The Developmental Impulse to Reach: Healing Trauma through Completing this Long-Held Survival Response
Trauma is often defined as an incomplete survival response — fight or flight that could not happen. The body had the impulse to protect or run away, but was overpowered. It could not do what it instinctively knew it had to do to survive. The vital energy driving the biological fight / flight impulse was truncated, impeding the survival response and causing trauma. There is another survival response discussed not nearly as often — reaching. Desiring or needing connection, a child instinctively reaches for her primary attachment figure. Biologically, we are wired to connect. And so we are naturally wired to reach for that connection, particularly in pre-verbal stages of development. We long to have our hand received with gentleness and love. Yet, when that […]
The Right Brain Develops First ~ Why Play is the Foundation for Academic Learning
Photo credit: Thank you to Emek of Emek Studios “Two major studies confirmed the value of play vs. teaching reading skills to young children. Both compared children who learned to read at 5 with those who learned at 7 and spent their early years in play-based activities. Those who read at 5 had no advantage. Those who learned to read later had better comprehension by age 11, because their early play experiences improved their language development.” ~ The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten | by Wendy Lecker, Education Columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media Group Did you know that the right brain develops first? By measuring blood flow circulation within hemispheres, researchers have discovered that during the first three years of life, children are right brain dominant. It is only […]