That's the kind of trauma that stays with someone for their whole life, and not a very nice thing to do to your kid. I hope you can make sure that he sees water as something fun and not threatening as he grows up.
They might be a little timid around water, but, get them in swim classes in a year or so, and they'll be zooming around in no time without a care in the world.
In other words “there appears to be a reorganization of cognitive and memory functions such that narrative memory for events prior to age three or four are difficult to access later in life. These two points have led to the pervasive, inaccurate and destructive view that infants do not recall traumatic experience…”
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law...
I experienced feeling truly, deeply, completely safe for the first time in my thirties. It rocked my world. Things almost didn't seem real immediately afterward, like I was dreaming. I compare it to visiting France when I could speak Spanish, but not French. My brain wanted to reply to people in "not English," so kept trying to spit out Spanish responses to French questions. My brain didn't have a context for "safe" other than "not real life," so it tried to react like I was dreaming.
I don't want to go into all the details about what it's like to try to teach your parasympathetic nervous system how to come fully online when you're this far into adulthood, but I recommend making sure children do have somewhere they can practice coming down from stress way before they're my age.
e.g. The risk of being instantly erased by a falling meteorite/random airplane part/space debris/etc. is never literally zero. Just very very low.
Maybe the better term in this case is "protected," but I'm not sure. "This person, here with me, is not a threat to me, and I know that in my bones. Further, he would interpose himself between me and any threat that should arise in this moment." That's the feeling.
Most people experience that as infants. Parents are supposed to love their children this way. And it's important for the neurological development of the parasympathetic nervous system. I just didn't get to until my thirties.
People being born isn't a new development. If it were significantly harmful, evolutionary pressure would have had ample time to apply.
On the other hand, I can think of plenty of trauma that wouldn't be good for a 2 year old child.
I would also be hesitant to do this to kids on purpose. My son fell into a pool at the age of ~1, and was pulled out by my wife within a few seconds. However, he had a massive fear of water, and took a long time and concerted efforts to make him comfortable with learning to swim.
If there was a massive steel foundry pushing down on your chest, it was probably Krupp.
A popular misconception that needs to be challenged, and one that I fear encourages some non-negligible deal of neglect and abuse.
Children under 4 years old have surprisingly excellent memories, extending years back. But something happens around age 4, possibly a burst of neurogenesis, which scrambles most of whatever episodic or autobiographical memory is in the brain. Other forms of memory endure the transition just fine. Motor skills are obviously retained, as are other life-long skills like how to speak (and for the hyper-literate, how to read). Acquired fears certainly survive, and though they can be overcome... they're still around to actually have to be overcome. Early childhood trauma, and especially abuse, absolutely leave an imprint, even if the events themselves are no longer clearly recalled.
We dramatically underestimate the ability to think and reason for very young kids. Laying down memories included. I believe memories are more likely to set in when an experience is novel and new. Big events like you cite fall into that territory.
I think a lot of those who can't remember things before age 5-6 is because they had extra-stable environments.
You do. It is just childhood amnesia kicks in at some point, and you lose an access to those memories. There is no accepted explanation what happens, I personally prefer the idea, that your memory qualitatively changes in spite of language acquisition, you get another (upgraded) way to access your memory, and then you forget the old (legacy) way. I like this explanation because my own memories from the time I was ~3 yo are strange (conditionally on I could reproduce them well and not to invent things), they are almost eidetic.
But it doesn't matter to be frank, because your memories were active and accessible at some period of your life and they influenced your development already, maybe changing the development track completely. Father throwing his kind into a pool? Kid was terrified? It is a very emotional experience which is a betrayal of kid's trust, which probably will never be without limits again. It may destroy any trust to other humans as well. Though it may pass without any long term consequences also. People are unpredictable in this regard. But you'd better avoid such experiments with your kid.
> your brain is gloriously plastic until around 23, so, to say 'that's the kind of trauma that stays with someone for their whole life' isn't really the case.
Some things a sticky. If they are strong enough to change behavior at once, if the changed behavior becomes a habit, then habit will enable trauma to resist any brain's plasticity and ability to heal.
