Blog Entry 8 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Some people claim that children’s memories of abuse are always accurate, while others claim that children cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. How can we avoid either-or thinking on such an emotional issue?

Abuse is a very stressful and emotional topic regardless of the types of abuse received. Emotion and stress almost pave a way for memory. When someone is stressed their amygdala is provoked thus boosting the activity in the brain's memory-forming areas and significantly stressful events can form almost unforgettable memories. This suggests that memories serve to predict the future and alert us of potential danger. Very emotional events produce a quite narrowed memory, only focusing on high priority information and reducing the recollection of irrelevant details. "Flashbulb memories" suggest just that, it is a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. 

In the debate of children's memories of alleged abuse, whether they're accurate or not, it is safe to say that in a very traumatic and stressful experience such as that, the child would form accurate memories of the event. Being a child a moment like that would be very scary and very emotional, with the level of stress on the child their stress hormones would be sky rocketed fueling brain activity in the memory-forming areas. It is also safe to say that the memories that these children have of their abuse is accurate due to the amount of rehearsing they would do. As a child it would be incredibly hard to talk about something as traumatic as abuse. Often children wouldn't speak out about it due to fear or judgment, or maybe they wouldn't even know they were being abused. But it would be a constant thought in their mind, replaying the events, making sure they know what to say if they ever do speak out about it. Maybe the child did tell someone or people about it, with as much thought and attention that is going into telling their story the experience will remain clear in their memory. 

When it comes to tragedies like this, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, or verbal abuse, regardless of if it is a child or adult, the memories of the events would remain clear and accurate especially in intense cases. In the case of abuse the memories are strong to warn you of the trauma received when these things would happen. Hopefully to keep you away from this person or people or to stop you from doing something again. Memory protects you, another example; when you were small your parents may have told you not to touch the stove because it's hot but you were curious as to how hot it would be and wound up touching the stove. In return you would either burn yourself or pull away just in time before that could happen. In an event like that the stress from your body and reaction would create a memory so that you would know not to touch the stove again, but then again, common sense as well.