A little girl called Golden Riccioli discovers a house while walking in the forest. He looks around and realizes that three bears live in the house: dad bear, big big; Mamma bear, half big; Bear, small small.
Enter the house and find a table, set for three. There are a large bowl, a half large bowl and a small small bowl.
Golden Riccioli is so hungry, so I taste first the soup of dad bump bowl, but alas, it is too hot. He moves on to that of Mamma Orsa, but it is too cold; Finally, try that of the small bear and finds it right for her, so exclaims, “Oh, this is fine!”.
Then, he enters another room and sees three armchairs: a large large, a half of half and a small small one. Golden curls sits in the first, that big big, “Oh no, it’s too hard”; Then try that big half, but “Oh no, it’s too soft”. Finally he throws himself on that little small .. “Oh yes, this goes well!” …
You know the rest of the story, right?
Golden Riccioli knows his own “tolerance window“(Siegel, 2013). The condition of endurance within which we can feel comfortable, at ease, concentrated and able to respond and react to situations with opening and flexibility. Not too hot, not too cold, but just just for me!
Golden curls, its nervous system and its tolerance window offer a look at family life, the environment and on the relationship dynamics that, as a whole, contribute to forming both the structure and the brain functions.
Since birth, any change of state (hunger, cold, sleep, pain) can generate tension in a child. The regulation of these states depends on the response, adequate and tuned, on the part of the adult who takes care of him.
Who assists it is the tool of Stress adjustment and therefore the key to his sense of security (Tuscan 2019); The quality of the Caregiver-Bambino report has a decisive role in the construction of an adequate and flexible response to stress conditions.
Emotional regulation by the parent
A safe parent, who manages to calm his child, to recognize his signals, to respond consistently to his needs, perhaps by modulating his voice with a low tone and reassuring when the baby needs calm or with high tones when the child needs stimuli, is able to start a interactive dance strengthening the link and allows one optimal personality development of the child, who will not be hindered by the effects of emotional discomfort.
At the beginning the child will depend on his attachment figure to achieve this regulation. Subsequently, once the adjustment strategies provided by the parent is internalized, it will be able to first acquire an adjustment of the biological states (sleep, vigil, nutrition) and then of the emotional and emotional ones.
The lack of a regulatory action carried out by the parents, in addition to being a situation, in itself, traumatic, leads the child to use improper forms of regulation (if rigid and persistent), such as self -consolation, or isolation and closure in themselves, avoiding requesting consolation from the other.
A good clue of health is given by the possibility of taking advantage of complementary forms of self -regulation in a flexible way: one Interactive regulation which involves the possibility of modulating, in the relationship with the other, one’s state of activation and discomfort received, or one autonomous regulation, or the possibility to regulate itself independently from the others.
Emotional discomfort
We talk about emotional disregulation When the ability to regulate emotions, organizing experience and behavioral responses is lost; Emotions are experienced excessively, with levels of activation above the limits of the tolerance window (“IPerarousal”, with activation of the orthosimpatic system) or below the limits of the tolerance window (“Hypoarousal”with activation of the parasimpatic system).
How a “Arousal” high, or a state of strong activation? Often in an impulse to run, to want to go, to attack verbally … it can give rise to obsessive, repetitive and still thoughts, a sense of alarm, restlessness, tremor, tension, difficulty in concentrating … even fear, anger and panic can manifest themselves.
And “Arousal” lowor a state of low activation? It can manifest itself through sense of weakness or impotence, lack of strength, slowness in movements, sleepiness, sense of disconnection … passivity and sense of emptiness, boredom, up to despair and total discouragement.
An emotional and physiological level of activation guarantee the child the optimal conditions (wellness area) For a good general functioning and for social engagement.
Inside the tolerance window, the child can experience muscle relaxation, quiet breathing, regular heart beat, mental lucidity, calm and availability to social interactions, joy, comfort, enthusiasm. (Verardo, Lauretti, 2020).
The role of trauma
The trauma It is a consequence of an overwhelming event, which throws the child into a constant alarm state, such as to compromise its sense of safety. Prolonged conditions of stress can reduce the tolerance window, leading the child to produce unknown responses, even in safety conditions.
In addition to the emotional aspect, the discussion also implies consequences on basic rhythms such as the sleep (with difficulty in recognizing the need to sleep and the sense of tiredness), thediet (with the appearance of colic, refusal/excessive request for food, difficulty in recognizing the sense of hunger and satiety, a General level of excessive energy or its oppositewith aggression or immense liveliness).
Emotional discomfort is always a traumatic experience for the child.
Krystel (2010) states that “perhaps the most crucial and difficult aspect of being mothers consists in allowing the child to withstand increasingly intense emotional tensions, however managing to intervene to comfort him before emotions become intolerable.”
The goal is to learn to modulate intense emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant ones, allowing an expansion of the tolerance window, mediated by the experience of stable and safe relationships for the child.
To exercise this regulatory function, the parent must be able to tune in, reflect the state of tension of the child and not be submerged (Fonagy et al., 1995).
Manage the child’s discussion
Some tips to manage emotional discomfort crises:
- develop a calm and reassuring presence;
- Create a space around the child where he cannot hurt;
- remain close to the child;
- Modular the voice, look at the child in the eyes and, if possible, explain to him that it is a delicate moment and that we will talk to him as soon as he returns: “Now it’s a bad moment, we will talk about it later”;
- reassure the child, tune in to him and try to respond to his need;
- Once you perceive that the child is more present to himself, you can turn to him with kindness, get closer and reassure him of the fact that it is a reason for joy that he now feels better. (Verardo 2016)
In the Somatic Experience The image of the pendulumwhich contains in itself the idea of the natural rhythm of contraction and expansion that carries on us and back between sensations, emotions, pleasant and unpleasant images.
The emotions and difficult feelings are usually associated with trauma and stress, where residence’s ability is less and a sense of overpowering and impotence prevails.
Upon this condition, the other extreme of the pendulum must follow, pleasure and relaxation, so that a bearable balance between the two conditions is created.
The oscillation of the pendulum can be read as a metaphor that transmits to the child the idea that, having lived bad experience, this will soon pass.
Fairy tales of the forest, the experience of cyclicality
“Once, many and many winters ago, he lived a forest, somewhere in this world, or perhaps of another, where absolutely nothing particular happened. It was a forest like many others, who had his natural rhythms, like all the normal woods of this land; after the light of the day the darkness of the night came and then the light of the day; the grass and the leaves emerged in the spring, they flocked with the summer, Autumn, while the plants in winter rested to prepare to be reborn in the spring, and so on.
The animals of the woods were born, learned to grow with the help of the older ones, then they became great in turn and put other puppies to the world, as had always happened, season after season … and for millennia life had been going on like this, made of rhythms and cycles. Everything had his own and, above all, he knew he had them and he considered them the only possible … “ (Marcoli, 2015).
Bibliography
- Fonagy, P. (2005). Affective regulation. Mentalization and self -development.
- Kline, M., Levine PA (2009). The trauma seen by a child. Emotional emergency room for childhood and adolescence.
- Kurtz, R., (2007). Body-hanging Psychotherapy. The Hakomi Method.
- Lauretti, G., Verardo. A., (2020). Repair childhood trauma. Clinical integration theoretical manual between motivational systems and EMDR.
- Marcoli, A. (2015). The hidden child. Fairy tales to understand our psychology and our children.
- Siegel, DJ (2013). The relational mind: neurobiology of interpersonal experience.
