* What happens early in life matters to all other development, including physical *

Stress is a normal part of life. If you remember back to Tidbit 5, Let’s Look at BEHAVIORS Differently, a stressor is anything during the day that requires an expenditure of energy to keep the person running smoothly. We must replenish this energy. Stress is a chemical reaction in the body; there is a spike in the steroid hormone cortisol. Cortisol affects many organs in the body and is responsible for kicking the body into high alert, allowing it to be ready to respond to the stressor ahead. Positive stress is necessary, but it is also brief. When supported, the brain of a child learns, “I can work to turn this [stress] off and parents can help”.

Tolerable stress is the kind that can be buffered by healthy, supportive relationships and positive experiences. Tolerable stress can come in the form of a significant illness, a car accident, or even losing a parent. Supportive relationships can help “turn off” this kind of stress in a young child. Stress activates even the tiniest human’s sympathetic nervous system – or the way in which the body responds when it goes into fight, flight, or freeze mode. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for helping bring the body back down from that heightened state. If tolerable stress is not buffered, it could become dangerous and move to toxic stress instead of back to “normal” stress.

With toxic stress, there is no calm down from the heightened state. A person’s hormonal response is always on and the parasympathetic nervous system is never allowed to return the person back to a state of calm. Toxic stress is prolonged; the hormone release within the body is repeated leaving the body to believe there is always a threat near by and a reason to be heightened and ready to protect. Children experiencing toxic stress often do not have positive and supportive adults surrounding them. Toxic stress early in life gets coded into a child’s physiology if it remains continuous – too much for too long. This can quite literally alter the architecture of the brain and lead to “poor construction”. We know that prolonged neglect leaves legitimate holes in the brain structure; there is a lack of neural connections. Neglect is by far the most neurologically impactful.

Toxic stress kills brain cells and stops others from being born; the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and learning, is often impacted. Memory challenges might be notable in school aged children while those 6 years or younger become hypervigilant, dysregulated, and engage in what is perceived as challenging behaviors. Verbal recall (or the recollection of verbal information) does not develop until at least 28 months of age. Children 28 months and younger have procedural memory; the body shows the impact of the stress. The body stores the memory.

All of this matters to health.

Resources | References

• NJ Children’s System of Care
• Montclair State University Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health
• KEEPING BABIES & CHILDREN IN MIND Professional Formation Series in Infant & Early Childhood