Restoring Trust in Relationships

Restoring Trust in Relationships

When you trust someone in a relationship you feel free to share your real self with them. You can hold your heart open to them and let them see who you really are, your strengths and weaknesses. The ability to trust others is directly connected with emotional maturity. Emotional maturity takes place in different stages, like passing through a different season of life. If a person has not successfully gone through a season or stage of emotional maturity, they will have a hard time being real. They won’t feel secure enough to share their real self for fear they will not be accepted.

I see this as a major problem for someone who has suffered a TBI. We have found that emotional recovery unlocks and awakens the spirit of one who is slumbering due to a TBI. Emotional maturity takes place as one develops the ability to give and receive in relationships. Emotional development takes place in five different stages from birth to adulthood. After a traumatic event, emotional development is a massive part of the overall recovery process. Many times the survivor must go back through each stage of development, regardless of their age.

Family members of a TBI survivor need to understand all five stages of emotional development so they can effectively assist and facilitate this process. Without proper understanding, emotional recovery can be delayed or even shut down. This causes the one who has the injury to become stuck in the process of developing. A person can remain stuck in a stage and never progress into the full maturity of their emotions. This is can be devastating for the one who has an injury, as well as their family members because everyone suffers.


Emotional Development

The first, and most important stage of emotional development is the ability to trust. This stage is called “basic trust.” Basic trust is the foundation upon which all other stages of emotional development are built. Basic trust is the ability to receive from others, especially their expressions of love. A person can’t love others or have meaningful relationships until they learn how to receive love.

This ability of learning how to trust and receive love should be accomplished during the first two years of life. This first stage of emotional development is successfully accomplished through parental nurturing. However, if a person did not grow up in a nurturing environment, they may not complete this stage until later in life.

The Bible says in Ephesians 6:4, that a father has a huge role in this stage of development.

"Father’s bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

In this verse, the phrase “to bring up” literally means, “to nourish or nurture tenderly.” God gives children a personal spirit at conception. A child’s spirit is open and trusting until their spirit gets wounded or crushed from neglect or abuse. Parents, especially the father, are called by God to nourish a child’s spirit and draw it to life. Nurturing is essential for a child to grow up feeling secure.

Nurturing requires a parent to be present and a functional a part of their child’s life. A baby that is fed and diapered, but not held, can actually die from lack of nurturing because their spirit shuts down.

In a healthy home, where a child is lovingly cared for by both parents, the child learns how to bond and receive love from parents naturally. When bonding has taken place between parent and child, the child will feel secure. In a healthy home environment, the child matures emotionally as they mature physically. As the foundation of basic trust is developed with parents, it gives the child the ability to connect with others outside the home without fear. In a healthy home, after the first stage of basic trust has been completed, the child will move on to the next stage. Since they feel loved and secure in family relationships, they will start progressing into a healthy independence from their parents.


TBI - Emotional Recovery

If your child or teen has experienced a traumatic brain injury, (TBI), you may be aware that they struggle with emotions. Emotional recovery is very important and should not be overlooked. There are five levels of emotional development. In some cases, people with a TBI will go back to the very first level; starting all over again in their emotional development. The ability to connect emotionally with a healthy relationship is the goal of emotional recovery.

When our son was fifteen, he suffered a TBI. We were not really sure what to expect as he came out of a forty-day coma. He began to awake only to discover he was, in a sense, a “six foot infant.” He had to start all over, like a new born, slowly learning how to do everything.

Stage One of emotional development is the ability to receive love. For a child or teenager with a TBI, it is vitally important for both parents and siblings to be present during this stage. They should be interactive so their child’s spirit is awakened through nurturing. Physical touch such as holding them for extended periods of time daily is most affective. In our son’s recovery, it was very obvious that physical touch activated the blood flow and drew his spirit to life. If holding your child is not possible, holding their hand, rubbing their arms and legs, kissing their forehead or cheek can be affective. In our son’s case, the right side of his brain was injured. While he was in the coma, we gently rubbed his head on the right side to activate more blood flow, which proved to be very effective as he regained more and more movement in his left side. We could actually see the difference in alertness after his cheek was kissed and gently rubbed.

