problem, how do you create the shortcomings? Are you able to create mutual benefit? Are you open to loving and receiving love from others? Are you capable of approaching relationships with a clean slate? I don’t know your history, so I can’t tell you the answers, it’s for you to reflect on. If you’re really having trouble digging into yourself, perhaps it’s worth working it out with a therapist.

[invertedphantasmagoria]

Sometimes I wonder how shitty Nicolas and Christian must've felt after each negative thing that happened on the crusade. We know this permanently scarred Nicolas but we don't get into Christians feelings about the matter. They bothed watched friends die and all because they wanted Étienne to have an adventure.

Thank you so much for sending this!!!

-Christian was, unfortunately, severely mentally ill. It’s hard to place exactly what her condition was, consider how little manga there is, but something was definitely going on with her. She expresses a massive amount of self hatred, extreme and violent jealousy, a violently negative reaction to rejection, seemingly placing her entire self-worth on Etienne’s reciprocated love, possessive behavior, a willingness to harm others, and more. Christian is suffering, that much is obvious. 

However, it’s hard to say how much this impacted her feelings for others that aren’t Etienne. I feel like she was so sucked into her plot to win Etienne’s love that she would have tried to convince herself that anyone else who got hurt along the way was just a necessary casualty. I don’t see her being anywhere near as torn up by the deaths as Nicolas, if only because she was so lost in her own struggles that she didn’t stop to consider the weight of it all. 

That’s not to say that she wasn’t affected, though. Christian likely would have internalized everything that happened, forcing herself to believe that it only happened because she was selfish, because she was wrong. Her self esteem is in the gutter already, and so much guilt would only drive it deeper.

On another point, Christian, like the rest of the kids, was a child. She was only fourteen when this whole mess happened, and we all know how immature and unaware of consequences kids that age are. I don’t know if she realized the full extent of what was happening, or how much her immaturity would have affected her view of what she lived through. It’s very possible that she didn’t understand how what happened was her fault. She wasn’t at the age where she’d be capable of concrete thinking yet, and it’s not a stretch to assume that her immaturity protected her in some ways. 

Overall, I think that Christian would have blamed herself for the deaths, taking them as another sign that she was bad and had to be fixed. However, they didn’t affect her as badly as they did Nicolas, and a combination of her own immaturity and her mental illness deeply swayed her view of the situation. 

-Nicolas, on the other hand, we see how he suffers. He’s a sensitive, emotional child, and he takes everything that goes wrong to heart. While trying to be an adult, a knight, someone who can protect Etienne and lead the Crusade, he winds up taking on the full weight of everything that happens to them all. By making himself the leader, he unintentionally allows himself to be hurt even more by accepting the responsibility before he ever knew what could go wrong.

What happens is very much his and Christian’s fault, but Nicolas especially was too young to truly be blamed. He was twelve. He was a literal child, and wound up stepping straight into the adult’s world before he understood the consequences. Nicolas was innocent. He was stupid. He was a dumb, ambitious kid who didn’t understand a thing about what he was doing. The sad part about Innocents is that all of the kids would have wound up being pulled into that adult world eventually, and what Nicolas and Christian did was just an early start to how badly everything could have gone anyway. 

Even more painful was Nicolas’s motivations. He wanted to be accepted more than anything, wanted to be loved in a way that the world had denied him, and he was willing to go to whatever lengths he thought he had to to get there. The entire Crusade incident could potentially have been averted if Nicolas had had someone to pay attention to him growing up, and that’s sad. 

Finally, we have Nicolas’s own emotional reactions to what happened. He’s a sensitive kid. He cries easy. He loves people too much. He does his best to protect the people he cares about, and he’s an open book to anyone who gets close. And unfortunately, that only opens him up to being hurt. He takes everything that happens to heart, and blames himself because he was supposed to be the leader. Every death is a personal wound to him, and every one crushed his innocence all the more. Nicolas had to grow up fast over the course of the manga, and the way that it happened left scars that he was never able to overcome. 

In conclusion, Nicolas took the deaths possibly the worst. He went into the Crusade with the most hope of all of them, and had it torn down at every turn. His childhood was taken away from him, and the pain and trauma of what he witnessed was something that he could never escape. 

[hippityhoppityyourenowmyproperty]

Reset! Rant (part 2)

Chapter: 10

In this chapter Wally shows up at Helen's house and confronts Thad with his earlier actions. (That being killing the clone.) He expresses his worry about Thad being around Bart and the potential threat he's posing to him.

Stopping when Wally didn't move out of the way, Thad glared up at the Flash. "What are you looking up?" "A killer." Wally replied. "You're not going anywhere alone with Bart."

...................................."Thanks." Then Wally looked to Thad. "Still, killing isn't the answer."

That's right, Wally is the one who tries to make sure that no more harm will come to Bart from the hands of Thad. No, not Helen is giving him the "Killing isn't right and I will not accept you going around murdering any more people" talk, it has to be Wally. Wally, the guy who can't be in the same room as Bart for more than ten minutes without getting into a fight with him is more concerned with his welfare than his actual surrogate mother. Once again, Helen comes off as irresponsible in her duties as his guard.

Around a mouthful of egg and sausage, Bart mused, "So what does that make a robot dog?" Reminded of his own dog begging by his chair, Bart dropped a piece of sausage on the floor for Dox.

Raising an eyebrow, Thaddeus eyed Bart. "I have to wonder if I was lied to about being a clone. Moments like that would be better explained if I was the original and you were the copy. So much could be excused by a bad splice."

What he's suggesting is: "I'm better than you and you are inherently flawed." And yes, both Helen and Wally heard Thad's put down, but neither of them spoke up about it. That implies that they think what Thad stated about Bart is right/doesn't need to be corrected.

Chapter: 11

Thad: "Max is why I'm helping. That he is too important to loose is why I'm leading. Bart lacks the capacity of forethought that is requiered in an operation like this."

This will become pertinent later when talking about Thad's hypocrisy.

Thad: "Until we encounter Rival, do not use your meta human abilities under any circumstances." Kon frowned and remarked, "Don't spoke the locals. Yeah, I think we can figure that one out for ourselves. We don't all ride the short bus."

"I was more concerned about Bart", Thad added.

"Hey! I know how to not use my powers!" Bart protested.

Thad muttered under his breath, "That's obvious."

That's judging and criticizing disguised as advice and a put down. And yes, Kon is a massive dick for saying the shortbus insult for the same reasons Thad was a douche for using the insult on Bart. Expressing his disdain through this term is still extremely inappropriate and unacceptable.

"I don't like him. He's a bossy jerk." Kon said to Bart as he leaned back. "Inertia? Yeah but at least he's helping."

Bart is saying that Thad helping him with bringing back Max justifies his shitty behavior. It obviously doesn't. Firstly, Thad is not doing this because he wants to do Bart a favor. He's solely doing this because he wants Max back. He's doing this for himself. If Carol or Helen had vanished, he wouldn't lift one finger to help find them. Secondly, him helping Bart does not excuse his toxic behavior. He can't just treat Bart however he likes because they're both working towards the same goal. He's still a dick for calling Bart these names.

Chapter 12:

"That was foul" Thaddeus remarked sourly. "Though we would have been here already if Bart hadn't missed a decimal point in the time coordinates.

"I couldn't hit it!", Bart defended, "Your arm was in the way!"

This is and excellent example of accusing and blaming coupled with senseless judging and criticizing. Thad is chewing Bart out for something that is completely irrelevant and unimportant, and that doesn't negatively affect him in the least. Furthermore, saying this after they landed didn't help Bart or the others in any shape or form. He's solely critizising him because he can and because putting Bart down makes him feel more powerful and superior. Then you have the fact that he's blaming Bart for something that is out of his control. He couldn't have changed it if he wanted to. It's not his fault that he missed it, like Thad wants him to believe. And, the most ironic part of course, is that Thad himself is responsible for Bart not being able to do what Thad reprimended him for not doing. If it wasn't for Thad, Bart would have been able to press the button. After Bart calling him out on his flawed logic and pointing out that Thad's accusations are unjustified and don't make sense, Thad stops responding. He drops the subject and ignores Bart's complaints. Moreover, we can't skip over the fact that Thad was adressing Bart's friends when critizising him, and not Bart himself. He's trying to get them to turn on Bart. He wants them to join in on ripping on him. 'Look at this idiot and be displeased with him', he's saying. 'Look at how dumb he is for having a minor mess up that doesn't affect us and that I'm really responsible for.' Abusers will often call people out on their (insignificant) mistakes or shame them for their personality flaws in public when in front of their friends or in privacy in order to humiliate and embarrass them. It's another insidious way of damaging their self worth and taking power away from them. Being exposed to a treatment like this for an extended period of time is like poison for a person's self esteem and sense of self worth. Sooner or later, nothing the victim of the abuse does or says will be good enough. Seemingly everything they do is wrong. The recipent of the abuse will start questioning their personality as a whole. The abuse will destroy a person's self confidence and self value and make them exactly believe what their abuser wants them to think of themselves. They're 'just' words, but they have a huge impact on a person. They can appear harmless and innocuous but they're not. It's a sentence that seems for a lot of people normal or acceptable, but it's lethal for someone's self esteem.

Thad: "I've taken Max into the speed force before to help him reconnect with it."

Thad uses I instead of we. He 'forgets' to mention that Bart helped carry Max into it after Thad tried to kill them and then left. Bart was the one who actually carried Max through the most dangerous part of the speed force, namely the speed storm. If anyone deserves credit for saving Max, it's Bart.

Kon's laughter managed to reach their ears. "I should have brought a camera! That was epic fail!" He was still laughing when their staggered to their feet. Inertia pressed his hand against the ball's wall with a rude gesture.

....................................

"We could do another practice run," Inertia suggested,"Superboy is close to Max's mass and he's invulnerable." ....................................Inertia saw the display read almost at the goal point where Morlo would shut down the run and grinned. He let go of Kon, hopped to one side and kept running. Kon and Bart crashed down and were pasted against the transparent wall, spinning at a sickening rate. With an extra burst of speed, Inertia kicked the ball faster and then vibrated out of it. Crossing his arms and laughing, he watched Kon and Bart spin around in the ball. When it finally came to a stop, Kon and Bart cralwed out of it. Inertia leaned over Kon "You're right, that was hilarious. I should have brought a camera." Impulse pulled the trashcan towards him and draped over it. "No more spinning", he moaned,"I hate spinning." .................................... "So, are we ready for the real run?" "As soon as Impulse gets back up," Morlo answered.

"I hate spinning" Impulse weakly repeated into the trashcan.

Inertia strode towards the sleeping rival. To Empress he asked: "How long will he stay unconscious?" "Hard to say," She replied. "So, you should move fast. You don't want him waking up while you're running."

So apart from that Bart shouldn't experience nearly as much nausea from spinning around as Thad should because his father was a Tornado Twin and that DNA string was removed from Thad's biology, and that Thad was only written to be more impervious to vertigo to make him appear superior and more "in control" than Bart, this is were Thad's action once again cross over to highly irresponsible, petty, selfish and, quite frankly, douchey behavior. He forces Bart and Kon to experience extreme vertigo because his ego can't take one joke. His pride was so wounded that he had to inflict pain on both of them so that he could regain the respect he thought Kon owned him. He doesn't care that Bart, who did absolutely nothing wrong, suffers as well. He probably views it as a bonus to humiliate Bart again. Thad only cares about reigning in Kon for his comment, it's not important to him who else gets hurt in the process. All he cares about is himself and how he feels, the rest of the world can go die if it were up to him.

The things he does are also very reckless and, dare I say, impulsive. They're on a time limit here. Empress used her voodoo magic on Rival to temporarly render him unconcious. Temporarly being the key word here. She admits that Rival could wake up at any moment and that she doesn't know how long she will be able to maintain control over him. And what brillant move does Thad, the boy who has supposedly as much brains as Robin has, pull? He holds them up with unnecessary pranks because he can't take his big ego being damaged. If Thad dislikes arrogant people who like to ridicule others so much, then he should take a good look into the mirror and start changing his ways. He his more oblivious to his own behavior than Bart is, and that's so ironic. Thad is supposed to be smart in this, but this was a reckless and selfish move. Rival could wake up at any moment, Thad actively endangers everyone that's in the lap with them. He risks Rival breaking free and killing even more people because it's more important to him that Kon 'knows his place'. By the way, great job on making Bart, your partner whom you need to success with carrying Rival through the speed force, trust you. What was it what you said about Bart again? That he lacks the capacity of forethought that is requiered in an operation like this? My, how the tables have turned.

Chapter: 13

Another possibility dawned on him. "What if that's why they weren't doing much to help Max in the first place?" His vision tunneled on the skillet with which he was cooking with and he clenched his jaw. "Why didn't they tell me? Why do I always have to be left in the dark?"

Thad's voice broke in,"Because you're an idiot. You would just brainlessly jump in and do the stupidest thing possible."

Another insult from Thad designed to make Bart even more anxious about his deep insecurities and shame him for having ADHD. Carol sits next to Bart while this scene happens, and she says nothing to comfort Bart and ease his concerns, nor does she tell Thad to lay off Bart or make him understand that his behavior is unacceptable.

"We're traveling through time, moron," countered Thad, "We can return later tonight, no matter how long it takes."

And another degrotary term linked to Bart being nd.

Chapter: 14

Shaking her head again, Meloni answered,"Sorry, sunshine. You said that it was a timeline that wouldn't happen? I'm guessing that the me that helped you was from the other timeline. She never existed here, so I don't remember any of that."

"Oh."

Thad rolled his eyes and snorted. "I can't believe you had to be told that." Bart scowled at him.

