May
2007
How Much Does My Toddler Remember?
I've been thinking about my nephew a lot lately. He recently passed away - just before his 13th birthday. Way too soon for all of us that knew him. So, remembering him helps with the process of grieving.
Cole was born premature. He began his life outside the womb with a C-section, 45 minutes after his twin sister was born vaginally. Once born, he was treated for immature lungs, and had many procedures, and needles, and lived in an isolette in the neonatal ICU until he was stable, and eventually could go home.
Do you wonder how much your baby remembers from his or her, and for how long?
Let me tell you this story about Cole:
He was about three years old, and I took him to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo for the day. After a short while of walking around and looking at animals, what pleased him most was the vast green field - completely open with gentle slopes at the edges. He was a very active toddler and the space to run and run and run was irrisitable. So we ran, and played, and rolled down the hills, and began "wrestling" until he changed that game into a "poking" game.
He started tickling me, and I howled with laughter - even though it didn't tickle much - but the giggles I evoked in him were delightful! Oh, to have such influence that he could make a grown-up weak and helpless! It wasn't long before his tickles turned into light pokes, and eventually harder pokes. I set a boundary: "Cole, that hurts my body to poke me like that. You can poke me like this though…" and I showed him what pressure was okay. This time, the game evolved into my pretending to be hurt, and obviously reacting out of proportion to what he was doing. "OH! OW OW OW!!" and he'd laugh and laugh…
I wondered, as we played, if this was helpful in healing his fears and upsets from all the needles he had stuck in him at birth. Moments after I wondered that (to myself) he stopped poking, and got quiet, and seemed a little scared. "Auntie Dylan," he began, "Are you ever gonna hurt me?" I matched his mood and reassured him that I was not EVER going to hurt him. I contined by affirming what I think he was referring to, "You did get hurt right after you were born, when people were poking you, didn't you?" He nodded, and then lifted his shirt and showed me a scar he had on his torso. I said, "Yeah, that must have been scary…and it must have hurt. And we were playing just now, and I will never hurt you."
Just as quickly he shifted back into playing with me, and that was all he ever said to me about his birth.
I think that we all remember our births, and even before. It's all recorded in our brains, our bodies, and our systems. The memories are not stored in our intellectual brains, where we expect memories to be, but they are accessible and can be found in our bodies with helpful tools, modalties and techniques of identifying them. And of course, spontaneous memories may surface all on their own. In the case of negative memories, these can arise in the form of discomfort in a certain situation, "illogical" reactions to experiences or words, irrational fears and our limiting beliefs about self and the world. Patterns of behaviour, and habits of interactions are also built from our earliest experiences - positive and negative.
Cole's identification of his own fears helped him to ask me about it, and then gain trust in me. Trust for those involved in his care at his birth was in short supply. His inherant brilliance at following a game until he felt uncomfortable, and then asking what he needed to know in order to be comfortable again is a sign not just of his ability to remember and be affected by his birth, but also know what he needed from me in order to help resolve those experiences.
Your baby and toddler may be telling you about his or her birth over and over…it's just about learning to know what they can remember, what might be needing resolution, and how to interpret it and respond.