Talking to Children About a Parent’s Recovery
Talking to children about a parent’s recovery – yes? no? sort of? But how?
Your spouse is about two-thirds the way through a 28-day rehab. You see great progress, but s/he still doesn’t want to tell the children. S/he says your younger ones are too young to understand and the older ones are so engrossed in their own issues, they don’t need the added burden. But you’re not so sure it’s a good idea not to say something.
And, you are right.
In fact, it’s imperative for your children’s sake that you do. Your children know something is going on, just as they knew something was going on during the years of your loved one’s active addiction. The concern is what do your children think and feel? what conclusions have they drawn? do they feel responsible somehow? are they afraid it won’t last – whatever it is? do they wonder if there’s something they should be doing for their parents to make things better?
Children living in families with addiction and addiction recovery have so many, many questions. But it’s not the questions that are as worrisome as it is the conclusions they’ve drawn in the absence of their parents talking to them – sharing the facts of what’s going on to the best of their abilities and then inviting them to share their thoughts and feelings.
To explain why it is so important is to talk with children is to share a bit about the key developmental processes a child’s brain goes through from birth through 25ish. [Just a heads up – this post is a bit long.] It is during these developmental processes that a child’s brain circuitry (cell-to-cell communication) wires and rewires and it is that wiring and re-wiring that determines everything your child thinks, feels, says and does. Unfortunately, the wiring in a younger child’s brain can’t grasp the complexity of long addiction explanations and the wiring in a middle school child’s brain is not all that much better. See Image 2 below. Nonetheless, it’s important you start the conversations – keep them simple, engage in new ones often – and know there’s no one-nor-right way to do it. Most of all – know that it absolutely matters that you do.
Understanding Child Brain Development Helps With Talking to Children About a Parent’s Recovery
The following is an excerpt from my upcoming eBook, Secondhand Drinking: the Phenomenon That Affects Millions.
At Birth
We are born with about 100 billion brain cells (neurons), but only a small number of them are “wired” at birth (meaning one cell talking to another cell throughout the brain and body via the nervous system). This makes sense when you think about it. If all of our neural networks were wired at birth, we would come out doing what we do as adults. But about all a baby’s neural networks do is allow it to breathe, eat, sleep, cry, smile and dirty their diapers.
First Decade
In the first decade of life, the brain wires trillions of neural networks. This is why childhood trauma (verbal, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, bullying, Secondhand Drinking-related stress), mental illness (anxiety, depression, ADHD) and social environment have such a big influence on the developing brain and a child’s behaviors. Genetics is another big influence. So are a child’s own thoughts and behaviors and lack of cerebral cortex wiring (explained shortly). This means that everything that was going on in your child’s family life around the addiction, addiction recovery and secondhand drinking was influencing your child’s brain wiring.
It also means the cell-to-cell communications (neural networks), aka your child’s brain wiring, that was repeatedly firing at the same time, likely formed brain maps around the activity, reaction, behavior or thought. What?? you might be saying. Take the brain map around riding a bike. All the neural networks that were repeatedly activated to master that activity formed a brain map around the activity. It’s why an adult can get on a bike and ride it even if it’s been 10 years since the last time. We form brain maps for just about everything we do repeatedly: text, type, swim, read, eat, brush our teeth, drive…. This is so the brain doesn’t have to think through each tiny step of everything you think, feel, say and do – if it did, you’d still be getting out of bed. Thank goodness we can change our brain maps, too, but that’s another post.
Then Comes Puberty Around Age 12
Puberty is an instinctual wiring process (meaning it is built into the human species). It causes lots of neural network wiring activity–especially in the limbic system (the reactionary, not thinking, part of the brain). The purpose of puberty-related brain wiring is to cause the species to turn to its peers and take risks. It is also to take care of the obvious–-adult-like bodies capable of reproducing. These three instinctual drives (take risks, turn to peers and reproduce) were critical to the survival of the human species back in the day when mankind had a simpler, shorter lifespan and parents were likely dead, unable to protect a child from around age 12 on. During this stage, there are a whole lot of new feelings influencing your child’s “thinking,” something they’re lacking because the third stage has yet to begin.
And Finally, the “Thinking” Part of the Brain
Image 1: Science groups neural network activity into three main areas in the brain – as shown in the image above. The cerebral cortex (the thinking part of the brain) does not start developing until around 16 and takes on average until age 22 for girls and 24 for boys.
Today, however, these instinctual drives can be a bit of a problem because we live much longer, more complex lives. Here’s why. There is about a four-year lag time between the start of puberty around age 12 and the start of the last stage of brain development—wiring in the cerebral cortex (see Image 2 below).
As described in Image 1 to the right, the cerebral cortex is responsible for sound reasoning, good judgment and weighing the consequences of one’s actions. It is also the brakes on the risk taking behaviors that start with puberty. And it is when the brain starts to “prune” neural networks not used much and “strengthen” those that are. This pruning and strengthening process is designed to make the brain more efficient.
As stated, back in the day life decisions were pretty simple, mostly focused on survival – finding food, staying safe and reproducing. Today, our lives are far more complicated and much longer. This means the consequences of the mistakes we make and the brain mapping we set into place as teens can last for a very long lifetime (unless we take steps to correct or fix them, of course).
