Children and Trauma (Part 4) (ft. Nicole Shah)

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That's MightyMuscadine.com and use that promo code, T-O-D-A-Y. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you can find us online by visiting ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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Yeah, make them fives. Today is May the 2nd, which means that our Date the Word is coming to you today from 1 John 5, verse 2. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. It's such a simple thing. We tell that to our kids all the time, and then at some point we stop believing it. Like, if you truly want to show me that you love me, then listen to me. Obey me. Do the things that I'm telling you to do, because I know what's best for you.

I'm trying to make a plan and make a future for you and give you the life you deserve. If you really want to show me that you love me, listen to me. Somewhere along the way, we forget that obedience is a way to show love. Right. Well, it reminds us that love is not a feeling. It is primarily an action. Love is a verb. So if you love the children of God, you're going to display that by acting lovingly.

And how do you do that? By keeping God's commandments. He's laid everything out for us in His Word. That's right. Dr. Shire reminds us, and it's true time and time again, the Bible gives us everything we need for life and for godliness.

That's right. No, it's not going to tell you how to pass your algebra test, because it's not an algebra textbook. But it will tell you how to glorify God in academics. It will tell you how to work for Christ in every area of your life. So if you're looking for how to show the love of Christ, look to His Word. Amen. Amen.

And we want to help you guys be able to do that. You can get His Word right to your phone every single day by downloading the Date the Word app. That's where all these verses are coming from.

You can get it for absolutely 100% free right now on iPhone or Android. Every single day connects today's date to God's Word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. Big thank you to Date the Word for sponsoring this episode. It is Thursday, my dudes. Thursday, my dudes. I knew you were going to say it. It is Thursday, my dudes.

Shout out to Vine. I think it's Wednesday, my dudes. Today is not Wednesday.

Today is Thursday. And that means it's time for some unsolicited advice. I was given some unsolicited advice this morning.

I'm going to share it with you for free. Someone told me to drink vinegar before bed. I've never heard of that in my entire life. Yeah, like apple cider vinegar or vinegar with mother. Vinegar with mother?

What is that? Like you drink it with your mom? No, no. So mother is a type of fungus that's in the... Disgusting. Disgusting! It's good for digestion. It's good, like... Does it taste good? It promotes your immune system.

I mean, it's apple cider vinegar, so not really, no. Here's the actual advice. This is advice no one needed.

We do this every Thursday where we just give you a piece of advice that nobody asked for, but I think it'll make your life a little bit better. If you can do something inside, just do it outside. Just do it outside. So here's what I mean. I went and took a phone call today.

We live in North Carolina. We talked about this yesterday. Yesterday it was rainy and dreary.

Guess what? Today, very nice. Very nice outside. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day.

The rays were hitting on my warm, broad shoulders. Everything just felt really nice, so I had to make a couple of phone calls, right? Hey, I could go sit in some back office somewhere, just sitting in a cold, dark room. Or I could go outside and sit on the ramp and take that nice phone call. I sat out there for like ten minutes. It was great.

So that's what I'm saying. You've got a report to do. You've got to write up a report for your boss. Go and do it outside. Go on outside and do it at the picnic time.

I can see that. Lunch break, lunch break, take it outside. Yeah, take it outside. Don't take it where the people smoke, though. My mom used to take her lunch breaks outside in the smoker section, and I had to sit with her. It's crazy because it was a bunch of doctors and stuff, and nurses and stuff, working right at a hospital, smoking cigarettes on their lunch break.

Nothing goes with the PB&J like the smell of a pack of Newports. What's the advice? Do it outside. Yeah, just go outside. If you have a task to complete, like take a phone call or write an email or... Take a shower. Huh? Take a shower. What do you mean? Just go outside.

All right, David. Well, you can. If you're at the beach, you can take an outside shower. They have them at a lot of beach houses. They do have those.

It's kind of fun. Work out. Yeah, definitely work out outside. No. No? No. You can't work out outside? Are you against the sun? Speaking of your mother, the fungus, I've seen your mom work out outside for years.

I see her run up and down Martin Luther King Boulevard. Right, I don't condone that. I don't condone that. What do you mean? I don't condone that. Why are you against the outside?

Because that's why we created gyms with ellipticals and with squat racks. You're the same guy who instead of a car, you rode a motorcycle so that you could be outside. You didn't have to be inside the car.

This is crazy to me. I sold my motorcycle. To who?

My dad. Someone who wants to be outside. Yeah. Listen, we're civilized, and when you build civilization, you make buildings so that you can go inside. I don't think you should take everything outside. I don't think you should do, like, everything.