"Jerk."

"R*tard", Thad shot back.

Meloni stood up and pushed her dying hair away from her face. "I'm going to get dressed. If you're hungry, help yourself to the kitchen."

This. This is what convinced me to write this rant. To use the r-word on someone is offensive and repulsive for the same reasons the shortbus insults are unacceptable, but it's way worse. This is the most obvious way of saying: "You're inadequate/weird/not functioning properly/dumb because you are neurodivergent and because of that you should be ashamed of yourself and you deserve to feel bad." Being called a r*tard is like a punch to the face. It's extremely hurtful and damaging. It would be detestable if Thad would have used it on someone who didn't have ADHD, too, but for him to use it on someone who has it is just down right loathsome and shows us what a contemptible and vile person Thad is. You don't call this someone unless you really want to make them feel hurt and worthless. You don't do this unless you are a dispicable person. Calling nd people this is not okay, it's not funny, it's not harmless, stop using this word and start watching your language. If you can't see by now how abusive Thad is in this, then I don't think you will ever understand it. This is so unbelievable disrespectful and inexcusable, so goddamn contemptuous and insolent on Thad's part that I honestly expected Bart to finally snap and grind Thad's face into the dirt. Thad is such a condescending and self-entitled asshole in this that I hoped for someone to finally confront him with consequences for his shitty actions. But nope, he gets away with it yet again, all the while people will still criticize Bart for having minor mess ups. And this brings me right to my next point: Meloni's reaction, or rather, lack thereof. Meloni. HEY MELONI. You want to say something about your own child being called a r*tard right in front of you? You want to reign Thad in for insulting Bart like that? My god, how much do you have to hate your child to let someone call him the r-word right in front of your eyes and let them get away with it? She's not showing the slightest signs of disapproval or anger. We are supposed to see Meloni as a good parent, but she really isn't. She's terrible at parenting. Her standing up and leaving the room comes off as a "Oh my god you two are so annoying with your endless bickering, can't you get along?" She should have been livid and angry about Thad's comments, but she's not. Alone the degrading "I can't belive you had to be told that" should have been enough to set her off, but it doesn't. She shows the same apathy to Thad's verbal harassment that Helen shows. She's a neglectful and shitty parent. If it were up to me, I wouldn't let her take care of Bart and Thad out of concern for Bart's mental health. In fact, I would call the child service on both Helen and Meloni for their horrible "parenting" style. And by the way, r*tard isn't stared out in the original.

This whole scene is so disgusting and disturbing that it made me feel physically sick while reading it. I couldn't believe what I was reading, I really couldn't.

Chapter: 15

Thad:"I still reserve the brotherly right of beating the ever loving snot out of you whenever you get too annying."

No, no you fucking don't. This is the opposite of what being brothers means. You don't get to hurt Bart just because you feel like it. Stop being so entitled. Just so you known, he threatens Bart in front of Meloni and despite a soft spoken "Thaddeus." We get no reaction. This is especially careless on her part when you remember that the the "still" implies that he already beat him up for being annoying before. You see how upon learning new informations he immediatly tries to twist it around so that he can further justify his abuse?

[shesgottawatchit]

She’s Gotta Have It (2017), dir. Spike Lee

Is Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" on Netflix really as feminist as it thinks it is?

by Tiffany Curtis

Chances are, unless you were were under a rock or in a Thanksgiving food coma, you were probably binging on Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It last weekend. Assuming that’s true, you’ve been introduced to protagonist Nola Darling and all of her “sex-positive, polyamorous, pansexual” goodness. Nola and her band of merry (albeit dysfunctional) men and women are being heralded as a feminist breakthrough.

While on the surface, the She’s Gotta Have It reboot appears to be making strides for the very fact that we have a Black millennial female lead who boldly declares her sexuality and refuses to be placed into neat, conventional boxes. Nola juggles multiple men without catching feelings, lets her type 3 curls run free, and spends the entire first season trying to reclaim what it means to be a woman of color who enjoys having sex often, while also moving through the world with little personal responsibility.

She’s Gotta Have It has all the makings of Good Feminist TV — or so it seems.

Spike Lee’s heavy-handed brand of feminism may not be as powerful as it claims.

Lee’s heavy-handedness can be seen in the aftermath that follows Nola’s harrowing run-in with a catcaller, which replaces the truly godawful rape scene from the film version. Nola succumbs to urging from her friends to tell all of her bedfellows about the assault, to which they respond with various forms of possessiveness and victim-blaming, because, of course, how dare she be a woman out alone at night? What Nola says and what she does are often out of sync, but hey, that’s human enough, and it would be forgivable were it the single failing of this show, which it isn’t.

The fact is, Lee is very much a 60-year-old man trying to rewrite a 1980s character for a millennial audience. It can be felt in his treatment of this particular plot line, in which Nola makes bold anti-street harassment statements only to have them overshadowed by her being painted as a damsel in distress, by men, in interactions that are supposed to feel liberated and empowered. And that line of failure continues throughout the show.

Lee’s outdated depiction of women also becomes apparent in how he chooses to frame Black women’s bodies, in particular, as cautionary tales. Nola serves as the antithesis to her friend Shemekka with her brand of body positivity that gives off a holier-than-thou vibe, most clearly expressed in a moment when Shemekka shares her interest in getting butt enhancements. If there was ever an example of feminism being driven by the male gaze, it can be seen in the uncomfortable scene in which Shemekka receives illegal butt injections. The climax in Episode Six comes when a silicone-filled Shemekka’s butt literally erupts after she performs a dance routine.

When asked about his motivation for writing this scene in an interview with Nylon, Lee said,

“What has society done that has such an impact on women who feel like they’re not women unless they have these… I don’t even know how to describe these butts.”

While illegal plastic surgery is a reality, Lee’s attempt to grapple with this for a twenty-something audience feels more like a parable that uses mansplaining to shame women who want to change their appearance, much in the way that behaviors like makeup shaming assume that when a woman wants to alter her aesthetic in any way it must be due to low-self esteem.

Lee’s statements seem to give away a lack of awareness of how the patriarchy really impacts women’s lives or the countless brands that thrive off of selling women the idea that they aren’t enough. If you are going to try to write a character that resonates with women, start by educating yourself so as not to beat your audience down with tropes that feel archaic.

A lot can also be said for the way women treat other women in the series, which never fully transcends beyond the stereotype that female friendships are rife with backstabbing and pettiness.

The reality is that many women now choose to make healthy, thriving female friendships a priority in their twenties and beyond, which you wouldn’t know from peeking into the world of She’s Gotta Have It.

Between Nola’s judgement of Shemekka’s vulnerability and painting an Afro onto her portrait when she wanted a weave, her dismissal of Clorinda’s feelings for Mars, and her using Opal as a means of sexual detox from the men in her life, it becomes evident that the female interactions and friendships are pretty shady. But if women are often painted as being self-serving in their friendships, it’s no wonder Lee couldn’t help but paint his female characters in this way.

Largely, what Lee tried to do is commendable, but lacks the nuance and insight to really be a feminist beacon in 2017. So much of the series gets bogged down by male-centric views, and Black female sexuality is still depicted as a commodity. Bisexuality is featured as a novelty alongside not-so-subtle warnings about being a sex-positive Black woman.

The show does, however, get one thing true to reality: Much like the series itself, when it comes to feminism and complex Black female characters across the board, there is still a long ways to go until more people start getting it right.

[illustir]

Highlights for Peaceful Parent Happy Kids

Despite the popular idea that we need to “express” our anger so that it doesn’t eat away at us, research shows that expressing anger while we are angry actually makes us more angry. This in turn makes the other person hurt, afraid, or angry, and causes a rift in the relationship. Rehashing the situation in our mind always proves to us that we’re right and the other person is wrong, which again makes us more angry as we stew. What works is to calm down, and then find a constructive way to address whatever is making us angry so that the situation is resolved, and our anger stops being triggered.

The real job is keeping your cup full so you have plenty of joy and presence to share with your child.

Parenting is about nurturing your child, which means noticing what she needs and trying to make sure she gets it. You are, after all, the grown-up. But we can be peaceful parents only to the degree that we “parent” ourselves.

Children freely, even enthusiastically, cooperate when they believe that we’re on their side. When they don’t have that belief deep in their bones, our standards of behavior seem unfair, contradicting what they perceive as their own best interests, whether that’s taking the biggest piece of cake or lying to us.

The happy news is that as you come to terms with your own childhood story, you subtly change your emotional availability to your child, and your child blossoms accordingly, whether she’s an infant or a nine-year-old.

In relationships, without quantity, there’s no quality. You can’t expect a good relationship with your daughter if you spend all your time at work and she spends all her time with friends, screens, or the sitter. So as hard as it is with the pressures of jobs and daily life, if we want a better relationship with our children, we have to free up the time—daily—to make closeness happen.

Every child benefits from Special Time to reconnect with each parent often, if possible every day. Think of it as preventive maintenance to keep things on track in your family. And if you’re having issues with your

Every difficulty is an opportunity to get closer, as you extend understanding and your child feels truly seen, heard, and accepted.

Children need to know deep in their bones that their parents adore them and take delight in their company.

Remember, getting dressed is your priority, not his. Your presence is what motivates him.

To parents, bedtime is the time they finally get to separate from their children and have a little time to themselves. To children, bedtime is the time they’re forced to separate from their parents and lie in the dark by themselves. On top of that, children are exhausted and wound up, and parents are exhausted and fed up.

This isn’t about you right now, and your being upset won’t help. In fact, no matter what your child is talking about, you can process it later.

It may seem impossible, but if we feel the slightest glimmer of desire to turn things around, we can grab it. We don’t even have to know how. We can just choose love. We can always find a way to reach out to our child and reconnect. We can always find a way to heal things, even when we’re in a cycle of negativity that’s gone too far.

By contrast, when we think of ourselves as coaches, we know that all we have is influence—so we work hard to stay respected and connected, so our child wants to “follow” us.

What Empathy Isn’t

But before you can correct, you have to connect.

To know that their parents adore them, love to care for them, and care about their happiness. (Worthiness, security, self-esteem) To feel truly seen, known, accepted, and appreciated—even the “shameful” parts like anger, jealousy, pettiness, and greed. (Unconditional love) To stay connected with each parent through regular relaxed, playful, unstructured, affirming time together. (Intimacy, belonging) To work through challenging daily emotions. (Emotional wholeness, self-acceptance) To master new skills. (Mastery, independence, confidence) To act from one’s own motivations to impact the world. (Self-determination, power) To make a contribution. (Value, meaning)

Acknowledge your child’s perspective and empathize.

Allow expression of emotion, even while limiting actions.

Respond to the needs and feelings behind problem behavior.

When a desire can’t be granted, acknowledge it and grant it through “wish fulfillment.”

Tell the story so your child understands his emotional experience.

Teach problem solving.

Play it out.

Look him in the eye. Stay calm. He will either go blank (numbing himself), look away in shame, or look straight at you in defiance. Regardless, reach out for him.

We’ve absorbed the misguided view that children will be disobedient and manipulative unless we force them to “behave.”

Authoritarian parenting keeps children in a state of stress, worried about the next punishment (which may explain why kids who are spanked have lower IQs5).

But it does mean that babyproofing is better than trying to teach limits at this age.

Until your child has a chance to be heard, those feelings will be looking to spill out, disconnecting her, driving misbehavior and keeping her from being her usual sunny self. That’s why the single best thing you can do for your preschooler is to prioritize reconnecting with her when you’re reunited at the end of the day.

This parenting approach tends to raise kids who are self-centered, anxious, and not very resilient.

Authoritative. The final parenting style is the one that Baumrind’s research showed raises the best-adjusted kids. Her authoritative—as opposed to authoritarian—parents offer their children lots of love and support, like the permissive parents. But they also hold high expectations, like the authoritarian parents. Age-appropriate expectations, of course—they aren’t expecting a three-year-old to clean up her room by herself. But they may well be working with that three-year-old to help her clean up, over and over and over, so that by six she really can clean up her room herself. These parents are involved—even demanding. They expect family dinners, lots of discussion straight through high school, good grades, responsible behavior. But they also offer their children complete support to learn how to achieve these expectations. Importantly, these parents aren’t controlling like the authoritarian parents. They listen to the child’s side of things, they make compromises, and they cede control where possible. Their kids, not surprisingly, stay close to them—they often describe one of their parents as the person they would most trust to talk to about a problem. These kids usually do well in school, and they’re also the ones that teachers describe as responsible and well liked, simply nice kids who are a pleasure to have around.

Every child who has a sibling needs daily private time to bond with each parent.

We’re inviting him in, so that he’s part of the solution. He may have done a monstrous thing, but we’re communicating to him that he isn’t a monster. This is the foundation of his being able to face that he did something that crossed a line—and to forgive himself. It starts with our forgiving him.

Mastery isn’t a one-time feeling. It’s a way of approaching experience that through repetition becomes an acquired trait, a way of living life. It describes a person who loves to explore, learn, grow, apply himself, practice, master something, take joy in the whole creative process whether he “succeeds” or “fails” in the eyes of others, and move on to his next goal.

Every child is born with latent talent. Any child who enjoys the process of mastery has the internal motivation to polish his natural abilities to achieve—as long as the achievement he’s aiming for matters to him.

