Albert was left at the entrance to an orphanage in Kenya when he was about 5 years old. He was mute, depressed, filthy, emaciated, and barely able to walk. Without a way to recount his autobiography, and with no family, he had no name, no birth date, no history. By the time I met him, several months after he had arrived, he was clean, well dressed, healthy, and had just started talking. When Albert smiled it was in response to my handing him his first cuddly stuffed animal, a hand puppet lion. Albert put it next to his face and said “simba,” the Swahili word for lion. He carried simba all day, into bed, and for weeks to come. Simba came to represent stability, predictability, comfort, and attachment — essential elements of a deserved life.
Albert’s journey from birth to early childhood, like the journey of millions of other children all over the world, wasn’t expected by the biology that he inherited from his ancestors, nor their ancestors, nor the generations of ancestors that preceded them back to the origins of our species. Young children don’t expect to be abandoned, forced to fend for themselves for food, shelter, love, protection, and comfort. The extreme deprivation that Albert experienced early in life may have left him with permanent wounds, including challenges associating actions with consequences, be they positive or negative. Other wounds are beginning to heal thanks to his own grit together with caring allomothers from the children’s home, teachers in the local school, doctors at the hospital, and a pastor from the nearby church. Albert’s gritty nature and loving nurture have paved the way for recovery, back on to the path of a deserved life.
Albert’s journey is a reminder of the reality of adverse childhood experiences or ACEs, the traumatic signatures they may generate, the importance of individual resilience, and the critical role of caring cultures in enabling children to grow despite the stressors of their past. His journey is also a reminder that helping children build resilience and overcome trauma depends on understanding how adversity gets under their skin, recognizing the developmental signatures that emerge in response to different dimensions of adversity, what I call the adverse Ts: type, timing, tenure, turbulence, and toxicity.
What we have learned is that ACEs are not the province of any particular nation, gender, race, religion, level of wealth, or educational bona fides. ACEs are omnipresent. But the risks of experiencing ACEs increases for some children in some situations, such as children with disabilities and those with parents who have ACEs. We have also learned that an accumulation of ACEs before the age of 18 years greatly increases the risks of physical and mental health problems, and that the earlier in life they occur, the more devastating their potential impact — damaging human health, culture, economics, education, and human thriving. Given this understanding, it should be clear to all nations that childhood adversity and traumatic injuries are the number one public health crisis, one that deserves the energy and expertise of an international army of doctors, scientists, social workers, therapists, educators, and policy makers. I believe there are at least six important pathways to help us move forward and create hope for future children.
Reprinted with permission from VULNERABLE MINDS by Marc D. Hauser, published by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. © 2024 by Marc D. Hauser.
Marc Hauser, PhD, is an educator, neuroscientist, and the founder of Risk Eraser, a program that helps at-risk kids lead healthier lives. He is a former professor of evolutionary biology and psychology at Harvard University and the author of over three hundred papers.