Why Ages 16-25 Matter So Much
While wiring in the cerebral cortex starts around age 16, it takes until around age 22 for girls and age 24 for boys to complete. The darker colors in Image 2 below show us just how much brain development is happening. I think NIDA’s addition of the school pictures further drives home the point that the brain at 5 is incapable of understanding that which is possible with an 18 year old brain.
Image 2: A child’s brain goes through critical developmental processes aged 5-20 and continues until around 22 for girls and 24 for boys. Source: NIDA, “Cormorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Illnesses,” p. 4
This lag time between the start of puberty and the start of the cerebral cortex wiring helps explain why teens make poor “decisions” – including judgements about what they think is going on with a parent’s addiction and recovery. It also helps us understand that the neural networks strengthened during this period of brain development typically become our brain maps for many of our adult-like habits, coping skills, life skills and behaviors.
Another analogy that can help illustrate how much the “thinking” part of the brain changes from 12-16 and then on through age 22 for girls and 24 for boys, is to think about the 12 year old brain. Because, yes, children have been thinking and reasoning for a long time – heck, some are even taking AP classes in school. But the kind of wiring I’m talking about at this stage is different – it has to do with adult-like reasoning, thinking skills.
Would we even imagine giving the car keys to our 12 year old and telling them to go practice driving on the freeway so that they’re good and ready by the time they take their driver’s test at 16? We know their brains are incapable of handling 4 lanes of whizzing cars cutting in and out, giant big-rigs pulling onto the freeway, motorcycles coming up the middle between lanes, let alone distracted drivers doing dumb things, like looking down to text instead of ahead at the looming red taillights of the car in front in time to stop. That’s what it means to be able to “think,” to engage in the complex “reasoning” skills that make that sort of driving possible – capabilities that don’t even start to wire until around age 16.
As you can see, at each stage of brain development there are different capabilities to grasp what you are telling them, and on the flip side of this, there are different capabilities to interpret what’s going on in the absence of someone they trust giving them the truth and facts of the matter.
Understanding this may help you in your conversations and bolster your confidence in the need to talk with them – whatever their age.
Talking to Younger Children
As you can see from the school pictures in Image 2, that’s who you’re talking to – a very young mind with very limited, adult-like reasoning capabilities. With this age group, messages along the lines of the following can be useful:
As you know, things have been kind of crazy – sometimes scary – around here. And you also know that Daddy/Mommy has been gone. It’s because we now understand part of what was wrong – why Mommy/Daddy changed so much when s/he drank. And now that we understand this, Mommy/Daddy is getting help, and I am learning more about what all has happened so I can better explain it to you. The best news, though, is Mommy/Daddy can get better. Just know we both love you very much.
OR
As you know, things have been kind of crazy – sometimes scary – around here. We are just figuring out why, but we have really good doctors and counselors helping us and believe things are going to turn out fine. It’ll take a while, but things will be OK. Just know that Mommy and Daddy love you so much and are doing everything we can to make things better. If you ever want to talk about it, I’ll do my best to answer your questions or find a person who can.
Talking About a Parent’s Recovery to Older Children
Again, looking at the school photos in Image 2, it’ll depend on their age to determine how much they’ll be able to fully grasp a more complicated explanation. Generally, older children want more detail – though not of the overwhelming kind. But they do want specifics. This is where using two excellent resources to explain addiction and recovery can be helpful: the “Addiction” Documentary (a collaborative effort of NIDA, NIDAA, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and HBO) and NIDA’s Drugs, Brains, and Behaviors: the Science of Addiction.
Claudia Black, Ph.D., has an excellent book that can help with this AND it can help with how you’ll talk to your children about their own drug or alcohol use given their parent(s) did it, too: Straight Talk from Claudia Black: What Recovery Parents Should Tell Their Kids about Drugs and Alcohol
David Stack, M.D., has an excellent article on Huffington Post, “How to Talk to a Child About a Parent’s Addiction.” Though his is focused on the disease, understanding the disease helps with understanding Recovery and many of the conversation tips apply to both.
Bottom Line
Talk about it. You will be giving them a huge gift if they can hear it from you and know that they have you to help them understand and weather what’s next. Recovery can be an exhilarating time. It can also be a scary time as all start to figure out what life is like without the disease. Speaking of which, it’s important the parent who does not have addiction also get help, because secondhand drinking | secondhand drugging, the impacts of a person’s drinking | drugging behaviors on others, has taken its toll on them, as well.
As always – feel free to call 916-241-3288 with questions or email me at lisaf@BreakingTheCycles.com.
©Lisa Frederiksen 2014
Lisa Frederiksen
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I agree. My husband and i have been talking about recovery since our kids were little. We have been sober over 20 years and also wanted to educated them about our mental illness and their predespoistion to these things to they could break the cycle. Now our 13 year old makes me smile when i begin to share something. She says in a silly voice, “Let’s talk about it!”
I love it!! And how wonderful for your daughter and you both to feel so free to “just talk about it!” Thanks for sharing.