What might we say? “You really like doing that puzzle. . . . It’s the first one you took out again today.” (Empathize with his feelings.) “You’re trying all the different pieces to see what fits in that spot.” (Notice what he’s doing, which helps him feel seen and valued. In this case, we’re also articulating the strategy we see him using, which helps him be more conscious of what he’s doing, so he can evaluate whether this particular strategy is effective.) “I love doing puzzles with you!” (Communicate your enjoyment of sharing a task or project with him.) “It’s frustrating, isn’t it? But you’ve almost got it!” (Effective encouragement. By contrast, if we show him, we imply that he can’t figure it out for himself, which lessens his self-confidence.) “You did it! You got all the pieces to fit! You must be so proud of yourself!” (We’re mirroring his joy in his accomplishment, but notice we’re not telling him we’re proud of him, which implies that pride in him is something we can also withhold. Instead, we empower him by acknowledging that pride in himself is his, something he can take action to create.)

Blame is simply anger looking for a target, and it never helps us toward a solution.

The truth is, we always have more responsibility than we’d like to admit. And the more responsibility you take, the less defensive your child feels, so the more responsibility she’s likely to take in her own mind and, eventually, aloud.

via English – alper.nl https://ift.tt/3gEpkam

[proverbesdamour-blog]

7 small habits that will radically change your life

The ability to listen, and most importantly to hear, is the most powerful tool in the art of building relationships with other people. Unfortunately, we often forget about this, trying at all costs to convey our thoughts.

Happiness and success directly depend on how constructive our thinking will be, firm intentions and strong relationships. Too complicated and too many conditions? Don’t be alarmed: the good news is that we have control over all of these things. We are not passive observers in this “theater of life.” And that means we can choose the changes, even if they are very small, which will greatly change our whole life.

So, we present the most effective changes that will change a lot.

1. Watch your thoughts.

Thoughts control your emotions and feelings. And your feelings, in turn, determine your actions and actions.

The fact is that you will never gain self-confidence if you constantly doubt your thoughts. “I’m not good enough for this,” “I can’t afford such a high standard,” “I don’t have enough knowledge and experience for this task” – such installations block a person’s ability to go forward and achieve success.

It is not surprising that your self-doubt is transmitted to others. They literally hear your inner dialogue and decide: “If this person is not self-confident, can he be counted on and taken seriously?”

Reprogramming thinking requires time, and often considerable. But aren’t you in a hurry? Moreover, the game is worth the candle. So, the first step in this direction is a kind of introspection with the aim of revising your own self-esteem. You must be clearly aware and capture your thoughts. Ask yourself: “What is on my mind now and why? Do my thoughts really help, or vice versa – do they harm and prevent me from acting? ”

Take a break. Stop and think carefully before answering this question. Rebooting will certainly help: you will gain confidence, determination and a positive outlook on things.

2. Separate your feelings from what you are doing.

Take the time to realize what you really feel. Watching your thoughts does not mean hiding or ignoring your feelings. They exist, and you must admit it. But at the same time, separate feelings from actions: your actions are exclusively your choice and your decision.

For example, if I work with a colleague on a complex and interesting project, and at some point I understand that it not only does not help me, but, on the contrary, slows down, then this is not a defeat. Yes, I admit that I am upset and disappointed, but then I sit down and think about how to deal with this. After all, you can always come up with something, and not rush to extremes.

Or another example: your friend constantly promises something and does not keep his words. At the same time, he is a magnificent person, treats you very well, but is optional and punctual. How to proceed? Do not pay attention to this “peculiarity” of him, hold a grudge, break off relations with him or … The answer is simple: talk to him directly and openly about how his behavior affects your relationship. In this case, you will at least have a chance to convey what you feel, to warn that if a break occurs, it is his fault.

Your actions should not be determined by your feelings and emotions, but by your mind.

3. Stop constantly comparing.

There will always be someone more successful in life than you, more lucky. Someone will have better starting conditions, more money and innate talents. But this does not mean that you should compare yourself with them and be upset.

This “comparison game” will never end. Nobody has come out of it as a winner. The fact is that the bar will constantly rise, and you will jump up to exhaustion. So you must set your own bar based on what is the starting point, progress already made and the ultimate goal.

As a working mother, I always worried that I did not spend enough time on children or work. And that means – I will lose on both fronts. And only with time I realized that whether you are a good mother or not, does not depend on how many times you run to school for parental meetings. It is important for me that my boys are happy and happy, and not to compare themselves with mothers who have more free time.

You must clearly prioritize what is really valuable and important, and what is imposed by the stereotypes that exist in society. Only you determine what a real achievement is based on its value, the distance traveled and the starting point.

4. Plan your day every morning.

Time is our biggest asset. If we live consciously, rationally use it, then the chances of living the life we ​​want are much greater. Therefore, how you start every day determines what your whole life will be like.

Take a few minutes in the morning to think about how you want to spend your day: what should be your thoughts, activities, small steps in the direction of your dreams. Prayer, meditation, exercise and planned pauses for reflection in silence – all this has a huge impact on your day, week and even years.

Planning time and even thoughts is one of the first steps to get rid of worries and anxieties. And that means a better life. For example, the most important decisions and changes in my life took place precisely after I took the time to think in a calm environment, what I really want.

Find some kind of secluded and quiet place where nothing will distract you (just not the kitchen!) And just think about life, about yourself, about what makes you happy and what is vice versa.

See also: A simple test from billionaire Charles Munger to determine who you can trust

5. Do something new every week.

As a rule, all our days and habits are predictable. We are moving along the track, so it would be naive to believe that something in our life will change. Therefore, try to do at least something tiny every week (if you are really busy), but new.

For example, my friend proclaimed for herself “the year of life in a different way.” She enrolled in cooking classes, changed the design and decoration of the house, planned and carried out several trips, and also was fond of fishing. It seems to be nothing special, but how exciting it was and changed her life! Moreover, all this would never have happened if it had not been for the “year of life in a different way”. And what prevents each of us from declaring “a month of life differently”? Or even a year?

Do not live bored, do not live gray and monotonous. Always try something new that you have never done before. It may be something very small. For example, the habit of watching an interesting and inspiring presentation by a TED conference while making breakfast. Or even experiments with cooking meat and vegetables on the grill. There are many options. It would be a desire! See how much energy and motivation you have, how many new and interesting things you will discover!

6. Learn to listen, not just talk

The ability to listen, and most importantly to hear, is the most effective and powerful tool in the art of building relationships with other people. Unfortunately, we often forget about this, trying at all costs to convey our thoughts.

But the modern world is changing literally every day. How do you learn something new if you do not listen to others? From books and articles? I’m afraid you’ll completely come off reality. Because real life is in daily contact and communication.

Ask questions and really listen during the conversation, rather than scrolling through your head what you are going to say next. Your sincere and genuine attention is the biggest compliment you can give to another person. In addition, you will not be left without a bonus – you will learn something new and really important.

7. Get rid of the desire to always be right

Do you want to be always right or still happy? In your desire to have your last word, you can destroy the strongest and most healthy relationships. Perhaps your ego will be flattered when you prove with foam at the mouth that the interlocutor is wrong, but why assert oneself at the expense of other people? Especially when they are loved and dear.

Ask yourself: “Is my opinion the only right one? But what if there are several answers? Perhaps in what the interlocutor says there is a rational kernel? ”

Of course, standing your ground and defending your own point of view is important. But only when it comes to some fundamentally important things and values ​​for you. But not during the discussion of working moments or the debate about the color of the curtains in the living room.

Learn to hear other people – their thoughts can be no less valuable than yours. If you get rid of the desire to always be right, then life will change for the better. After all, what kind of joy is “winning the battle, but losing the war”?

The post 7 small habits that will radically change your life appeared first on proverbesdamour.

https://proverbesdamour.com/?p=2290

[timclymer]

Facts About Attachment Bonding

A child’s attachment to a significant caregiver is the single most influential event in the development of the child’s personality. It’s the source of the child’s sense of security, self-esteem, and self-control. But the impact of a first attachment goes far beyond emotions. It shapes how well the child remembers, learns and gets along with others. A secure attachment (or its weakness or absence) wires a child’s brain in a set pattern.

How can one aspect of early childhood hold so much power for the span of a lifetime? And how do child psychologists know what they know about attachment? This article answers both questions.

John Bowlby (1907-1990) did his naturalistic observations of children more than a half century ago, but subsequent research has only fortified adherence to his perspective among psychologists. Bowlby was a British physician and a trained psychoanalyst who accepted Freud’s central tenet of the importance of a person’s early childhood experiences in the formation of personality. To Freudianism, Bowlby added a detailed analysis of the specific interactions that create a secure versus insecure early attachment between a mother and her child. And he drew on ethology to make evolution the organizing principle to account for how these interactions spring from the survival instincts of both mother and child.

It’s in Their Smile

How can anyone resist such a face? A baby’s smile and kewpie pie cheeks are indeed irresistible to most adults. Bowlby pointed out how this visual charm operates as a brilliant adaptation (not unlike baby cubs, kittens, or birds), nearly guaranteeing essential affection, comfort, and food will come a baby’s way. Meanwhile, a mother’s innate drives to succor and protect her newborn are usually enough to make her play her part in this highly reciprocal relationship.

In what Bowlby called the “human attachment system,” babies have a large repertoire of highly effective signals to ensure they receive what they need to survive and thrive. When they’re not smiling, they cry and fuss, or they coo and grab at their mother’s face, hair, and breasts. They also track her every move around the house just like a duckling follows its mother through tall grass.

Babies are sociable by the age of 3 months, but they usually save their biggest smiles for the significant caregiver in their lives; adults who mirror these smiles right back. By calling these behaviors adaptive, Bowlby made the point that they are inborn. The baby’s purpose, he said, is to stay physically close to the most important source of his independent survival.

Bowlby noted that newly hatched geese and ducklings develop a preference for the first moving object they see, a process called “imprinting.” Similar to these birds, human newborns prefer moving objects and often recognize their mothers within days of birth. However, full bonding on the part of a human baby takes much longer than other animal species, at least six months longer than a duckling. Fortunately, human parents usually pick up any slack in the bonding process. After only a few minutes with a newborn, mothers and fathers typically say they’re goners, already “in love.” Sounds pretty adaptive, doesn’t it?

Attachment and Locomotion

In a baby’s sixth or seventh month, she has reached prime time to solidify her attachment with a primary adult, usually mother. In another bow to ethology, Bowlby noticed that this timing coincides with the start of a baby’s crawling. This suggested to him a link between independent locomotion and the completion of the baby’s process of attachment which began at birth. Of course, it takes a baby a lot longer to climb out of his crib than it does for a chick to hop out of the nest. Before chicks and toddlers go wandering too far away, instinct makes sure that they know where “home base” can be found.

Safety and exploration are the two competing goals in a baby’s earliest years. A child who stays safe survives; a child who explores develops the intelligence and skills needed to successfully grow. These two needs often oppose each other. Which is why Bowlby and his successors believe that a child develops an internal “thermostat” to monitor his level of safety in the environment. When he gets too far from home base, an internal alarm bell sounds.

It’s a familiar dynamic where a child ventures away from mother (either by crawling or “toddling”) until some impulse prompts him to turn around and check to see whether mother is still close by. If she’s still where he left her, he may keep going. Or he may come back to touch base before restarting his exploration. The attachment bonding process permits children to regulate their urges to explore or to cling to that special adult by internalizing what Bowlby called “working models” of their caregivers. One such working model in the previous situation is “It’s okay. Mom will be there if I crawl farther.” Another might be “I can’t go too far, she may leave me [el] it’s too scary.” Babies form one or another model based on their mothers’ behaviors over time.

The Rhesus Monkey Experiments

Striking images of some very unhappy, even self-destructive monkeys convinced many doubters about the importance of early animal and human mother-child bonding in the 1950s. These photos came from Harry Harlow’s (1905-1981) famous series of Rhesus monkey experiments. Harlow separated a group of infant monkeys from their mothers and raised them with two types of substitute mother figures. One was made of bare wire; the other had a soft cloth cover over a wire form. Harlow’s research questions were:

1) Would infant monkeys form attachments to the inanimate mother substitutes? 2) Would they receive any observable emotional comfort from either kind of substitute mother?

The infant monkeys did form an attachment, but only with the cloth-covered wire mother surrogates, not the uncovered wire forms. Interestingly, both types of surrogates provided food by way of a bottle attached to the wire. This told researchers that the bonding they observed between the infant monkeys and the cloth-covered surrogates was not solely based on nourishment. Something else was behind the bonding.

The baby monkeys in Harlow’s experiments habitually clung to the cloth-covered wire “mothers” in a manner strikingly similar to how they would hold on to a real monkey mother. The experiment provided a convincing demonstration that the critical ingredient in attachment formation is not food but “contact comfort.” Because they were gentler to touch, these softer surrogates were the next best thing to a mother monkey.

Harlow’s results altered the psychoanalytic view of how the mother-child bond is formed, making skin-to-skin physical contact as important as the oral gratification received by newborn babies while being nursed or bottle fed by their mothers. Harlow’s study also went against the position of the behavioral theorists who emphasized food itself as the primary reinforcer of a baby’s behavior.

Harlow’s rhesus monkey experiments strongly inferred that serious negative consequences occur when a human baby is deprived of a strong bond with a mother figure in the first year of life. Bowlby then confirmed this hypothesis with his observations of children in post-World War II orphanages.

Other insights gleaned from these experiments concerned the long-term negative impact on the monkeys’ emotional and physical health as a result of this deprivation. To compensate for a missing mother, these monkeys would suck obsessively on their own bodies. They remained huddled in corners, rocking themselves, with distant looks in their eyes. Later, when placed with other monkeys, they became hostile, aggressive, and rarely mated.

