A child’s memory

How many of us have many memories of the first 3-4 years of our life? Even if we have some specific memories, we don’t have many. Naturally it is easy for us to believe that children don’t remember much of their early years. It is a common thing to hear adults say, “How does it matter? Anyway the child is not going to remember this later.” While the statement is true, it’s only partially true.

Among many categorizations of memory are two types- implicit and explicit memory.

The explicit memory is what we can recollect consciously and intentionally. The above statement may hold true when it comes to explicit memory.

The implicit memory is acquired and used unconsciously, it is learnt rapidly, even from a single stimulus. Trauma is many times stored in our body and brain circuits in the form of implicit memories.

This implies that the traumatic memories and traumatic emotions from early childhood, which are beyond conscious recollection, can be still stored in the implicit memories in the child’s neural networks. 

This makes it paramount that we focus on our child’s emotions, especially those which overwhelm them. It’s crucial that we soothe our child and teach them to soothe themselves. It’s absolutely important that we make sure that the child feels ‘seen’, ‘understood’, ‘accepted’, ‘loved’, ‘safe’ and so on, so that these positive emotions are encoded in our child’s implicit memories. This builds a strong foundation for future self-worth, self-esteem, resilience, well-being and so on.

Activity:

Reflect on what implications the implicit memory mechanisms could have.

Try to educate people and parents around you about the implicit memories and the importance of imbibing ‘safe’ feelings into our child’s unconscious.