How Early Life Experiences Shape Us
Childhood is such an important stage of human development, and negative experiences can have a significant impact on how a child grows up to see themselves, others, and the world around them.
Think of childhood as the time that a person's foundational system is being built. Healthy experiences in childhood lay a strong, secure foundation for a person as they grow older. This strong foundation allows for stability, safety, and security as they build their life, relationships, and identity. Secure foundations in early life lead to more secure and fulfilling relationships, healthy sense of self, and confidence as they build their life on a stable foundation. However, when a person's foundation is shaky or has significant structural issues, it becomes hard to build a strong, secure structure on the foundation. When trauma or significant relational/emotional wounds happen during childhood, it creates a disruption in the child's foundational system, which impacts their ability to build strong and healthy sense of self and relationships with others.
Negative experiences during childhood can have a deeper impact than the same experiences would have in adulthood. Consistent negative childhood experiences change how the foundation is structured, while negative experiences in adulthood damage the building but the foundation remains intact. In adulthood, the building can more easily be restored and rebuilt compared to if there are foundational issues. Sometimes when trauma occurs as an adult, it often damages the part of the building that doesn't have a strong foundation under it from childhood.
During childhood, experiences that can be traumatic include parental instability or inconsistency, physical or emotional neglect, persistent criticism, abandonment, bullying or social rejection, or forms of abuse. These experiences affect a person's sense of safety and security in the world. They affect the nervous system, emotion regulation, someone's sense of self, attachment patterns, and a person's ability to cope with stress.