Later experiments with other monkeys helped clarify the importance of timing for human mother-baby attachment patterns. Monkeys who spent at least three months with their mothers before being separated showed less severe behavioral abnormalities than those separated from birth. Monkeys separated from their mothers at the age of 6 months showed no long-term negative behaviors. Researchers concluded that there is a sensitive or critical period for bonding between monkey mothers and infants which lasts for six months. In humans, this critical period is believed to last three years, with any deprivation suffered in the first year of life considered the most harmful.

Making a Secure Attachment

Even with mother and child instincts and parental awe to move things along, attachment is not an instantaneous process that begins and ends in the delivery room. It’s more like a dance which begins before birth and continues throughout a baby’s first year. Although the mother is usually the primary object of a baby’s attachment, the likelihood is equally strong with whoever provides consistent and affectionate care of a baby – whether father, grandparent, or an adoptive parent – and can form the same secure attachment with that baby. Factors that increase a secure attachment include:

1) A single primary, regular caregiver for the baby’s first six months, rather than a series of irregular caregivers. 2) Synchronized routines for eating, sleeping, and stimulation with that caregiver, especially during a baby’s first few months. 3) Consistent smiling, touching, and affection by the primary caregiver. 4) Acting consistently in response to the baby’s distress with comfort, warmth, and competency.

A caregiver’s sensitivity to a baby’s distress is important, but too much of a good thing is counterproductive. Research shows that when super-attentive mothers responded instantly to their baby’s every gurgle, cry, and hiccup, their children became less securely attached. The lesson: children react poorly to smothering. It hampers their independence and inhibits the process of learning to self-soothe.

The Chemistry of Attachment

Another perspective on attachment is revealed by the biochemistry behind parent-baby bonding drives and behaviors. Using brain scans and tests of hormone levels and heart rates, researchers can now see the biochemical results when a secure attachment is made and when it fails to take place.

A Mother’s Chemistry

A woman’s hormones prepare her for giving birth, and then ready her for feeding and nurturing a newborn baby. During pregnancy, her brain circuits are literally rewired, and her senses attuned to the extra physical and emotional demands of caring for a newborn. As a result of her evolutionary instincts that manifest in this intense chemical preparation for childbirth, she will focus nearly all of her attention and energy on this tiny person until its survival is assured.

For humans, and throughout the animal kingdom, the hormone oxytocin is fundamental to the first mother-child bonding that occurs after a baby is born. Much of what is known about the role of this hormone in creating and maintaining human bonds comes from animal experiments. Female rats and sheep (ewes) given injections of oxytocin will even take care of young rats and young lambs they’ve never seen before.

In human labor and childbirth, a mother’s uterine contractions trigger the brain to release a flood of oxytocin and the neurotransmitter dopamine. The pain-suppressing effects of these hormones are essential after a woman has experienced anywhere from 6 to 36 hours of labor. When the baby is born, they create a residue of euphoria as chemical flooding peaks in the first minutes following birth[md]often coinciding with the first time the newborn is put to his mother’s breast for suckling.

It is well known that a mother who has decided to have her baby adopted should not touch the infant, because the act of touching and smelling the baby causes her to release oxytocin. This causes many mothers to reconsider their decision to make an adoption plan.

During the last month of pregnancy a mother-to-be starts producing the hormone that prepares her for nurturing and lactation: prolactin. This hormone causes milk to be secreted from her breast. Oxytocin assists by enabling the milk let-down response in a woman’s breasts and sensitizing the new mother to her infant’s touch. In fact, the baby’s touching of his mother’s breast with his hand or lips causes oxytocin to be released. During nursing, oxytocin surges, bringing pleasure and relaxation to the mother and deepening the mother/baby bond.

A Father’s Chemistry

The latest studies have shown that when a man becomes a father, his brain goes through changes, too. Soon after hearing the news that he’s about to be a father, a man starts to produce cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol levels tend to spike around four to six weeks after a man hears the big news, and then they decrease as the pregnancy progresses. Then, about three weeks before the baby arrives, his testosterone levels fall by about 30 percent, making him more cooperative, less competitive, and more likely to show his softer side.

For men, the hormone vasopressin plays a key role in preparing for a baby’s birth, helping them make the emotional connections required by new fatherhood. Also, during the last few weeks of his mate’s pregnancy, a man’s prolactin level rises by 20 percent. It’s not clear what effect prolactin has in a man, but it is thought to have an indirect impact on his falling testosterone levels. After his child’s birth, his estrogen level, a nurturing influence which is normally very low in a man, increases. The point of these changes appears to be to make fathers more maternal in their behaviors, at least more than their normally high levels of testosterone will allow. About six weeks after birth, a man’s hormone levels begin to return to normal. Higher estrogen, along with lots of skin contact with his baby, triggers the release of oxytocin in a man. All this chemistry helps reinforce a father’s newfound cuddling and cooing behaviors.

At the same time, fathers interact with babies and toddlers in different ways than mothers. A father is more likely to jiggle or rock babies in a playful, rhythmic fashion, while women use firm or light touching to soothe and contain them. As children grow older, a father tends to take a more rough-and-tumble approach to their physical care, and to be more challenging and less sympathetic than a mother. Research shows that both approaches are good and necessary for developing children. When the primary attachment is made between mother and baby in her baby’s first six months, research has shown that they both typically begin to form much closer relationships with fathers and siblings soon thereafter.

Chemistry of Insecure Attachment

Like her mother, when a baby receives affection and loving attention, she enjoys the calming effects of oxytocin. A lack of nurturing touch early in her life can create a negative neurochemical pattern in her brain, based on those early disappointments. With negative expectations brought to future attachments, this child may react to the increase of oxytocin caused by physical or emotional intimacy with fear, not with an anticipation of pleasure.

Instead of the warm and fuzzy feelings activated by oxytocin, stress chemicals are triggered. Cortisol, the chemical that keeps us alert and helps us deal with stress, seems to be the main culprit at work here. Sometimes cortisol is necessary, for example, in the morning when its concentration is highest to help us wake up. But cortisol’s dampening effect on oxytocin is a less positive thing when you wish to be calm and open to human connection. Either of these lifelong positive and negative biochemical patterns begins in baby’s first year.

Attachment Styles

In the 1970s, psychologist Mary Ainsworth built on Bowlby’s theory of attachment by creating a now famous series of controlled laboratory experiments with mothers and babies, called the “strange situation” experiment. The goal of these experiments was to figure out the detailed patterns and styles of behavior that cause either a secure or insecure parent-child bond.

Two concepts are central to these experiments:

1) Stranger anxiety – Wariness or fear of unfamiliar adults, shown by most infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months

2) Separation anxiety – Distress that infants between 6 and 24 months experience when separated from their primary caregivers

Normally anxiety is not viewed as a positive experience. But in the case of children younger than three, fears toward strangers and separation from a mother are healthy and appropriate responses. In fact, they provide evidence of a child’s positive, secure relationship with a mother or other primary caregiver.

To closely observe attachment behaviors between mothers and babies in a more controlled setting, Ainsworth scripted eight episodes to test mothers’ and babies’ responses to certain stresses. The dual focus throughout is on the baby’s response to the mother’s absence and the presence of a stranger, and on the mother’s responses to her baby. Ainsworth’s now-famous and commonly used “strange situation experiment” involves 1-year-old babies and mothers from a variety of backgrounds and ages.

The Strange Situation Experiment

There were eight stages in Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation procedure. After each stage listed next, the behavior of a securely attached baby is noted. Stages two through eight last about three minutes each:

1) Introduction – An assistant introduces mother and baby to the room while mother holds her baby. 30 seconds. A calm baby is held by mother.

2) Unfamiliar room – Baby is on the floor with toys available to play with, mother sits nearby. Baby may be wary of the new room, but uses mother as a base of security, maintaining eye contact with her while playing with toys.

3) Stranger enters – An unfamiliar female knocks, enters the room, speaks with mother, and then goes to play with baby. Baby may show “stranger anxiety” and clearly prefers mother to playing with stranger. While mother is present, baby may allow stranger to approach and play nearby.

4) Mother leaves – quietly, leaving baby with stranger who goes and sits in mother’s chair. Baby shows separation anxiety and renewed stranger anxiety. May accept some comfort from stranger but clearly wants mother back.

5) Reunion of mother and baby, stranger exits. Mother comforts baby. And if baby wants to continue playing with toys, does so.

Baby seeks contact and comfort from mother. Baby clings to mother. Baby may continue to play after receiving comfort.

6) Mother leaves again, saying “bye-bye” on her way out, leaving baby alone. Baby shows renewed separation anxiety and distress.

7) Stranger enters again joining baby who is still alone, sits in mother’s chair, then calls or goes to baby. Baby may show more anxiety toward the stranger and clearly prefers that mother returns.

8) Reunion of mother and baby, with mother picking up baby and stranger leaving. There’s joy for baby upon reuniting with mother. Baby wants to hang on to mother.

Observing Attachments

Ainsworth found that secure attachment relationships tend to be associated with mothers who hold their babies frequently, and with mothers who hold their children long enough so that they appear satisfied when they’re put back down. Securely attached babies are aware of their mother’s whereabouts and confident that she will return after leaving the room. If they’re distressed, securely attached babies usually obtain quick comfort after being held by their mothers. Other qualities of a secure mother-baby attachment include:

1) Mother is sensitive to calls and signals of distress from baby and responds quickly. 2) Mother goes along with the interactions and games that are initiated by baby. 3) Mothers adjust baby’s feeding and sleeping schedules according to the baby’s rhythms. 4) The relationship is mutual, not dominated by the needs and moods of the mother.

Based on her observations, Ainsworth concluded that “indifferent parenting” led to insecure attachments between mothers and babies. Other researchers have subsequently added data from observational studies to show that obtrusive and over-stimulating parenting styles can also lead to insecurely attached babies.

Mothers of insecurely attached babies were found to frequently be anxious and irritable. The most extreme of these mothers showed little interest in their children, handling them in a mechanical fashion, and behaving otherwise resentfully toward their babies.

Four Attachment Styles

From thousands of controlled observations of mothers and children, Ainsworth formalized a system for rating attachments, using four categories.

1) Secure /65 percent – Uses mother as home base; prefers her to stranger; may show distress at her leaving; seeks physical contact when reunited with mother.

2) Insecure-avoidant / 20 percent – Doesn’t prefer mother to stranger; avoids contact with mother when reunited.

3) Insecure-resistant / 10 percent – Shows ambivalence toward mother; seeks contact, then resists it; doesn’t avoid contact with mother; some show anger; some are passive.

4) Insecure-disorganized / 5 percent – Acts confused or dazed; may be calm, then angry; often will remain motionless; shows apprehension; sometimes is resistant or avoidant

Whether avoidant or resistant, insecurely attached babies learn that their caregivers will not respond sensitively to their needs. As a result, in times of stress they may reject their mothers’ attempts to comfort them by looking away or showing anger and frustration.

Babies who exhibit insecure-disorganized attachments sometimes have parents who are neglectful or abusive. Often, researchers found that these parents had unresolved difficulties with their own parents and may have been abused as children. Their pregnancies were often unplanned and unwanted. In less severe cases, disoriented insecure behavior can occur when a mother displays anxiety or sends mixed signals to her baby.

Obstacles to Attachment

The most often-cited obstacles when developing a secure attachment are the quality of the mother’s care-giving and the compatibility of the baby’s temperament with the mother’s temperament.

Maternal Depression

Depressed mothers often miss and ignore a baby’s signals of distress. They also have a harder time entering into a synchronous relationship with their child. With a depressed mother, babies’ first become angry at their mother’s lack of attention and responsiveness, perhaps crying harder and for longer periods. But over time, these babies begin to match the mothers’ depressive symptoms. As mentioned earlier, by the age of 6 months, babies internalize a specific working model of their mothers as either responsive or nonresponsive, and their brains rewire to reflect this experience.

It is estimated that 13 percent of pregnant women and new mothers develop situational depression as a result of new motherhood. Any existing low level depression or susceptibility to it can be aggravated by the hormonal shifts, added stress, and sleeplessness that accompany having a baby. Post-partum depression is an insufficiently recognized factor that can inhibit the development of a secure attachment in a baby’s first six months.

In a pioneering study at Columbia University, psychiatric epidemiologist Myrna Weissman showed that when mothers of grade school children were successfully treated for depression, the depressive symptoms in a significant percentage of the children also dramatically improved. The study’s key finding is that depressed children’s improvement came without direct treatment of the children.

Mismatched Temperaments

It takes two people – an adult and a baby – to form a secure attachment. Stella Chess described three different expressions of temperament: “easy,” “slow-to-warm-up” and “difficult”. A friendly “easy” baby who is more likely to approach than withdraw from novelty in her environment has been found to have an easier time becoming “securely attached.” A “slow-to-warm-up” baby requires more inducement to draw into a relationship. A “difficult” baby requires more time.

Some recent research has leant a more integrative approach to the question of which factor is most likely to inhibit attachment: the quality of a mother or other primary figure’s care-giving, or the baby’s possibly difficult temperament. The major finding was that the quality of care-giving a baby receives is most predictive of whether the child forms a secure or avoidant attachment as measured in a strange situation test. However, the baby’s temperament appears to be decisive in determining which type of insecure attachment is formed. Temperamentally fearful children tended to form resistant attachments, where they kept their distance from mother but protested strongly. More outgoing babies with unresponsive mothers formed avoidant insecure attachments where they protest less but were content to ignore the mother in favor of a stranger.

Babies are just as likely to form secure attachments with fathers as mothers if the father is the primary caregiver. Summing up the data from studying 710 babies in 11 studies, the percentage of secure versus insecure attachments was 65/35 for fathers and 65/35 for mothers. The type of attachment formed also tended to be alike from one parent to the other.

