Suicide When Life is Untenable

1
Supporting Human Development What Does Suicide
Tell Us About How Were Doing Linda L.
Nosbush Understanding the Early Years
Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
2
Tools for Success Tools that become part of the
childs inner self Ways of thinking, being, and
acting

• To form meaningful relationships with others
• To be empathetic and compassionate
• To be kind and polite
• To be smart
• To be healthy
• To make wise choice to think and act morally
• To have confidence
• To have a healthy attitude toward sexuality
• To communicate well
• To have a joyful attitude

Sears Sears, 2002
Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
3
Seven Attachment Tools The Baby Bs

• Birth Bonding
• Breastfeeding
• Babywearing
• Bedding Close to Baby
• Believing in the Language Value of Your Babys
  Cry
• Being Wary of Baby Trainers
• Establishing Rules and Boundaries

Childhood Cs

• Caring Kids
• Compassionate Kids
• Communicative Kids
• Connected Kids
• Careful and Considerate Kids
• Confident Kids
• Cuddly Kids
• Confident Parents

• Secure
• Loved
• rusted

Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
Sear Sears, 2002
4
We Live, Love, Learn and Discover our
Human-Being In the Shelter of Each Other

• Action has meaning only in relationship and
  without understanding relationship action on any
  level will only breed conflict (Krishnamurti).
• So often we focus on what we should do instead
  we need to focus on what we should be for our
  children (Neufeld Maté)
• Relationship is a two-way connection for it to
  facilitate development it must be
• Positive
• Enduring
• Reciprocal

5
Childrens Developmental Destiny

• Self-regulated
• Self-motivated
• Mature
• Conscious of their own self-worth
• Mindful of feelings,rights, dignity of others
• However, only the attachment relationship can
  provide the proper context for child rearing.
  The secret of parenting is not what the parent
  does for the child but who the parent is for the
  child. When this is firmly established, the
  attachment relationship functions like the
  psychological umbilical cord and becomes the
  secure base from which the child develops trust,
  defines and integrates who they are, and ventures
  forth in the world and learns to function in it
  socially, emotionally, physically and cognitively.

Based on Neufeld Maté, 2004
6
Weve Come Undone

• In periods of rapid change, groups must
  reconstitute who they are and how they function
  but it takes 100 years to create a working
  culture
• The type of society that supports the
  developmental needs of young human beings is
  vanishing. The cause is not individual parental
  failure but an unprecedented cultural breakdown
  for which our instincts cannot adequately
  compensate. Children need stability, presence,
  attention, advice, good psychic food, and
  unpolluted stories (Bly).

7
How does this Happen and Why?

• Mobility interrupts cultural continuity
  incessant transplanting results in
• Children growing up peer rich and adult poor
• Loss of Extended Family who provide unconditional
  acceptance
• The Nuclear Family is under extreme pressure
• Divorce Rates
• Competing Attachments
• Secularization of Society spiritual communities
  provide an important supporting cast for parents
  and an attachment village for children which grow
  out of secure, primary attachments
• Recreation and many other activities for peer
  group thereby distancing intergenerational
  contact and support
• Immigration
• Powerful economic dynamics
• Two parents working
• Loss of the family meal
• Culture is eroded in its capacity to
• Evolve customs and rituals that serve attachment
  needs
• Games are an instrument of culture

8
What is the Effect?

• Attachment Voids are created situations where
  the childs natural attachments are missing, and
  they are dangerous precisely because they are so
  indiscriminate
• Children hunger for relief from attachment void.
  Attachment instinct is blind to such factors as
• Dependability,
• Responsibility,
• Security,
• Maturity, and
• Nurturance.
• The likelihood of an attachment becoming an
  affair is much greater when it is born of a
  void instead of an existing attachment.
• Peer attachments are safest when they are the
  natural offspring of attachments with parents.
  Frequently, they are born of disconnection rather
  than connection. Then, attachment
  incompatibility results and the child must choose
  one or the other
• If we do not recognize what binds us together, we
  cannot understand what tears us asunder.