The lack of nurture in early stages of recovery:

• Causes the spirit to remain in a slumber.

• Causes the child or teen to feel unloved, therefore they do not feel secure and may require constant re-assurance of love later on in life.

• Causes emotional growth and development to be stunted.

• Creates a void in the foundation stage of emotional development. If the foundation has a void, like something is missing.

Stage Two of Emotional Development

Stage two of emotional development is “Independence.” Each child or teen is uniquely created by God as an individual. During the second stage of emotional development, a child will begin to explore their independence. We as a family observed that as our son felt secure and loved he progress quickly into this stage. He wanted to venture out in his own uniqueness. During this stage, a child or teen will test his parents’ love with acts of independence, for emotional development purposes these acts of independence need to be handled correctly. For instance: temper tantrums should be handled the same as they as with a two years old who pitches a fit.

The parents must be careful to correct their child without crushing his or her spirit. Proper discipline is very important at this stage. A child needs to experience unconditional love, even if they are disobedient and they still receive love. During this stage, a child will test their parent’s love in many ways. One way is by expressing their own desires, which are different from their parent's desires. They need to feel secure enough in their parent's love to say “No” without the fear of being cut off, shut down, or rejected.

Parents must allow their child opportunities to say “No” when it is appropriate in order to express their independence. Parents should give their children choices so they can learn to determine what they like or don’t like and feel the freedom to exercise choice. This continues to build trust in the parent/child relationship and prepares them to say “No” in adulthood. In adulthood, a person who has not learned how to say “No” can very easily be controlled and even abused by others.

Many times parents want their child to be just like them, but God created each child as a unique individual. Children need to have a loving and safe environment to discover who God created them to be. As they discover that they are unique, they need to feel that it is all right to be different from their parents. This is also true in the recovery process, there is a time that the survivor begins to realize and embrace the reality that they are different from who they were before. They must be supported to embrace their new self and be assisted as they learn to say, “Yes, this is what I believe and what I choose” or, “No, this not me.” The new preferences should be encouraged.

Our son Will loved to ride horses and wear western jeans and shirts before our car accident. However, as his uniqueness was being developed after the accident, he didn’t want anything to do with western wear and our family had to accept the new him. We allowed him the choice and when he said no we respected this new choice. This was especially hard for my husband because he and Will road horses together and now his new son didn’t like horses at all.


The role of a parent in this stage of a child’s development is to:

➢ Affirm who they are and their differences

➢ Allow the child to make choices with safe boundaries

➢ Provide accountability to stay within boundaries

➢ Set and encourage attainable goals

➢ Carry out appropriate disciplinary consequences when behavior is unacceptable (see Proverbs 22:6, Proverbs13: l, Proverbs19:18)

➢ Encourage unique gifting, abilities, and interests

Now, if you are the caregiver of one who has suffered a TBI, go back over the role of a parent and recognize that this is also your role as a caregiver. A caregiver that does not take this role, to monitor and encourage emotional development, will see the effects in years to come. The brain can be re-trained, just as a child is trained in right from wrong. A child that is not taught right from wrong and how to choose what is right will become rebellious and will not respect authority. A TBI survivor that has not been taught how to make the right choices will flounder in life. They will also have a greater chance of getting into trouble and rebelling against authority later on as they get older. They may try to gain independence in the wrong ways by finding fault with the family as a reason to separate and individuate from them. The right way to gain independence is to have a solid and secure foundation, knowing one is loved and accepted and therefore a strong self-worth regardless of disabilities.

Written by Denise Boggs

Living Waters Ministry

www.LivingWatersMinistry.com

www.TBIhope.com