Is Early Attachment Destiny?

The existing research shows that babies who form secure primary attachments to their mothers in the first year turn out better, meaning they display more favorable development outcomes later in childhood. Here’s a sampling of that research.

Securely attached children at age 12 to 18 months when measured at 2 years of age were found to:

1) Be better problem solvers. 2) Be more complex and creative in their symbolic play. 3) Display more positive and fewer negative emotions. 4) Be more popular with their playmates.

Each of these findings was made in a controlled setting comparing 2-year-olds who had the benefit of secure attachments to those found to be insecurely attached to their primary caregivers.

Longer-term studies paint a similar picture. Children who were securely attached to their caregivers at 15 months of age were re-examined in follow-up studies at ages 11 to 12 and ages 15 to 16. Among the findings were the following:

1) Those who had been securely attached as toddlers were described at the older ages as socially more popular, more curious, and self-directed.

2) Those insecurely attached at 15 months were socially and emotionally withdrawn, and less interested in learning. They also tended to be unenthused about surmounting challenges.

These studies showed that the type of secure or insecure attachment that exists between parent and child in the first few years tends to be the same in the child’s grade school and high school years. Other research has shown that a secure relationship with another person – father, grandparent, adoptive parent, or daycare provider – can somewhat offset the negative consequences of a poor attachment with a mother.

One reason why John Bowlby used the term “working models” to describe how young children internalize their earliest relationships was to emphasize that a child’s working models could change. They could improve (or deteriorate) as a result of later relationships with teachers, romantic partners, or close friends. But even with these caveats, don’t fail to understand the importance of a baby beginning life with a secure bond to a significant adult.

Attachment and Working Mothers

Although many people would like to hear a definitive statement about the positive or negative effect of daycare on young children, there are few absolute or simple answers to this question. However, there is evidence for parents to consider when making individual decisions.

From the research:

1) Separations from working mothers and placement in daycare generally do not prevent babies from establishing a secure primary attachment. This is true if the mother and father are sensitive and responsive care-givers when they are home with their child.

2) Babies younger than 6 months placed in full-time daycare face an elevated risk of forming an insecure attachment, and, in one study, they had lower scores on school readiness at 36 months.

3) One large nationwide study found that time spent in daycare added to the risk of a child’s forming insecure attachments only when it was combined with mothering that was less sensitive and less responsive.

4) High-quality daycare helps buffer young children from the negative effects of being separated from their parents.

5) Even when daycare is less than optimal, a child’s outcome depends more on the quality of care received at home.

6) A mother’s attitudes toward working outside the home and placing her baby in daycare are extremely important in shaping the attachment she forms with her child. Any sort of resentment negatively affects the mother-child bond.

If there’s any ideal scenario to be garnered from the existing data it is this: a mother with a positive attitude who spends the first six to seven months as a full-time, stay-at-home mother stands the best chance of forming a secure attachment with her baby.

Of course, public policy and business practices are not as supportive of mothers making this choice in the United States compared to other Western countries. Using the same measurements discussed in this chapter, those societies which provide longer paid maternal and paternal leave and supply subsidized childcare, have higher rates of securely attached children. In Great Britain and Sweden, 75 percent and 74 percent of babies respectively were securely attached, compared to 64 percent in the United States. For low-income Americans, the number of securely attached babies is 50 percent.

The Least You Need to Know

1) Attachment between babies and a significant adult is an instinctual process with life-long implications.

2) Within a secure attachment, a baby finds safety and the will to explore her world, developing an internal thermostat to keep both in balance.

3) Babies and mothers in “strange situation” research studies are rated on four different styles of attachment that range from a secure attachment to avoidant, resistant, or disorganized insecure attachments.

4) Babies younger than 6 months in full-time daycare are at a higher risk for developing an insecure attachment compared to babies with at-home mothers.

Source by Jack C Westman

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/facts-about-attachment-bonding/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/184617080555 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

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Facts About Attachment Bonding

A child’s attachment to a significant caregiver is the single most influential event in the development of the child’s personality. It’s the source of the child’s sense of security, self-esteem, and self-control. But the impact of a first attachment goes far beyond emotions. It shapes how well the child remembers, learns and gets along with others. A secure attachment (or its weakness or absence) wires a child’s brain in a set pattern.

How can one aspect of early childhood hold so much power for the span of a lifetime? And how do child psychologists know what they know about attachment? This article answers both questions.

John Bowlby (1907-1990) did his naturalistic observations of children more than a half century ago, but subsequent research has only fortified adherence to his perspective among psychologists. Bowlby was a British physician and a trained psychoanalyst who accepted Freud’s central tenet of the importance of a person’s early childhood experiences in the formation of personality. To Freudianism, Bowlby added a detailed analysis of the specific interactions that create a secure versus insecure early attachment between a mother and her child. And he drew on ethology to make evolution the organizing principle to account for how these interactions spring from the survival instincts of both mother and child.

It’s in Their Smile

How can anyone resist such a face? A baby’s smile and kewpie pie cheeks are indeed irresistible to most adults. Bowlby pointed out how this visual charm operates as a brilliant adaptation (not unlike baby cubs, kittens, or birds), nearly guaranteeing essential affection, comfort, and food will come a baby’s way. Meanwhile, a mother’s innate drives to succor and protect her newborn are usually enough to make her play her part in this highly reciprocal relationship.

In what Bowlby called the “human attachment system,” babies have a large repertoire of highly effective signals to ensure they receive what they need to survive and thrive. When they’re not smiling, they cry and fuss, or they coo and grab at their mother’s face, hair, and breasts. They also track her every move around the house just like a duckling follows its mother through tall grass.

Babies are sociable by the age of 3 months, but they usually save their biggest smiles for the significant caregiver in their lives; adults who mirror these smiles right back. By calling these behaviors adaptive, Bowlby made the point that they are inborn. The baby’s purpose, he said, is to stay physically close to the most important source of his independent survival.

Bowlby noted that newly hatched geese and ducklings develop a preference for the first moving object they see, a process called “imprinting.” Similar to these birds, human newborns prefer moving objects and often recognize their mothers within days of birth. However, full bonding on the part of a human baby takes much longer than other animal species, at least six months longer than a duckling. Fortunately, human parents usually pick up any slack in the bonding process. After only a few minutes with a newborn, mothers and fathers typically say they’re goners, already “in love.” Sounds pretty adaptive, doesn’t it?

Attachment and Locomotion

In a baby’s sixth or seventh month, she has reached prime time to solidify her attachment with a primary adult, usually mother. In another bow to ethology, Bowlby noticed that this timing coincides with the start of a baby’s crawling. This suggested to him a link between independent locomotion and the completion of the baby’s process of attachment which began at birth. Of course, it takes a baby a lot longer to climb out of his crib than it does for a chick to hop out of the nest. Before chicks and toddlers go wandering too far away, instinct makes sure that they know where “home base” can be found.

Safety and exploration are the two competing goals in a baby’s earliest years. A child who stays safe survives; a child who explores develops the intelligence and skills needed to successfully grow. These two needs often oppose each other. Which is why Bowlby and his successors believe that a child develops an internal “thermostat” to monitor his level of safety in the environment. When he gets too far from home base, an internal alarm bell sounds.

It’s a familiar dynamic where a child ventures away from mother (either by crawling or “toddling”) until some impulse prompts him to turn around and check to see whether mother is still close by. If she’s still where he left her, he may keep going. Or he may come back to touch base before restarting his exploration. The attachment bonding process permits children to regulate their urges to explore or to cling to that special adult by internalizing what Bowlby called “working models” of their caregivers. One such working model in the previous situation is “It’s okay. Mom will be there if I crawl farther.” Another might be “I can’t go too far, she may leave me [el] it’s too scary.” Babies form one or another model based on their mothers’ behaviors over time.

The Rhesus Monkey Experiments

Striking images of some very unhappy, even self-destructive monkeys convinced many doubters about the importance of early animal and human mother-child bonding in the 1950s. These photos came from Harry Harlow’s (1905-1981) famous series of Rhesus monkey experiments. Harlow separated a group of infant monkeys from their mothers and raised them with two types of substitute mother figures. One was made of bare wire; the other had a soft cloth cover over a wire form. Harlow’s research questions were:

1) Would infant monkeys form attachments to the inanimate mother substitutes? 2) Would they receive any observable emotional comfort from either kind of substitute mother?

The infant monkeys did form an attachment, but only with the cloth-covered wire mother surrogates, not the uncovered wire forms. Interestingly, both types of surrogates provided food by way of a bottle attached to the wire. This told researchers that the bonding they observed between the infant monkeys and the cloth-covered surrogates was not solely based on nourishment. Something else was behind the bonding.

The baby monkeys in Harlow’s experiments habitually clung to the cloth-covered wire “mothers” in a manner strikingly similar to how they would hold on to a real monkey mother. The experiment provided a convincing demonstration that the critical ingredient in attachment formation is not food but “contact comfort.” Because they were gentler to touch, these softer surrogates were the next best thing to a mother monkey.

Harlow’s results altered the psychoanalytic view of how the mother-child bond is formed, making skin-to-skin physical contact as important as the oral gratification received by newborn babies while being nursed or bottle fed by their mothers. Harlow’s study also went against the position of the behavioral theorists who emphasized food itself as the primary reinforcer of a baby’s behavior.

Harlow’s rhesus monkey experiments strongly inferred that serious negative consequences occur when a human baby is deprived of a strong bond with a mother figure in the first year of life. Bowlby then confirmed this hypothesis with his observations of children in post-World War II orphanages.

Other insights gleaned from these experiments concerned the long-term negative impact on the monkeys’ emotional and physical health as a result of this deprivation. To compensate for a missing mother, these monkeys would suck obsessively on their own bodies. They remained huddled in corners, rocking themselves, with distant looks in their eyes. Later, when placed with other monkeys, they became hostile, aggressive, and rarely mated.

Later experiments with other monkeys helped clarify the importance of timing for human mother-baby attachment patterns. Monkeys who spent at least three months with their mothers before being separated showed less severe behavioral abnormalities than those separated from birth. Monkeys separated from their mothers at the age of 6 months showed no long-term negative behaviors. Researchers concluded that there is a sensitive or critical period for bonding between monkey mothers and infants which lasts for six months. In humans, this critical period is believed to last three years, with any deprivation suffered in the first year of life considered the most harmful.

Making a Secure Attachment

Even with mother and child instincts and parental awe to move things along, attachment is not an instantaneous process that begins and ends in the delivery room. It’s more like a dance which begins before birth and continues throughout a baby’s first year. Although the mother is usually the primary object of a baby’s attachment, the likelihood is equally strong with whoever provides consistent and affectionate care of a baby – whether father, grandparent, or an adoptive parent – and can form the same secure attachment with that baby. Factors that increase a secure attachment include:

1) A single primary, regular caregiver for the baby’s first six months, rather than a series of irregular caregivers. 2) Synchronized routines for eating, sleeping, and stimulation with that caregiver, especially during a baby’s first few months. 3) Consistent smiling, touching, and affection by the primary caregiver. 4) Acting consistently in response to the baby’s distress with comfort, warmth, and competency.

A caregiver’s sensitivity to a baby’s distress is important, but too much of a good thing is counterproductive. Research shows that when super-attentive mothers responded instantly to their baby’s every gurgle, cry, and hiccup, their children became less securely attached. The lesson: children react poorly to smothering. It hampers their independence and inhibits the process of learning to self-soothe.

The Chemistry of Attachment

Another perspective on attachment is revealed by the biochemistry behind parent-baby bonding drives and behaviors. Using brain scans and tests of hormone levels and heart rates, researchers can now see the biochemical results when a secure attachment is made and when it fails to take place.

A Mother’s Chemistry

A woman’s hormones prepare her for giving birth, and then ready her for feeding and nurturing a newborn baby. During pregnancy, her brain circuits are literally rewired, and her senses attuned to the extra physical and emotional demands of caring for a newborn. As a result of her evolutionary instincts that manifest in this intense chemical preparation for childbirth, she will focus nearly all of her attention and energy on this tiny person until its survival is assured.

For humans, and throughout the animal kingdom, the hormone oxytocin is fundamental to the first mother-child bonding that occurs after a baby is born. Much of what is known about the role of this hormone in creating and maintaining human bonds comes from animal experiments. Female rats and sheep (ewes) given injections of oxytocin will even take care of young rats and young lambs they’ve never seen before.

In human labor and childbirth, a mother’s uterine contractions trigger the brain to release a flood of oxytocin and the neurotransmitter dopamine. The pain-suppressing effects of these hormones are essential after a woman has experienced anywhere from 6 to 36 hours of labor. When the baby is born, they create a residue of euphoria as chemical flooding peaks in the first minutes following birth[md]often coinciding with the first time the newborn is put to his mother’s breast for suckling.

It is well known that a mother who has decided to have her baby adopted should not touch the infant, because the act of touching and smelling the baby causes her to release oxytocin. This causes many mothers to reconsider their decision to make an adoption plan.

During the last month of pregnancy a mother-to-be starts producing the hormone that prepares her for nurturing and lactation: prolactin. This hormone causes milk to be secreted from her breast. Oxytocin assists by enabling the milk let-down response in a woman’s breasts and sensitizing the new mother to her infant’s touch. In fact, the baby’s touching of his mother’s breast with his hand or lips causes oxytocin to be released. During nursing, oxytocin surges, bringing pleasure and relaxation to the mother and deepening the mother/baby bond.

