Brain science and plants
"Children have a natural impulse to explore and manipulate their surroundings, but increasingly in contemporary life this impulse is suppressed. Much of the time, this lack of opportunity is not even recognized as deprivation, because children are easily distracted by the latest technology, and in staying indoors there is a perception that they are being kept 'safe.' With its various gadgets and gizmos, technology delivers a wealth of preprogrammed play, but for all their variety and ingenuity, such manufactured illusions keep us in a sate of dependence -- they could not be further from the kind of creative and empowering illusions that Winnicott and Milner [authors mentioned previously in the chapter] wrote about. As children, and let us not forget it, as adults too, we need to dream, we need to do, and we need to have an impact on our environment. These things give rise to a sense of optimism about our capacity to shape our own lives." -- from The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature by Sue Stuart-Smith, (p. 65)
This is a quote from the non-fiction book I am currently reading. I am loving it, not just because I enjoy reading books about gardening (not the how-to types of books, but more people's experiences with gardening), but because since the author is a psychiatrist, there is a whole lot of brain science and thought thrown in. It's like a two-for-one for me. I keep finding sections I would mark and underline if it were my own copy.
[This is a total aside. I write in my own personal books all the time if they are non-fiction. I like to mark passages I think are important, write in questions that the text makes me think of, or write in kvetchy remarks if I don't happen to agree with the author. This is probably why I am more prone to buy a non-fiction book than I am a fiction one. I'm kind of wishing I owned this particular book because it would be all marked up now.]
This quote up above struck me because it both agrees with what I have seen in raising and teaching my own children and because this need to explore and manipulate physical things seems so unacknowledged in our present culture. I love the fact that she calls it deprivation because that it truly what it is. Yet, so many parents see their children with a wealth of technology at their fingertips and would be horrified to think of their children as being deprived. I would venture to assume that parents in these situations are as deprived as their children when it comes to exploring and changing their physical surroundings; to be in nature and have the experience of impacting their environment. Plus, being outside in nature triggers the brain to release oxytocin. That would be the brain hormone that counteracts the effects of stress. Oxytocin is released when we are in love, when a mother nurses her infant, and being outside. I'm thinking a whole lot of people need to spend significant more time outside at the moment. Please.
I also love this book because not only is it brain stuff, but it is also attachment stuff. How many garden books bring up John Bowlby, the "father" of attachment science within the first couple of chapters? I might have quietly cheered when I read his name because I knew this was going to be an interesting book. I am always happy to read something that helps broaden my view of what children (or people in general) from hard places experience. By expanding my own understanding, it makes it helps me in my interactions with them. Take this quote in regards to a therapeutic gardening program in England.
"Running a project like this is challenging work, especially at the start of each intake. It requires resilience and patience on the part of the staff and volunteers to manage difficult behaviors, but simply being outdoors is helpful because the students can take themselves off if they need to let off steam. Donald Winnicott, who was an advisor to the young offenders' service, did not indulge in a sentimental view of antisocial behavior and delinquency, but he did believe in the importance of recognizing the various forms of deprivation that give rise to it. He coined the phrase 'delinquency as a sign of hope' to make the point that young people who are causing trouble are seeking something that they do not know how to get and are going about it in the wrong way. What is important, he emphasized, is that they have not yet despaired of getting it. Behind their destructiveness lies a wish for some kind of recognition, and any hope for their future rests in working with this." (p. 63)
The idea of delinquency as something that is hopeful makes such sense to me. I've watched various of my children struggle with what life has handed them. Some rage and struggle, some passively sit and watch their life from the sidelines. I can tell you, finding the child in the rage is significantly easier than finding the child who has become totally passive. There is no hope left in passivity.
I fear that we as a society have ordered things backwards. We reward the passive, non-problematic child and try to discipline the fight out of the struggling child writing them off as beyond hope. Yet hope lies in continuing to struggle... even if you are not quite sure what you are struggling towards.
A final quote, lest I just copy the whole book here.
"When they join the project [a therapeutic garden project inside a prison], Hilda [the director] shows the participants how to be gentle in their handling of plants and what kind of things to look out for. She believes the relationship they develop with the plants that they look after is an important part of the therapeutic effect because it allows them to open themselves up in an unthreatening relationship. The fact that plants don't immediately react or respond to us, that they don't flinch or smile or feel pain, certainly not in a way we can recognize, is central to this. If you haven't received much care in early life, if what you've experienced is the opposite of care, then learning how to care later on in life is fraught with difficulties. Not only is the inner template lacking, but vulnerability in others can bring out the worst in you. This is why abuse often gets unwittingly repeated. a plant's vulnerability is different from that of an small animal or vulnerable adult or child -- all of these can trigger cruel or even sadistic impulses in those who have been victims of these things themselves, but hte fact that you can't inflict pain on a plant means that it doesn't invite cruelty. Working with plants becomes a safe way to learn about care and tenderness -- there isn't any consequence that can go wrong." (p. 59)
Imagine being so hurt that your first real relationships happen with plants. I just don't even have words to talk about that kind of pain and loneliness. It does put things in a slightly different perspective, doesn't it.