9
Attachment

• The pursuit and preservation of proximity, of
  closeness and connection biologically,
  physically, behaviorally, emotionally and
  psychologically.
• Orchestrates the instincts of the parent as well
  as the child.
• When our attachments are out of order, our
  instincts will be too
• For parents to apply this knowledge properly,
  they must become conscious from within. The two
  ways of knowing
• Knowing About
• Experiencing Intimately
• must come together

10
When Peers Become the Compass

• They dictate
• How to act
• What to wear
• How to look
• What to say
• What to do
• Arbiters of what is good and what is bad
• What is happening
• How to separate reality from fantasy
• What is important
• What works and what doesnt work
• How the child defines who he or she is
• Because the child is not yet capable of
  self-orienting

11
Six Ways of Attaching

• Senses physical proximity
• Sameness attempting to form the same type of
  existence or expression by imitation and
  emulation
• Belonging and Loyalty to claim as ones own and
  then to be faithful and obedient to those one is
  attached to
• Significance feel that you matter to somebody
  please and want to win approval
• Feeling pursuit of emotional intimacy
• Being Known a psychological closeness defining
  by the secrets that are shared sharing deepest
  concerns and insecurities about self

12
What Happens When There is an Attachment Void?

• Vulnerability to Gangs
• Violence and aggression
• Bullying
• Suicide
• Adolescents failing to mature
• Desensitizing
• Insolence and Defiance increasing
• Substance Abuse
• Addictions to a range of things like video games,
  internet
• Poor prosocial skills
• Horizontal rather than Vertical transmission of
  Culture Peers replacing parents
• ALIENATION

13
Horizontal Transmission of Culture is Dangerous

• Peer-oriented Kids become Sensitized to
  Insensitive Interactions of Children BECAUSE
• By our failure to keep our children attached to
  us and to other adults responsible for them, we
  have
• Take away their shields
• Put a sword in the hands of their peers
• Compassion, tolerance for the feelings of
  others and making room for the perspective of
  others are the results of maturation
• Children are unprepared developmentally to mix
  with others without adults supervision and input

Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
14

• We should be taking the sting out of such natural
  manifestations of immaturity by
• Re-establishing the power of adults to protect
  children
• From Themselves
• From Each Other

Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
15
Adults are Called to Action
Stuart and Bostrom, 2003            A
Adversity provides a catalyst for a childs
character growth and is essential to success T
A Trusting Relationship with a caring adult
helps a child interpret adversity and develop
promise character
16
The Maturing Brain

• Sculpting and Pruning normal 15 abnorrnal
  25
• Connecting
• Mylenation a coating of fatty insulation that
  both speeds and smoothes signals between neurons
• Such improved communication is a good thing and
  may contribute to leaps of cognition
• But if improved communication connects areas
  with abnormalities, brain function can get worse
  (these abnormalities may lie dormant for years
  until these normal growth processes occur)
• In turn, this can increase stress to youth and
  open a window of vulnerability

Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
17
The Path of Life Unwinding
18
Every Life Has Stormy Weather
19
But There is Always Hope
20
Our Children Trust Us to Build A Future Worth
Living
21
They Have Hope in Us
As
We Have Hope in Them
22
They Live On the Edge of Possibility
23
Will We Help Them Sow Solid Dreams for the
Future?
Dreams that Help Them Realize Their Promise
24
Together We Can Plant Hope!
Alone we go fast, Together we go far.
We can build a future that
Will shine for eternity!
25

• We live, love, learn and discover our human being
  in the shelter of each other throughout the life
  span BUT during periods of rapid change or
  transition we have an increased
• Susceptibility to stress
• Need for sheltering and mature attachment

Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain
26
A human life is a work of art than can reach
eternity. Each life has the ability to touch
other lives, which in turn touch yet more lives.
And so, person by person, generation by
generation, a world and a future are shaped
(Kinkade, 1999, p. 232-233).  
Suicide When Life is Untenable The Ultimate Cry
of Pain