A Father’s Chemistry

The latest studies have shown that when a man becomes a father, his brain goes through changes, too. Soon after hearing the news that he’s about to be a father, a man starts to produce cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol levels tend to spike around four to six weeks after a man hears the big news, and then they decrease as the pregnancy progresses. Then, about three weeks before the baby arrives, his testosterone levels fall by about 30 percent, making him more cooperative, less competitive, and more likely to show his softer side.

For men, the hormone vasopressin plays a key role in preparing for a baby’s birth, helping them make the emotional connections required by new fatherhood. Also, during the last few weeks of his mate’s pregnancy, a man’s prolactin level rises by 20 percent. It’s not clear what effect prolactin has in a man, but it is thought to have an indirect impact on his falling testosterone levels. After his child’s birth, his estrogen level, a nurturing influence which is normally very low in a man, increases. The point of these changes appears to be to make fathers more maternal in their behaviors, at least more than their normally high levels of testosterone will allow. About six weeks after birth, a man’s hormone levels begin to return to normal. Higher estrogen, along with lots of skin contact with his baby, triggers the release of oxytocin in a man. All this chemistry helps reinforce a father’s newfound cuddling and cooing behaviors.

At the same time, fathers interact with babies and toddlers in different ways than mothers. A father is more likely to jiggle or rock babies in a playful, rhythmic fashion, while women use firm or light touching to soothe and contain them. As children grow older, a father tends to take a more rough-and-tumble approach to their physical care, and to be more challenging and less sympathetic than a mother. Research shows that both approaches are good and necessary for developing children. When the primary attachment is made between mother and baby in her baby’s first six months, research has shown that they both typically begin to form much closer relationships with fathers and siblings soon thereafter.

Chemistry of Insecure Attachment

Like her mother, when a baby receives affection and loving attention, she enjoys the calming effects of oxytocin. A lack of nurturing touch early in her life can create a negative neurochemical pattern in her brain, based on those early disappointments. With negative expectations brought to future attachments, this child may react to the increase of oxytocin caused by physical or emotional intimacy with fear, not with an anticipation of pleasure.

Instead of the warm and fuzzy feelings activated by oxytocin, stress chemicals are triggered. Cortisol, the chemical that keeps us alert and helps us deal with stress, seems to be the main culprit at work here. Sometimes cortisol is necessary, for example, in the morning when its concentration is highest to help us wake up. But cortisol’s dampening effect on oxytocin is a less positive thing when you wish to be calm and open to human connection. Either of these lifelong positive and negative biochemical patterns begins in baby’s first year.

Attachment Styles

In the 1970s, psychologist Mary Ainsworth built on Bowlby’s theory of attachment by creating a now famous series of controlled laboratory experiments with mothers and babies, called the “strange situation” experiment. The goal of these experiments was to figure out the detailed patterns and styles of behavior that cause either a secure or insecure parent-child bond.

Two concepts are central to these experiments:

1) Stranger anxiety – Wariness or fear of unfamiliar adults, shown by most infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months

2) Separation anxiety – Distress that infants between 6 and 24 months experience when separated from their primary caregivers

Normally anxiety is not viewed as a positive experience. But in the case of children younger than three, fears toward strangers and separation from a mother are healthy and appropriate responses. In fact, they provide evidence of a child’s positive, secure relationship with a mother or other primary caregiver.

To closely observe attachment behaviors between mothers and babies in a more controlled setting, Ainsworth scripted eight episodes to test mothers’ and babies’ responses to certain stresses. The dual focus throughout is on the baby’s response to the mother’s absence and the presence of a stranger, and on the mother’s responses to her baby. Ainsworth’s now-famous and commonly used “strange situation experiment” involves 1-year-old babies and mothers from a variety of backgrounds and ages.

The Strange Situation Experiment

There were eight stages in Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation procedure. After each stage listed next, the behavior of a securely attached baby is noted. Stages two through eight last about three minutes each:

1) Introduction – An assistant introduces mother and baby to the room while mother holds her baby. 30 seconds. A calm baby is held by mother.

2) Unfamiliar room – Baby is on the floor with toys available to play with, mother sits nearby. Baby may be wary of the new room, but uses mother as a base of security, maintaining eye contact with her while playing with toys.

3) Stranger enters – An unfamiliar female knocks, enters the room, speaks with mother, and then goes to play with baby. Baby may show “stranger anxiety” and clearly prefers mother to playing with stranger. While mother is present, baby may allow stranger to approach and play nearby.

4) Mother leaves – quietly, leaving baby with stranger who goes and sits in mother’s chair. Baby shows separation anxiety and renewed stranger anxiety. May accept some comfort from stranger but clearly wants mother back.

5) Reunion of mother and baby, stranger exits. Mother comforts baby. And if baby wants to continue playing with toys, does so.

Baby seeks contact and comfort from mother. Baby clings to mother. Baby may continue to play after receiving comfort.

6) Mother leaves again, saying “bye-bye” on her way out, leaving baby alone. Baby shows renewed separation anxiety and distress.

7) Stranger enters again joining baby who is still alone, sits in mother’s chair, then calls or goes to baby. Baby may show more anxiety toward the stranger and clearly prefers that mother returns.

8) Reunion of mother and baby, with mother picking up baby and stranger leaving. There’s joy for baby upon reuniting with mother. Baby wants to hang on to mother.

Observing Attachments

Ainsworth found that secure attachment relationships tend to be associated with mothers who hold their babies frequently, and with mothers who hold their children long enough so that they appear satisfied when they’re put back down. Securely attached babies are aware of their mother’s whereabouts and confident that she will return after leaving the room. If they’re distressed, securely attached babies usually obtain quick comfort after being held by their mothers. Other qualities of a secure mother-baby attachment include:

1) Mother is sensitive to calls and signals of distress from baby and responds quickly. 2) Mother goes along with the interactions and games that are initiated by baby. 3) Mothers adjust baby’s feeding and sleeping schedules according to the baby’s rhythms. 4) The relationship is mutual, not dominated by the needs and moods of the mother.

Based on her observations, Ainsworth concluded that “indifferent parenting” led to insecure attachments between mothers and babies. Other researchers have subsequently added data from observational studies to show that obtrusive and over-stimulating parenting styles can also lead to insecurely attached babies.

Mothers of insecurely attached babies were found to frequently be anxious and irritable. The most extreme of these mothers showed little interest in their children, handling them in a mechanical fashion, and behaving otherwise resentfully toward their babies.

Four Attachment Styles

From thousands of controlled observations of mothers and children, Ainsworth formalized a system for rating attachments, using four categories.

1) Secure /65 percent – Uses mother as home base; prefers her to stranger; may show distress at her leaving; seeks physical contact when reunited with mother.

2) Insecure-avoidant / 20 percent – Doesn’t prefer mother to stranger; avoids contact with mother when reunited.

3) Insecure-resistant / 10 percent – Shows ambivalence toward mother; seeks contact, then resists it; doesn’t avoid contact with mother; some show anger; some are passive.

4) Insecure-disorganized / 5 percent – Acts confused or dazed; may be calm, then angry; often will remain motionless; shows apprehension; sometimes is resistant or avoidant

Whether avoidant or resistant, insecurely attached babies learn that their caregivers will not respond sensitively to their needs. As a result, in times of stress they may reject their mothers’ attempts to comfort them by looking away or showing anger and frustration.

Babies who exhibit insecure-disorganized attachments sometimes have parents who are neglectful or abusive. Often, researchers found that these parents had unresolved difficulties with their own parents and may have been abused as children. Their pregnancies were often unplanned and unwanted. In less severe cases, disoriented insecure behavior can occur when a mother displays anxiety or sends mixed signals to her baby.

Obstacles to Attachment

The most often-cited obstacles when developing a secure attachment are the quality of the mother’s care-giving and the compatibility of the baby’s temperament with the mother’s temperament.

Maternal Depression

Depressed mothers often miss and ignore a baby’s signals of distress. They also have a harder time entering into a synchronous relationship with their child. With a depressed mother, babies’ first become angry at their mother’s lack of attention and responsiveness, perhaps crying harder and for longer periods. But over time, these babies begin to match the mothers’ depressive symptoms. As mentioned earlier, by the age of 6 months, babies internalize a specific working model of their mothers as either responsive or nonresponsive, and their brains rewire to reflect this experience.

It is estimated that 13 percent of pregnant women and new mothers develop situational depression as a result of new motherhood. Any existing low level depression or susceptibility to it can be aggravated by the hormonal shifts, added stress, and sleeplessness that accompany having a baby. Post-partum depression is an insufficiently recognized factor that can inhibit the development of a secure attachment in a baby’s first six months.

In a pioneering study at Columbia University, psychiatric epidemiologist Myrna Weissman showed that when mothers of grade school children were successfully treated for depression, the depressive symptoms in a significant percentage of the children also dramatically improved. The study’s key finding is that depressed children’s improvement came without direct treatment of the children.

Mismatched Temperaments

It takes two people – an adult and a baby – to form a secure attachment. Stella Chess described three different expressions of temperament: “easy,” “slow-to-warm-up” and “difficult”. A friendly “easy” baby who is more likely to approach than withdraw from novelty in her environment has been found to have an easier time becoming “securely attached.” A “slow-to-warm-up” baby requires more inducement to draw into a relationship. A “difficult” baby requires more time.

Some recent research has leant a more integrative approach to the question of which factor is most likely to inhibit attachment: the quality of a mother or other primary figure’s care-giving, or the baby’s possibly difficult temperament. The major finding was that the quality of care-giving a baby receives is most predictive of whether the child forms a secure or avoidant attachment as measured in a strange situation test. However, the baby’s temperament appears to be decisive in determining which type of insecure attachment is formed. Temperamentally fearful children tended to form resistant attachments, where they kept their distance from mother but protested strongly. More outgoing babies with unresponsive mothers formed avoidant insecure attachments where they protest less but were content to ignore the mother in favor of a stranger.

Babies are just as likely to form secure attachments with fathers as mothers if the father is the primary caregiver. Summing up the data from studying 710 babies in 11 studies, the percentage of secure versus insecure attachments was 65/35 for fathers and 65/35 for mothers. The type of attachment formed also tended to be alike from one parent to the other.

Is Early Attachment Destiny?

The existing research shows that babies who form secure primary attachments to their mothers in the first year turn out better, meaning they display more favorable development outcomes later in childhood. Here’s a sampling of that research.

Securely attached children at age 12 to 18 months when measured at 2 years of age were found to:

1) Be better problem solvers. 2) Be more complex and creative in their symbolic play. 3) Display more positive and fewer negative emotions. 4) Be more popular with their playmates.

Each of these findings was made in a controlled setting comparing 2-year-olds who had the benefit of secure attachments to those found to be insecurely attached to their primary caregivers.

Longer-term studies paint a similar picture. Children who were securely attached to their caregivers at 15 months of age were re-examined in follow-up studies at ages 11 to 12 and ages 15 to 16. Among the findings were the following:

1) Those who had been securely attached as toddlers were described at the older ages as socially more popular, more curious, and self-directed.

2) Those insecurely attached at 15 months were socially and emotionally withdrawn, and less interested in learning. They also tended to be unenthused about surmounting challenges.

These studies showed that the type of secure or insecure attachment that exists between parent and child in the first few years tends to be the same in the child’s grade school and high school years. Other research has shown that a secure relationship with another person – father, grandparent, adoptive parent, or daycare provider – can somewhat offset the negative consequences of a poor attachment with a mother.

One reason why John Bowlby used the term “working models” to describe how young children internalize their earliest relationships was to emphasize that a child’s working models could change. They could improve (or deteriorate) as a result of later relationships with teachers, romantic partners, or close friends. But even with these caveats, don’t fail to understand the importance of a baby beginning life with a secure bond to a significant adult.

Attachment and Working Mothers

Although many people would like to hear a definitive statement about the positive or negative effect of daycare on young children, there are few absolute or simple answers to this question. However, there is evidence for parents to consider when making individual decisions.

From the research:

1) Separations from working mothers and placement in daycare generally do not prevent babies from establishing a secure primary attachment. This is true if the mother and father are sensitive and responsive care-givers when they are home with their child.

2) Babies younger than 6 months placed in full-time daycare face an elevated risk of forming an insecure attachment, and, in one study, they had lower scores on school readiness at 36 months.

3) One large nationwide study found that time spent in daycare added to the risk of a child’s forming insecure attachments only when it was combined with mothering that was less sensitive and less responsive.

4) High-quality daycare helps buffer young children from the negative effects of being separated from their parents.

5) Even when daycare is less than optimal, a child’s outcome depends more on the quality of care received at home.

6) A mother’s attitudes toward working outside the home and placing her baby in daycare are extremely important in shaping the attachment she forms with her child. Any sort of resentment negatively affects the mother-child bond.

If there’s any ideal scenario to be garnered from the existing data it is this: a mother with a positive attitude who spends the first six to seven months as a full-time, stay-at-home mother stands the best chance of forming a secure attachment with her baby.

Of course, public policy and business practices are not as supportive of mothers making this choice in the United States compared to other Western countries. Using the same measurements discussed in this chapter, those societies which provide longer paid maternal and paternal leave and supply subsidized childcare, have higher rates of securely attached children. In Great Britain and Sweden, 75 percent and 74 percent of babies respectively were securely attached, compared to 64 percent in the United States. For low-income Americans, the number of securely attached babies is 50 percent.

The Least You Need to Know

1) Attachment between babies and a significant adult is an instinctual process with life-long implications.

2) Within a secure attachment, a baby finds safety and the will to explore her world, developing an internal thermostat to keep both in balance.

3) Babies and mothers in “strange situation” research studies are rated on four different styles of attachment that range from a secure attachment to avoidant, resistant, or disorganized insecure attachments.

