What you water grows....

One of the metaphors that I use in my therapeutic practice with some regularity is that of a garden. For anyone who has ever done any gardening you know that there are the plants that you want to grow (flowers), and the plants that you do not want to grow (weeds). I often will ask clients that if they were to grow a garden, what should get more attention: the flowers or the weeds? The clients almost inevitably tell me that they should water and tend the flowers, and not the weeds. I tell them that their psychological experience is like that too. So many of us pay undue attention to all the negatives and things we do not have that we forget to tend to all the positives and the things we do have. In essence, I ask my clients, why are you watering the weeds? How can you expect the flowers to grow when you are not tending to them? And so it is with children, and the experiences that they go through. We have spent a lot of time investigating how negative things like abuse and neglect lead to poorer outcomes in adulthood. The seminal research on this topic has been the ACE’s (adverse childhood experiences) studies. This is the largest study to show how negative events in childhood lead to greater health risks, and worse outcomes in adulthood. However, there is a new study out of Brigham Young University that looked at positive childhood experiences including have good neighbors or eating dinner together as a family. This study found that positive factors can and do outweigh the negative experiences of children. In sum, we need to focus more time and energy on watering the flowers.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190916144004.htm