But if you have a task... I'm not one of those manby panby, put your feet on the ground outside. Like, I'm not going to go wash the dishes outside.

Like, sometimes in the summer, we'll take our lunch breaks and we'll go sit on the gazebo and eat outside. Yeah, I hate that. That's fun. I hate that. You say you hate that?

Yeah. Why? It's hot and there are flies getting all in our food. Alright, well, don't eat outside. Don't take a picnic. Don't do nothing. Go sit in the Five Guys and cry, I guess. Cry into a bag of potatoes. Oh, man.

What's your take? Are you outside or inside? Write in and let us know.

252-582-5028 or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. We'll be back after this. Elizabeth, my darling bride. What would you say is the most beneficial thing you could do for yourself in the morning? Probably drink an entire pot of coffee when sitting.

I'd say that's a close second. No, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start every morning with a daily devotional. Only be one to talk about.

Well, as it turns out, we have two. Right now, you can unlock the power of daily inspiration, wisdom, and spiritual growth in our devotional series, 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning, written by our pastor, Dr. Abaddon Shah, and his wife, Nicole. The 30 Days devotional series is designed to reveal new biblical truths every single day. That's right, and every day is a new revelation to guide you on your Christian journey toward a more meaningful and purposeful life. You can pick up your copy today from our website.

That's ClearViewBC.org, or you can grab both books on Amazon, Apple Books, and Audible. That's 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning by Abaddon and Nicole Shah. And don't forget, these are only the first two in an expanding devotional series, so keep your eyes peeled for future installments. Thanks for listening.

Now, let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028.

That's right, and we're here in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism, along with perma-guess Nicole Shah. So good to have you guys. You know, our... A little confetti. Yeah, so we had advice no one needed this morning, and it was pretty simple. It was just go outside. Anything you normally would do inside, just go on and do it outside. At least during the summer.

Why do you look confused? Whatever I would do inside. Like, if you're like, hey, I'm going to work out. I'm going to go to the gym. I'll just go get some weights and just do it outside while it's nice out.

North Carolina is so hard. We talked about this yesterday. It's so hard to find a nice window where it's nice.

It's difficult to find that window. So you may as well just go do something outside. Well, I mean, I could go for a walk outside. Yeah, sure.

I do love... We have a table on our back porch area, and I do love, like, if I'm just going to be on my computer doing something, I'll just take it outside. So if I want to brush my teeth outside. You can spit in the grass and whatever. Perfect.

Like, I would say... I don't know. Like, yesterday... Can I be a blade of grass and just floss with it? Yesterday, I had to make a couple of phone calls, right? I just went outside over where the fellowship called.

I just made them right there on the step. And then someone was working. They brought the trash out, and they were like, oh, sorry. I don't want to interrupt your phone call.

They set the trash down right by me, so I had to smell it, and they just walked off. Wow. I was like, wow. That's more of an interruption than anything else.

Yeah, I know, right? Or, you know, what's funny is I wanted to... I actually thought about doing this segment outside. Like, get the Zoom and a couple of handheld mics.

The only problem is then we'd have to make our way back inside for this, so it didn't happen. Well... That was the advice. Y'all spend a lot of time outside? I would like to. That is one thing in my plans. I really do enjoy being outside.

How do too? I'll tell you what one thing we did that I really enjoyed is the last time we got together for, like, a staff cookout. Typically, we're all hanging out inside him, pastiches outside, like, just flipping burgers by himself, and then David will come out, and then Nick might go out, David will come back in. He's, like, out there cooking. But last time he cooked, we were all just in the yard, like, tossing the baseball around. That's right.

My kids were there and throwing baseball. Yeah. That was pretty fun. That was fun.

I would actually enjoy that. As long as the weather will permit it, I think we're going to keep doing so. That's right. That's right. That's fun.

That's nice to enjoy being outside. That was this massive, like, wind gust, and this yellow cloud of doom just kind of descended upon us. I remember that. We were sitting in the middle, and all of a sudden, it was like... They got all over the burgers, too. It was horrendous.

Someone was like, are these lemon pepper burgers? That was kind of traumatizing. Yeah.

That kind of messed me up in the head a little bit. But we were there to help our, you know, not only get through it ourselves, but help our kids navigate it as well, which is what we're talking about today. Excellent. A-plus form, as always. Thank you. Appreciate the setup there.