4) Babies younger than 6 months in full-time daycare are at a higher risk for developing an insecure attachment compared to babies with at-home mothers.

Source by Jack C Westman

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/facts-about-attachment-bonding/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

[callmemoprah]

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[shapesnnsizes]

10 Benefits of Play

In the public mind, play has long been relegated to the confines of childhood. However, a rapidly expanding body of research indicates that this perspective is inaccurate and outdated. In fact, play isn’t just for kids—adults need play, too. It’s an intrinsic human need throughout the lifespan that benefits our bodies and brains, helps us build and maintain healthy relationships, and even enhances our creativity and productivity at work.

Read on to learn about the 10 benefits of play in childhood and adulthood and how to incorporate more play into your life.

What Is Play?

Before diving into a discussion of the benefits of play, it helps to understand what defines play.

Play is an activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation, rather than any serious or practical purpose.

It is voluntary, spontaneous, and stress-free. For many people, play also occurs “outside of time and self,” meaning that we become less conscious of time, and of our own bodies and idiosyncrasies, when we play.

Play includes a variety of pursuits as diverse as peekaboo and paintball, stickball on the beach and adult softball leagues, roughhousing and rock climbing. Play can be free and unhindered by rules or structured and codified, such as in the games of soccer and golf.

Play can also be solitary or social—the individual whipping up a new recipe in his kitchen is “playing” just as much as a group of children running around outside playing tag on a beautiful summer day. It takes countless forms that vary depending on an individual's age, personality, and unique interests.

Think playtime is just for kids? Think again. Check out the top 10 benefits of play and learn how to incorporate a little more irreverence into your life.

Here are just a few examples of play that you or your children likely engage in on a regular basis:

Roughhousing with pets or children

Playing make-believe

Playing organized sports such as soccer, baseball, or basketball

Engaging in other forms of physical activity such as rock climbing, skiing, surfing, or ultimate Frisbee

Playing board games

Dancing

Going outside and walking in nature

Engaging in creative expression such as making art, music, gardening, or cooking a meal

Performing creative, innovative work (yes, work can be play!)

Engaging in playful banter at your job or a party

Having a playful relationship with your partner or spouse

Imagine life without these activities. It wouldn’t be much fun, right? Without play, life becomes dull, and we quickly succumb to fatigue and pessimism due to the hectic busyness of our lives. Unfortunately, our society has long devalued play, instead placing emphasis on the importance of constantly engaging in “productive” activities.

Dorothy Sluss, a professor of early childhood education, has gone so far as to state, “We don't value play in our society. It has become a four-letter word.” (1)

However, if play is truly purposeless, as some scientists have led us to believe, then why has it persisted throughout the animal kingdom and human history, and why does it feel so essential to our well-being? Assessing play from an evolutionary perspective can help us answer this question.

The Evolutionary Origins of Play

Anyone who has ever watched a dog perform a “play bow” with its forelegs extended, rump in the air, and a goofy, expectant look on its face or seen dolphins chasing each other gleefully in the ocean understands that humans are not the only animals who love to play.

Dogs, dolphins, otters, killer whales, bears, and birds all engage in play. In fact, the smarter an animal is, the more it plays. Animals have unique play signals, such as a relaxed open-mouthed expression, that are recognized across species lines and invite others to join in the fun. Observations of animals at play have sparked scientific interest in the origins and utility of play.

The Purpose of Play

Scientists working in this field seek to answer the question, “What is the purpose of play?”

The overwhelming consensus is that play offers an evolutionary advantage to animals, including humans, by enhancing health and improving the ability to survive and reproduce.

In fact, some scientists have gone so far as to theorize that play has become preventative to human extinction. (2)

Scientists have observed that bears who play the most during adolescence live longer, healthier lives and leave more offspring behind, promoting the continuation of their species. (3) Rats who experience plenty of playtime as youngsters demonstrate enhanced brain growth and neuronal plasticity, processes that contribute to optimal motor control, balance, coordination, and social behavior throughout life. (4, 5)

In humans, playfulness is associated with positive behaviors that enhance survival and quality of life, including:

Creativity

Productivity

Flexibility

Optimism

Empathy

Social altruism

Cooperation

Problem solving

An increased ability to manage stress

Importantly, play also forges social connections and creates a sense of community and belonging. Play is now considered so crucial for child development that it has been recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child. (6)

What about Video Games and Mobile Games?

The use of electronic media, including video games, cell phones, and iPads, plays a significant role in many children’s lives. Video games have exploded in popularity over the course of the past few decades, with a staggering 99 percent of American boys and 94 percent of American girls playing video games. (7) The amount of time children ages 8 and younger spend glued to screens, including iPads and cell phones, has increased steeply in the past decade, with most spending over two hours per day on screen media. (8) Some might argue that electronic media use constitutes a form of play.

However, the real question is, are video games and cell phone/iPad games an ideal form of play for children?

While some studies have shown that playing video games improves coordination and increases social behavior and learning, video games lack the interpersonal nuance and multisensory engagement that characterizes play in the “real world.” (9) Increased time spent playing on electronic devices also decreases time spent engaged in physical activity, outdoors, and building relationships with other children, which are key features of free play.

There are also legitimate concerns about the addictive nature of video games and other forms of electronic media. (10) As such, video games should not be the sole source of play in a child or adult's life.

The 10 Benefits of Play

Play has a wide variety of physical, mental, emotional, and social health benefits. Far from being a frivolous, purposeless activity, it’s crucial to the development of our physical bodies and brains and our cognitive, emotional, and social health.

1. It Builds a Healthy Body

Play is essential to the development of a robust, healthy body in childhood.

When kids play, they develop reflexes and learn fine and gross motor skills, flexibility, and balancing skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Outdoor play benefits children's physical health by exposing them to sunlight, natural environments, and fresh air, which contributes to bone formation and a robust immune system. (11, 12)

By increasing physical activity, play also:

Builds muscle strength

Improves heart and lung function

Helps prevent obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol

The rates of U.S. children suffering from chronic health conditions, including asthma, obesity, and diabetes, are rapidly rising. This research indicates that increased playtime should be a frontline intervention in our strategy to combat the chronic disease epidemic in children. (13)

2. It Builds a Healthy Brain

Play is an integral part of neurological growth and development in young animals and children. Research indicates that rates of play in mice correlate strongly with the rate of growth of their brains, particularly the cerebellum, a region associated with motor control. This seems to suggest that play performs a crucial role in shaping a mature brain capable of optimizing muscle control.

In mice, play also promotes the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is a protein that mediates the growth, differentiation, and survival of neurons and establishes neuronal connections in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region intrinsically involved with cognition and emotion. (14)

Conversations between adults and children occurring during play also strengthen neuronal connections in brain regions critical for language. (15)

In other words, play is essential for the growth and development of a healthy, fully functional brain. (16) The brain health benefits of play don’t stop with children; in adults, play keeps the brain sharp and reduces stress. These effects may help stave off dementia, which could have a huge impact on the last 10 years of your life. (17)

3. It Teaches Emotional Intelligence and Boosts Self-Esteem

Imagine that you are four years old and building a block tower. Suddenly, another child runs up to your prized tower and knocks it down. What do you do? Tell your teacher? Inform the child that her actions are against the rules? Cry?

Situations such as this frequently occur in unstructured play situations and are crucial for helping children learn how to feel and control and express their emotions. Less verbal children can express their views, experiences, and frustrations through play. The emotional intelligence forged during playtime will help a child navigate social situations and relationships throughout her life.

In addition to creating emotional intelligence, play helps children develop healthy self-esteem. That endows a child with the confidence and resiliency she needs to find her place in the world and face future challenges. (18)

4. Play Builds Healthy Friendships and Romantic Relationships

The ability of play to forge emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with its ability to help children establish peer relationships and make friends. The unstructured nature of free play builds neuronal circuits in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which helps the brain (and child) navigate complex social interactions. (19)

Friendship has a tremendous impact on our well-being. Preschool friendships help children develop social and emotional skills and promote a sense of belonging, while adult friendships provide a strong support network and help reduce stress. (20, 21)

Conversely, a lack of friendship and feelings of social isolation tend to cause depression, chronic health issues, and a shorter lifespan. (22) Adult romantic partners who frequently engage in play experience reduced relational conflict, increased intimacy, and accumulate more “emotional capital,” which refers to collections of positive experiences that can be drawn upon in times of conflict. (23) Play also sparks feelings of excitement in romantic relationships and combats relationship boredom over the long run. (24)

Play serves as a bridge that connects us to other people, helping us develop healthy relationships that will sustain us throughout our lives.

5. It Forges a Healthy Parent–Child Relationship

The developmental trajectory of children is mediated by relationships with parents and caregivers, and one of the primary ways these relationships develop is through play. (25)

When parents play with their children, they are sending the child a simple message: you’re important to me. The undivided attention a parent gives his child during playtime lets a child know that he or she is valued, teaches the parent how to communicate more effectively with the child, and affords the opportunity for parents to offer nurturing, gentle guidance. Play can serve as a cornerstone in the foundation of a healthy, enduring parent–child relationship.

6. It Teaches Cooperation

When children engage in free play, they gain critical knowledge about how to cooperate with others. (26) Rather than relying on rules and regulations to govern their experiences, they must work together with their peers to create and achieve mutual goals. That cooperation may involve sharing, negotiating, and resolving conflicts. (27)

The ability to cooperate with others, a skill learned through play, helps individuals navigate interpersonal interactions throughout their lives in school, work, and family settings.

7. Play Teaches Problem Solving

In children, free play encourages the development of a concept called divergent thinking, which refers to the ability to generate ideas by exploring many possible solutions. (28) Convergent problem solving, on the other hand, involves solving a problem that has a single solution.

While convergent problem solving is emphasized in the classroom and on conventional intelligence tests, divergent problem solving is linked to creativity and is more applicable to the complex, nuanced world we live in. The ability to problem solve divergently, developed through the process of play, may help a child navigate the “real world,” as opposed to merely encouraging good performance on standardized tests.

8. It Stimulates Creativity

Many people consider creativity to be a special skill only possessed by a few fortunate individuals, such as artists and musicians. However, the truth is that all humans can be creative, and play is one method we can use to stimulate our innate creativity.

The ability to be creative serves as a healthy outlet for children to express their emotions and reflect on their experiences. (29) In adults, play can water the seeds of creativity that may have been dormant since childhood. This may foster success at work, as they expand their ability to think “outside the box.” Enhanced creativity may also help adults better manage the stress and emotions drummed up in day-to-day life.

9. It Improves Work Outcomes

Imagine having the opportunity to play a pickup game of soccer over your lunch break, or the freedom to take 30 minutes out of your workday to dabble on an instrument or build a Lego structure at a designated “play” area in your company’s corporate office. For many adults, this situation sounds like a fantasy; for others, it is a reality.

A growing number of organizations, including Facebook and LinkedIn, are embracing the idea of play at work because it can have beneficial effects on a variety of work outcomes. (30)

For example, research has found that play at work:

Enhances job satisfaction

Increases creativity

Relieves boredom in a monotonous job

Enhances employees’ ability to deal with work-related stress (31, 32, 33, 34)

Psychologist Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of the National Institute of Play, has personally observed the positive effects of play on work performance:

“When employees have the opportunity to play, they actually increase their productivity, engagement, and morale … Not only does having a playful atmosphere attract young talent, but experts say play at work can boost creativity and productivity in people of all ages.” (35)

Based on these studies and observations, office “playtime” may soon become the new-and-improved 21st-century version of the “water cooler break”!

10. It Reduces Stress and Builds Resilience

Unfortunately, modern-day life is fraught with psychological stress, and it can quickly overwhelm us if we fail to engage in stress-reduction activities.

While contemplative practices such as meditation have their place in stress management, play serves a crucial but underappreciated role as a buffer that dampens the impact of daily stressors on health and modulates our interpretations and reactions to stressful events. (36)

Studies on the benefits of play and its impact on stress have revealed some profound findings. A study comprising nearly 1,000 students recruited from three universities found that those students who described themselves as more playful reported lower levels of perceived stress than their less-playful counterparts. The “playful” students also demonstrated better coping strategies in stressful situations and were less likely to engage in negative behaviors commonly triggered by stress. (37)

A study of older women involved in the Red Hat Society—“a playgroup for women created to connect like-minded women, make new friends and enrich lives through the power of fun and friendship”—also found that playfulness fostered resilience. It enabled the women to be more flexible in the face of adversity and bounce back quickly from difficult conditions. (38, 39)

Play is a hallmark of the human species and a strong predictor of our health and well-being. Play creates the optimal developmental milieu to prepare children physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially for the experiences and challenges of life. In adults, it nurtures faculties that may have been lost over time, such as creativity and emotional expression, while:

Bolstering brain health

Facilitating productivity at work

Decreasing the health risks associated with isolation, loneliness, and chronic stress

While researchers have taken a keen interest in the abundant health benefits of play, many have also observed and come to understand the profound health consequences of a lack of play, referred to as “play deprivation.” Just as play is an index of health, play deprivation is a strong predictor of numerous adverse health outcomes.

The Harmful Effects of Play Deprivation

Whereas abundant play enhances survival and quality of life, a lack of play has serious repercussions for physical, mental, and emotional health. “Play deprivation” is a term used to describe the adverse developmental, emotional, and social repercussions of a lack of play.

