Gay

It’s a matter of self-report. Referring to Jack’s point, as a self-reporter, if your first two years of life were threatening in lots of ways, then it’s going to color or filter the interpretation and prediction of other events. The potential for threat might be exaggerated. Thus, ACE might be a good tool—but is it a good enough tool?

Jack

So Gay, I’m curious if anyone has compared children who had a good first two years of attachment and kids who didn’t have a good first two years about the impact of an adverse childhood event at age five? Let’s say one child was well-bonded and one of them wasn’t. Both of them lose a parent at age five. Is there research concerning the response at age five among those five-year-olds with a high and low ACE score? I think this issue is very important because it really speaks to where the world should spend its resources. How do we best spend resource to make sure that the quality of our first two years of life is maximized? We then spend less resources on the rest of a child’s life because trauma may be less impactful at later points in the child’s life. I’m just curious if there are any scientific findings related to this matter.

Gay

There isn’t any research that I could point to. I think it’s a good point you’re bringing up because there is something else that shows up for me as you’re talking. I’m thinking, okay, let’s just say that the child was in a stable home for the first five years of life. Th child loses their mother through death. This is a significant adverse event. And then they have multiple traumas compounding the trauma related to their mother’s death. So how do we filter out this recurring trauma? So now Dad remarries, and that marriage doesn’t last. There’s going to be multiple sorts of traumatic events that build on that initial one. How does that shape the child versus the shaping that occurs during the child’s first two years of life?

Jack

My theory is that the first two years of strong bonding attachment impacts the rest of a child’s life. I offer an anecdote, and it’s just an anecdote. My sister-in-law died at 29 when her kids were two and four, but she and her husband had raised them very attached, very close, very tight. It was the case you just offered. She died when the kids were young. He got remarried in a couple of years. His second wife was very good to them. They had other things happen in their lives, but they are both family doctors with kids who are well regulated. By all means and by all measures they are doing pretty well, despite having had this horrific adverse child event after the age of two and a half or so, or three. So, I just think there must be something there.