Dr. Shaw, what is the daily encouragement you want to leave our listeners with today? Other than go outside, I would say try some things out of your comfort zone. Ooh.

Yeah. Try something out of your comfort zone. Not everything should be just like, hey, this is where I'm comfortable.

This is where I'm going to be. No, try some things that are out of the ordinary. Now, I will also warn you, don't do things that are toxic. That's not what I'm suggesting, but you do things that are harmful or that really disturb your mental peace.

Don't need to do that. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Yeah. Because when you go outside your comfort zone, you stretch yourself. Maybe speaking just as a millennial myself, I don't think is really advocated much anymore. Especially not when I was growing up.

Maybe this is just the type of parents that I had, but it was like, stay safe. You know? Yo, yo, yo. Stick to the stuff you know. If you want to be cool, follow one simple rule.

Don't mess with the status quo. That was what my mom would sing to me before I went to bed, so I didn't grow up taking a lot of risks. Oh, she did.

No. That's what it is from the Timeless Classic High School Musical. I was like, I can't even see your mom saying those words. In full choreography too.

It was impressive. But I do think that's something that we are losing as generations go on. You know, that going outside your comfort zone, taking calculated risks, and stretching yourself as a person.

Yeah. We've been having this conversation about trauma and about how to get through the difficult things in life. It's been largely self-focused, but we are not the only people in the world, much as some of us are shocked to find out, we are not the only people that exist in creation. There are other people out there, especially the people that God has entrusted to our care. Kids, our grandkids, nieces, nephews. And so it matters not only how we make it through trauma, but how we help the kids in our lives make it through trauma as well.

That's right. Yeah, we've been emphasizing the importance of the distinction between stress and trauma, between suffering and what is being traumatized. And we learned that sometimes those two get confused, right? Stress becomes trauma, trauma becomes stress when they are two different things. Stress is part of life, but trauma goes much beyond. And stress is our body's response, natural response to the pressures of life, like job loss, finances, deadlines. These are things that people have been struggling with for generations.

I would say since the beginning of time, this is stress. Now this is especially relevant to the younger generation. Would you agree with that?

I mean, that's where this is really happening. They have faced a lot more traumatic events than we did in our teenage years, our childhood years. They really have. I mean, Gen Z has gone through so much. Yes, because when I look at, I mean, a lot of the Gen Z were too young to remember 9-11, but they were alive during that time. They might have been a little too young, but they might remember. At least they were there a couple of years after. They may not be there when the planes hit the buildings or the plane landed in the field in Pennsylvania or the Pentagon, but they did feel the repercussions following that. So in a sense, they were impacted by 9-11. You're right.

True. I really feel like in the mid-90s into the early 2000s and even today, I mean, we saw a rise in like school shootings and just mass shootings across the board, whether they were in school, college campuses, malls, these types of things. So it is traumatizing because kids no longer, they don't feel safe going to school where that was one of the safe places to go.

That's right. So schools no longer safe, going to the mall is no longer safe, going to a concert. So they don't feel safe anywhere. And then of course the pandemic happened. So add that to their list of crises and talk about riots and all the upheavals in the political world. So everything has in some sense created more than the normal stress. And I know there were people who will argue with me and say, are you telling me that the greatest generation didn't go?

We can argue forever. I'm just saying a lot of things have happened rapidly to this generation and they were not prepared for it. So it's very stressful. But does that mean that they are traumatized?

Those are two different things. Well, and kind of to your point, Nicole, like all these things that are happening, like these school shootings, these mass riots, the pandemic, we can say, and I have heard people say, well, it shouldn't be that way. But given that it is like, how do we prepare our kids to face that? How do we actually prepare them to face suffering like this? Well, first of all, if you have them in church, they are going to learn the Bible stories and the Bible stories are not all flowers and sunshine. So we do teach them that bad things did happen to the people in the Bible, but God always saw them through.

So that's one thing that you can teach them is that, you know, bad things are going to happen. You know, that's just a nature of living in this world full of sin. It's sin. It's suffering.

It's the enemy. But God is there. God can lead you through these things.

He will help you get through this along with, you know, me and your dad or, you know, whoever's talking to them, you know, parents are there, grandparents are there. So it's not that they are facing all of this alone. Right. One of the things we want to talk about is the fact that even children, we're talking about young children, toddlers, little kids, and then the adolescent age children, which are teenagers, they also go through stress and trauma in life. And it does have some adverse effects on them. And we as adults don't think about that. We think only we are facing trauma in life or we as adults and that adult, maybe 20 something or 50 something, but even kids have problems and stresses in life. Like my mom got very, very sick when I was maybe, I can never get the age right.