Unfortunately, our hurried lifestyles, declines in recess time at school, and an increased emphasis on academic achievement and high-stakes athletic activities for children leave kids with little time for idle, creative, unstructured play. This observation is backed up by alarming statistics: A recent survey found that the average kindergarten offers far less free play time than is recommended for optimal child development, and another survey found that the number of schools with at least one recess period decreased by nearly 30 percent between 1989 and 1999. (40, 41)

In the pursuit of higher academic scores, athletic achievement, and other “enrichment” activities, play deprivation is becoming commonplace, even accepted, in our society. But what are the consequences of play deprivation for our children?

What Happens When Kids Don’t Get Enough Time to Play

The consequences of inadequate playtime are profound. Children who are deprived of quality playtime experience decreases in brain and muscle development, reduced social skills, and impaired problem-solving abilities and are more likely to become violent and antisocial. (42) Play-deprived children also experience a loss of sensory stimulation that causes withdrawal and decreased brain activity and are at an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and obesity.

In other words, all work and no play makes kids makes kids depressed, unhealthy, and less intelligent.

Could the answer to rising rates of childhood obesity, anxiety, depression, and falling scores in science and math be a “prescription” for more play? The answer appears to be a resounding “yes!” In fact, adding extra recess time to children's school schedules has been found to improve academic skills, classroom behavior, and adjustment to school life, among the many other cognitive, emotional, and social processes mentioned above. (43)

Play Deprivation Matters for Adults, Too

Play deprivation also has serious consequences for adults. Psychiatrist Stuart Brown has noted that adults who have “forgotten how to play” have narrow, rigid thinking and a decreased ability to handle stress. (44) In his own clinical practice, Dr. Brown has found that playless adult lives are also associated with controlling behavior, over-ambition, envy, and in some cases, emotional breakdown. (45)

How to Incorporate More Play into Your Life

Play is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. While some individuals have a natural predisposition toward fun, anyone can learn how to become more playful, given some time, effort, and a few helpful tips. (46, 47) With the importance of play in mind, here are some tips for encouraging more play in your life.

Choose Activities You Loved as a Child

What was your favorite childhood game? Perhaps it was climbing trees or playing stickball in the yard with your neighborhood friends. Make a list, get creative, and see how you can incorporate these activities into your current adult life. Instead of climbing trees, you could give rock climbing a go, and an adult softball league could be a great way to get back to your stickball-playing roots.

Pick Activities That Bring You Joy

What activities spark a fire in you? Make a list and keep it in a place where you’ll see it every day. Try to engage in play activities at least several days of the week, if not every day!

Keep in mind that play can be fun, but also absorbing, challenging, and demanding. To this end, activities like working on your car, undertaking a DIY project in your home, or planting a garden can be considered play, as long as you’re having fun along the way.

Create Opportunities for Play

If you look for chances to play, you’ll find that they are everywhere. Go on a walk in the woods, have a board game night, throw a stick for your dogs, or build a fort with your kids—the possibilities are endless.

Embrace “Beginner’s Mind”

In Zen practice, the term “beginner’s mind” refers to an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject. This state of mind is an excellent one to cultivate for play. A beginner’s mind can help you let go of self-consciousness and concern about being awkward or unskilled, which is a legitimate fear for many adults who are unfamiliar with play.

Make Play a Priority

Schedule time for play just as you would schedule time for other activities in your life, such as going to your job and working out. Given the health benefits of play, it deserves some dedicated time in your life!

Do you make time for play? What’s your go-to activity? Tell me in the comment section below.

The post 10 Benefits of Play appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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Best Las Vegas Relationship Coaching-Saving a Relationship or Marriage

Best Las Vegas Relationship Coaching-Saving a Relationship or Marriage through spiritual non-judgmental conversation with relationship coaching tools and couples exercises.

Saving a Relationship or Marriage

Saving a relationship takes work. Regardless of whether you are a perfect couple, or you fight often, you must put time and consideration into any relationship. Love is a wonderful feeling, but it’s not enough to keep a relationship alive and thriving.

Now take love in an environment like Las Vegas. Las Vegans spend a disproportionate amount of time making the very obvious statement: “yes, people actually live here, and not everyone works in the casino”… though, to be fair, an overwhelming percentage do. Roughly 335,000 people in Las Vegas work in hospitality and leisure in a city of less than 2 million. The hospitality industry can be very trying on a relationship. Everyone is worried about what everyone else is thinking. Jealousy rears its ugly head, eyes wander and self-esteem is always impacted. Relationship coaching tackles the present here and now challenges.

What happens when your relationship starts to unravel? What are you supposed to do when you and your partner grow apart? How do you deal with fundamental differences? What if you or your partner does something that seriously jeopardizes the relationship? Can the relationship be mended?

It can be exceptionally painful when a relationship or marriage falls apart. You’ve had a connection with this person for a period of time, sometimes for years or decades, and then you no longer feel as close. You feel alone and scared. You’re not sure what will happen. Will you be able to patch things up? Or is it better if you go your separate ways? So lets talk about, how to save a relationship in crisis. Today, we’re going to discuss the traits of successful couples. Myers Life Coaching will teach you how to save your relationship from a breakup. In our discussion, we will discuss the positive behaviors displayed by happy couples to help keep repaired relationships alive and strong.

Las Vegas Healthy Couples

Successful couples display several traits in areas in which other couples might be lacking. They love each other, humble themselves when the time is right and are also aware that it takes more than love to keep a relationship flourishing.

Here are a few save relationship tips:

Couples LIKE each other

Healthy couples are friends. Las Vegas, they truly, deeply, sincerely like each other, and they think the world of one another. They view each other positively. Just like any other friends, they want to hang out, talk with one another, and care about each other’s thoughts and feelings. They respect each other. They view their partner as a friend and ally. They are on the same team. Of course there are things about their partner that probably drive them nuts on occasion, but they are able to look past these elements because, overall, they genuinely love and care about their significant other. They want to be around their partner, and they want to make them happy. At times, they are able to put their partner’s needs before their own. They don’t do this out of obligation. They do it because they care about their partner. These couples bring out the best in one another.

Couples Talk

Successful couples are masters of communication. They may not always know exactly what to say, but they know the best way in which to say it. They trust each other, and they feel safe. They speak their minds and are respectful of one another’s feelings. Communication is vastly important for a successful relationship. Couples who communicate well have the ability to be completely honest with their thoughts, opinions, and feelings during disagreements. They express themselves in healthy ways. They are truthful, but they convey their emotions in a manner that isn’t hurtful to their partner. They understand the importance of both talking AND listening. Most importantly, they get support from a Relationship Coach, Counselor or Spiritual leader when times get rough.

They don’t feel forced to keep their feelings hidden deep inside. When couples feel as if they must suppress their feelings, it’s easy for things to escalate and eventually explode. These couples don’t play emotional games, and they don’t shut their partner out. When you allow your partner to know your deepest thoughts, desires, fears, etc., and your partner allows you to know the same things about him or her, this gives both of you a huge advantage. You know each other better. You communicate better. Overall, you understand your partner better, which can help you to react more wisely when difficult situations arise.

Healthy couples also talk about plans, chores, and anything else that requires a discussion. They make big life decisions. They understand one another and are able to compromise when necessary. They also communicate and divide up housework. These conversations reinforce the idea that they are a team working together. It helps keep the relationship positive, and prevents one or both sides from becoming resentful. Good communication helps both parties to feel safe and confident in the relationship. There’s no guesswork. It’s less stressful when you know how your partner feels.

Couples Laugh and Play

Happy couples don’t live with a permanent rain cloud over their heads. They are able to find humor in situations and enjoy a laugh together. Laughing helps to break tension and minimize conflict. Healthy couples realize that not every fight is the end of the world. In fact, a lot of fights can be avoided if both partners have a sense of humor – or generally approach life in a lighter way. They have fun!

They also realize the importance of kicking back and enjoying life. They show affection by hugging, tickling, cuddling, and more. Again, they like being around each other. They enjoy touching one another. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they indulge in constant public displays of affection. It means showing one another that they care with a smile, a back rub, a quick kiss, or sending an “I love you” text during the day. They also know that they have the freedom to have fun with other people. Each partner is allowed to have his or her own friends, hobbies, interests, and plans. Neither side is threatened by the other’s outside interests. They are not manipulative or controlling of one another. They are able to enjoy fun times together and apart. This way, when they come back from spending time away from each other, they are reinvigorated and excited to be near one another again. It helps keep things fresh and exciting. When you stop enjoying yourself, take things too seriously, and cease showing tenderness, it can be easy for the relationship to feel cold and lackluster.

Las Vegas Couples Forgive and Forget

Happy couples know how and when to deal with conflict. They pick their battles. They are aware that their partners have quirks. They may not love all of these little quirks, but, for the most part, they learn to live with them – and sometimes, to even embrace them. They communicate their feelings in a more productive way when addressing annoyances. Ultimately, they love their partner more than they dislike their partner’s quirks.

When Las Vegas Couples do have discussions, both sides make an actual attempt to be better. They are aware that they are a team. It takes two to keep a relationship alive. They are also able to admit fault and to say “I’m sorry.” It may not always be easy to do, but they know that it will make things better in the long run. No one actually wins an argument when one or both sides doesn’t put in an effort to make things right. Partners in successful couples take the blame when it’s their fault. In turn, their partners are able to forgive them and move past the conflict. Successful couples communicate, learn from their differences, and move on. They don’t dwell on issues forever.

Las Vegas Couples Support One Another

Happy, healthy couples support one another. They are for each other there when needed. They show up. They do their best to be there for each other, especially when times get rough. They are able to rely on each other. There is a sense of stability. They love and trust each other. They know that they can count on one another in any situation.Healthy couples make each other a top priority. This doesn’t mean that you have to base your entire life around the person that you love, but it’s important to make sure they know how important they are to you.

Communication helps in this area. When couples communicate well, they know the things that are meaningful to their partner. Another thing to note is that “reliable” does not equate to “stale.” Successful couples are happy together, but they don’t allow themselves to become complacent. They do their best to keep things fresh! They put in effort so that they don’t get stuck in the same routines, fall into ruts, or take each other for granted. Again, they are there for one another because they WANT to be, not because it’s a requirement.

Las Vegas Couples Have Sex

Happy couples keep the spark alive!

They desire to be close with their partner. They have a healthy sex life. This means that they don’t force sex, make it feel like a chore, or feel the need to schedule it. It simply means that they love each other, and enjoy showing their attraction to one another. They still find time to be sexually close with one another. They desire it. Vegas there are plenty of local resources, toys, and Las Vegas shows and Las Vegas things to that can keep that spark alive.

The sexual relationship must be mutual. Neither person should withhold or use sex as a weapon, especially when fighting. Both sides must remain open to new ideas. Or, if they’re uncomfortable, they have the ability to be honest with one another. Healthy couples are on the same wavelength both inside and outside of the bedroom. It’s important that partners have a give and take relationship. Each partner needs to be sexually satisfied. If not, it can lead to resentment or dissatisfaction.

Las Vegas Couples Are Not Cruel

John Gottman, PhD created the term “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” for relationships. He believes that these are behaviors that slowly but surely tear relationships apart. He describes the traits as, “criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.”

These four elements work against all of the other positive traits that should be exhibited by couples. When nag your partner, it grows old. No one likes to be needled day in and day out. No one likes to be treated as if they are not good enough, or as if they are full of imperfections. Be careful of constantly criticizing your partner. It may start out innocent enough, but over time, it can develop into a habit. It can wear away at your partner. Imagine how you would feel if the person you loved most always had something negative to say about you. It would hurt deeply. Similarly, showing contempt, disdain, or even dislike for your partner can be incredibly painful. Gottman says that when you show contempt for your partner, you are intentionally trying to belittle them or make them feel bad.

A partner must feel loved and valued. Why spend time with someone who doesn’t appreciate you? It’s hard being around couples that are mean to one another. “He can never do anything right…He’s such an idiot…She drives me crazy.” These are not words that convey love.When you’re defensive, you aren’t communicating properly. You’re not taking in the information that your partner is presenting to you. You are unable to laugh or let things slide off your back. You are unable to accept blame graciously. You use anger as a weapon.

Defensiveness deflects emotion and makes communication very difficult. When you’re defensive, you don’t take responsibility for your words and actions. There’s no empathy or apology. You shut your partner down and refuse to deal with problems in a productive manner. Lastly, when you stonewall your partner, you shut your partner out. Problems cannot be remedied. Remember, you must talk and you must also listen. In a lot of cases, listening can be the most important element in a discussion. If both you and your partner are able to truly hear each other’s words, then actions can be taken to improve situations. If not, nothing will be resolved. Nothing will get better.

Stonewalling completely shuts down communication. It can be very hurtful and frustrating, and it prevents the resolution of any conflicts. It can very easily cause a partner to call it quits. If they can’t get through to their partner or communicate in any way, they inevitably reach a point where they feel it’s easier to end the relationship. Successful couples do not behave in these ways. Rather, they are kind, caring, receptive, and communicative.

If something isn’t working, you must take action to fix it. Otherwise, it will never improve. To be able to move past issues, both parties must be willing to communicate constructively. Whether your relationship is perfect or on the rocks, it’s important to remember the keys to success. These key elements can be combined into three basic steps:

• Communicate • Show Love and Affection • Adapt

Las Vegas Nevada, gain insight from a life and relationship coach, minister & psychologist with over 22 years of education combined! We specialize in anger management, relationship coaching and career planning! We saw a unique opportunity to combine our backgrounds to meet couples and individuals on their level and provide both the male and female perspective from a spiritual standpoint. We love to see our clients achieve results with our relationship coaching tools pdf. We have seen marriages come back from the brink of divorce. We have seen individuals manage their anger in provocative situations. We will help you achieve change with relationship coaching tools and spiritual non-judgemental conversation.