It's a fascinating book. I can't wait to read the rest of it.
This is a quote from the non-fiction book I am currently reading. I am loving it, not just because I enjoy reading books about gardening (not the how-to types of books, but more people's experiences with gardening), but because since the author is a psychiatrist, there is a whole lot of brain science and thought thrown in. It's like a two-for-one for me. I keep finding sections I would mark and underline if it were my own copy.
[This is a total aside. I write in my own personal books all the time if they are non-fiction. I like to mark passages I think are important, write in questions that the text makes me think of, or write in kvetchy remarks if I don't happen to agree with the author. This is probably why I am more prone to buy a non-fiction book than I am a fiction one. I'm kind of wishing I owned this particular book because it would be all marked up now.]
This quote up above struck me because it both agrees with what I have seen in raising and teaching my own children and because this need to explore and manipulate physical things seems so unacknowledged in our present culture. I love the fact that she calls it deprivation because that it truly what it is. Yet, so many parents see their children with a wealth of technology at their fingertips and would be horrified to think of their children as being deprived. I would venture to assume that parents in these situations are as deprived as their children when it comes to exploring and changing their physical surroundings; to be in nature and have the experience of impacting their environment. Plus, being outside in nature triggers the brain to release oxytocin. That would be the brain hormone that counteracts the effects of stress. Oxytocin is released when we are in love, when a mother nurses her infant, and being outside. I'm thinking a whole lot of people need to spend significant more time outside at the moment. Please.
I also love this book because not only is it brain stuff, but it is also attachment stuff. How many garden books bring up John Bowlby, the "father" of attachment science within the first couple of chapters? I might have quietly cheered when I read his name because I knew this was going to be an interesting book. I am always happy to read something that helps broaden my view of what children (or people in general) from hard places experience. By expanding my own understanding, it makes it helps me in my interactions with them. Take this quote in regards to a therapeutic gardening program in England.
"Running a project like this is challenging work, especially at the start of each intake. It requires resilience and patience on the part of the staff and volunteers to manage difficult behaviors, but simply being outdoors is helpful because the students can take themselves off if they need to let off steam. Donald Winnicott, who was an advisor to the young offenders' service, did not indulge in a sentimental view of antisocial behavior and delinquency, but he did believe in the importance of recognizing the various forms of deprivation that give rise to it. He coined the phrase 'delinquency as a sign of hope' to make the point that young people who are causing trouble are seeking something that they do not know how to get and are going about it in the wrong way. What is important, he emphasized, is that they have not yet despaired of getting it. Behind their destructiveness lies a wish for some kind of recognition, and any hope for their future rests in working with this." (p. 63)
The idea of delinquency as something that is hopeful makes such sense to me. I've watched various of my children struggle with what life has handed them. Some rage and struggle, some passively sit and watch their life from the sidelines. I can tell you, finding the child in the rage is significantly easier than finding the child who has become totally passive. There is no hope left in passivity.
I fear that we as a society have ordered things backwards. We reward the passive, non-problematic child and try to discipline the fight out of the struggling child writing them off as beyond hope. Yet hope lies in continuing to struggle... even if you are not quite sure what you are struggling towards.
A final quote, lest I just copy the whole book here.
"When they join the project [a therapeutic garden project inside a prison], Hilda [the director] shows the participants how to be gentle in their handling of plants and what kind of things to look out for. She believes the relationship they develop with the plants that they look after is an important part of the therapeutic effect because it allows them to open themselves up in an unthreatening relationship. The fact that plants don't immediately react or respond to us, that they don't flinch or smile or feel pain, certainly not in a way we can recognize, is central to this. If you haven't received much care in early life, if what you've experienced is the opposite of care, then learning how to care later on in life is fraught with difficulties. Not only is the inner template lacking, but vulnerability in others can bring out the worst in you. This is why abuse often gets unwittingly repeated. a plant's vulnerability is different from that of an small animal or vulnerable adult or child -- all of these can trigger cruel or even sadistic impulses in those who have been victims of these things themselves, but hte fact that you can't inflict pain on a plant means that it doesn't invite cruelty. Working with plants becomes a safe way to learn about care and tenderness -- there isn't any consequence that can go wrong." (p. 59)
Imagine being so hurt that your first real relationships happen with plants. I just don't even have words to talk about that kind of pain and loneliness. It does put things in a slightly different perspective, doesn't it.
It's a fascinating book. I can't wait to read the rest of it.
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