I have it written down somewhere, but I was like maybe eight or nine years of age, maybe even younger. That's nothing to sneeze at either. Like a little kid, your parents are like, that's your world, that's your rock, your foundation. So you see them suddenly crippled by sickness. And I mean, that's- And not sure if she will make it out.

Right. And there are some people who are listening and saying, yeah, my mom didn't make it out. And my heart goes out to you, but I've been there and thank God I didn't. But it was tough. It was very tough. It was a very stressful time. I remember school was still in when things were getting rough and then somewhere right before school went out that my mom and dad had to move and I had to go to a medical college and just be there for like the whole summer. So the entire summer, we were, grandma was there, but basically we were unsupervised and it was a very stressful, traumatic time in our lives. Very stressful, traumatic time.

Yeah. And you know, this happens in all shapes and sizes. We've talked about illness. This can happen through, you know, being exposed to natural disasters.

This can happen through family issues, families splitting up, divorce. I mean, lots of things can contribute to this, but what we want to highlight is that this doesn't minimize what our kids are going through. Sometimes I feel like we fall into that mistaken line of reasoning, like, oh, kids are resilient.

They'll bounce back. And that is true. Kids are very resilient.

They can weather a lot, but they are still kids and they are still impressionable and they are still shaped by their circumstances. And prolonged stress is not good. Right.

No, no. It is definitely not good on their emotional health, on their mental health. I mean, and just your health in general. Yeah. It's not good. You know, we talked on yesterday's episode, Nicole, you brought it up about the science behind how our brain works, especially under stress, things like our amygdala and our hippocampus, our brain stem, how all that works together and how it's impacted by stress.

So when stress is introduced in the childhood years and in the teenage years, as your brain is under construction, as it's under development, I mean, those processes aren't just impacted. They're impeded. They're, they're, you know, halted in places. It makes a difference.

Dr. Oliver J. Morgan. He says that adverse childhood experiences, which is ACEs, a lot of times they will make it short, lead to problems in emotional regulation, impulse control, relationship difficulties and social judgment, and so this explains, he goes on to say, why so many children are misdiagnosed with ADD and ADHD when the real challenge may be adversity. I appreciate you pointing that out because I feel like we've turned that into a, like a, like a laughing point almost. Like all these kids don't have ADD, they don't have ADHD. It's just, you know, they're fine.

They just need a good woman. For adults, go around saying, you know, my ADD kicks in, but did you get diagnosed that way? No, but I should have been. I know.

I definitely could. And so it's not only ignoring an actual real problem, but it's kind of laughing it off and writing it off as there's no problem, you know what I mean? Rather than we're just kind of not seeing the real issue here. That can be the case and the really sad issue that I have seen personally is over medicating our kids when it comes to ADHD and what if that isn't their problem and you are medicating them for a problem they don't have.

They're struggling with some adversity in their life and we are medicating them with a misdiagnosis. Right. And then it ends up affecting the entire family. And their lives. Yeah.

They're now for life dealing with this issue. I mean, we have a lot to answer for. There's a place for that medication. There are people who choose when they need it. Of course.

Of course. And this misdiagnosis is the problem that we're talking about today. This label that's being slapped across the board when in reality a lot of these kids are just struggling because they face some stress and trauma that has caused these functions to be impaired.

Yeah. They don't. Children don't react to stress and trauma like adults do.

They might not necessarily isolate like we would. They're going to act out. And acting out as a child takes on many forms. And it's usually in the form of, you know, maybe it could be aggression. It could be just misbehaving, you know, getting that attention. And a lot of kids don't care what kind of attention it is, whether it's positive or negative. I'm starting to see that in my kids. Yeah. Negative attention is usually easier to come by. Yes.

Yeah. And it's odd to me, I think, from an adult standpoint. But I guess with a kid, like you said, if they do have those adverse reactions, it's impairing their social judgment, you know, where they can't regulate how they are around other people. Then maybe they turn into teenagers and adults who just crave negative attention because they feel like that's the only type there is.

I can see that. So to help our children handle these stresses in life, in a sense, we have to erect boundaries or walls to protect them. And so these boundaries and walls are not built to hurt our children, but to protect them, to help them grow with the proper environment best possible. And really, there are four boundaries that we came across in a book called Safe House that Nicole found out about through her reading, through her study, her classes by Joshua Straub. And these four boundaries are quite interesting. They are.

