The good actors

The stress of living in difficult situations is bad for children.  In fact, studies show that children living in homes where there is constant upheaval and fighting, or abuse, show many of the same symptoms as soldiers coming back from a war.

You can’t always spot these children in the classroom.  They’re often good actors.  They know how to diffuse situations with an adeptness that would amaze most adults.  It’s not being cute.  It’s survival.

Not all of these children pull their hair out, or throw temper tantrums.  Some of them just go about their lives doing what they might have done anyway, but carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders while they do it.  It makes everything harder.

As long as they get good grades and don’t rock the boat, no one pays any attention.  Until, one day, the dam breaks and all the defenses are washed away and then it’s too late.  And then their siblings blames themselves and their friends blame themselves, and their parents blame themselves and so do their teachers and doctors and everyone else – everyone except the person who caused the problem.

That person hardly ever has any idea that what they do is so destructive, not even if someone tries to tell them.  People seem to go on believing that however they grew up was the right way, the okay way, the only real way. 

It’s the dark side of the circle of life; one that needs to end.