The four are exploration, protection, grace, and truth. And so each of these boundaries for your children are going to look different. Because as we know, all of our children are different. They all have different personalities. They all have different likes and dislikes, different talents and abilities. So no one or no four boundaries are going to look the same for every single child. That's the thing I feel like no one really prepared me for, for parenthood. You don't hear that the strategies that you develop with one kid aren't going to work for the next one. Because each one of your kids are different.

They're born with this pre-programmed personality in them. So with exploration and protection, those are fairly concrete. There may be some miscommunication. But overall, what do you mean when you say grace and truth?

Because I'm thinking of the secular world listening to that. It's like, okay, well, I don't know exactly what you mean by those. Well, grace is unconditional love that we have for our kids. And it is unconditional and there are no strings attached at all. And then truth, it can be discipline. It can be limits that we give them. But it's also doing what's right. Understanding the consequences of your actions, whether they be good or bad. So you've got these four boundaries. And I mean, I guess like with any paradigm or whatever, you can go too far on either end. So as with all things, we want to land somewhere. Aim for the middle.

It's always really nice. If one wall is too high or if the walls of protection and grace are too high, then in a sense, we become helicopter parents. Now, why is that? Why is it helicopter parents? It's because we say that the child can't do anything on their own.

If you try, you're going to mess it up, but it's okay because you're so amazing and we're going to rescue you. And so that parent is always ready to swoop in and take over. It's like they got the ultra radar spidey sense. When they see adversity coming, they swoop right in. Swoop right in. You're a friendly neighborhood parent.

Yeah, chopper style. But on the other hand, if the walls of exploration and grace are too high, keep in mind, there's not protection happening here. It's exploration.

And of course, again, grace, just like the last one, grace. Then we sort of become the BFF to our kids. And that's a whole different kind of problem.

This parent says that the child can do it on their own because they are amazing. And if you mess up, it's the world's fault. It's everybody else's fault. It's everybody else's fault. Not yours. You and me, we're tight.

It's us against the world. But also we're going to rescue you too. I'm not a regular parent. I'm a cool parent. Yeah, very tight dude.

Regina George. Right? Love it. So there you have those two aberrations, but then if the walls of protection and truth are too high, you're protecting them, but at the same time the truth, then what happens then? Then you are what we term the religious parent.

And then people listen, they're like, oh, that sounds not that bad. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. This isn't religious in the sense of you're not a Christian parent.

Oh, well, maybe, maybe not. This can be both because you're telling the child they cannot do it on their own because if you leave them to themselves, they're going to mess up and that's not okay. You are at fault. You're looking at the child and you're saying you're at fault and you need to follow the rules. This is like legalism, I guess.

Yeah. Legalism gets in because you have a theology behind it, which is true to some extent, but then also it has a problem there. True in the sense of like, hey, man is sinful, utterly depraved, and is dead in trespasses and sins. You are an enemy of God.

I mean, all these kinds of things, which is all true in a theological system. I could not emphasize that enough. In parenting, if you go too heavy on that, then you're going to make that child feel like you are a scoundrel. You're terrible. You're the kid where they are, you're saying, hey, here's up here, here's the standard, you need to find your way.

That's where you are. You're never going to measure up. Wow. Never. But then there's the last aberration, I guess, is the wall of exploration and truth are too high. Okay? Exploration and truth, not protection and truth, exploration and truth means go ahead and do what you want to do, figure things out for yourself. Our truth means we still have this hardcore understanding of principles and values. What happens at that point? Well, the parents tell the kid you're going to do it on your own, and it's that old thing that says you made your bed, you have to lie in it.

None of these combination walls are correct, are good, are healthy. Now we have done our very best to aim for the middle, which is a safe house parent. And that's where we need to be. That's where our little kids need for appropriate, good, healthy growth in their lives. That's a great point.

Man, such a great discussion. Hopefully on tomorrow's episode, we can keep digging in and find more about how we can help them as they grow from little kids into these strange hormonal creatures that we know and love as teenagers. So I'm excited about that. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and become part of what God is doing through the Clear View Today Show family. John, I've already set this up, but do you want to give everybody explicitly what's coming tomorrow? No, not really. Okay.

Sounds good. Now we're talking about students, man, talking about teenagers. They're facing some difficult situations in life, and that's the one thing that you hear them complain about, right?

They're overwhelmed with the world. Yes. Well, guess what? You don't have to accept it. You can be a positive influence in their life for the gospel.

Being a safe houseparent for your teens and young adults. That's right. Make sure you guys are here. We love you guys. We'll see you next time.