And you know, it may be a very rational thing for a kid to stop trusting his father if the father can throw the kid into water just so without any thought of how kid will feel. Probably the kid should be wary around his father.
I think people stick too much to the idea that human memory is kinda like computer memory.
"Remembering" trauma could also mean that the brain's structure changes in some way as a result of trauma without necessarily recording how the event exactly went.
Reminds me of a video of WW1 shell shocked soldiers I saw recently. It's not the exact memory record of the events which broke those men. Something more profound changed in their brain.
And suppose if at some point you've learned how to a) store memory in a categorized form; b) use prompts formulated in a language (or at least in categories of language), then you can "forget" the old way of prompt generating.
> "Remembering" trauma could also mean that the brain's structure changes in some way as a result of trauma without necessarily recording how the event exactly went.
This is too vague to my taste. Isn't any memory a brain's structure change?
In some ways, LLM seem to work kinda like brain. It doesn't remember the exact details, more like patterns, from which it then attempts to reconstruct the memory.
> Isn't any memory a brain's structure change?
Well, yes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that such events produce much larger changes in the brain in comparison to non-traumatic events. In the sense that the child's behavior changes as a result. For example, the child can gain a new phobia which can persevere much longer than the memory of the actual event. My overall point is that even if you forget the actual events, you will carry the consequences of such trauma anyway.
The conscious mind is far from the only place the body stores memory that can impact us later in life.
This is obviously false. I have memories from when I was 2 that my parents also remember.
I doubt it.
How can you tell the difference between real memories and implanted memories[1]? Children as old as 11 have been successfully implanted with memories of things that never occurred by their parents, and who later testified that their parents told them nothing!
[1] Your parents told you at age 4 what you did at age 2, you remembered the act because it was told to you, you don't remember the act of them telling you.
Let's say something emotionally significant happened to you at the age of 2. Because it was significant, you keep recalling it regularly, maybe every week or so. Recalling and thinking about the memory is also strengthening it (and often altering it). There's not enough time to forget it if you keep refreshing the memory of it (kinda like LRU cache).
I have a couple of such early memories which I believe survived through this recall mechanism.
That's not how two year olds work. Even something as significant as losing a (or both) parents is still not significant enough to be recalled periodically, and we have many cases of that to support the hypothesis that "that's not how two year old brains work".
> I have a couple of such early memories which I believe survived through this recall mechanism.
I'm still skeptical. The first reason is that two year olds don't understand the concept of age in years (or age at all, TBH - they recognoise larger people and smaller poeple, but hafve no conept of age). The second reason is that the odds are very much against your hypothesis.
I have maybe ... two memories which I think were from age 2, but before age 3.
But I cannot determine if I was three or four at the time, instead of two. I cannot determine if they were real or a dream (because they are memories of an event of such non-significance[1] that no one else remembered).
I also cannot determine if they were not real and not a dream! I cannot tell if I "remember" them purely because when I was older my mum used to talk about the place they lived in when I was born, and with all the details, 6yo me simply interleaved actual facts with something my mind made up so that my made up memory is consistent with the facts I heard.
So, yeah, very skeptical when people tell me they can remember being two, because the odds are very much against it, and I say this as someone who has "memories" from 2yo, and I don't believe that those memories are, in fact, the memories of a 2yo me.
Not even a little bit.
[1] Memory #1: being taken to the bathroom one morning by an aunt who sometimes lived with us (and so babysat me quite often and would have done this quite often). I only have a memory of it happening once though, even though it must have happened at least a hundred times.
Memory #2: Looking at a patch of grass with a path that lead to the landlords house (also on same property, I was told when older).
With either of these, I can't be sure if I was 1, 2, 3 or 4 years old at the time. I also cannot tell if either was a dream, and if it was, was it a dream I had at 6yo, dreaming about being 2 yo or was it a dream I had when 2yo?
It's probable I encoded my memories verbally much earlier than most children, though. My mom made a list in my baby book of the hundred words I could use correctly on my first birthday, and I was conversational and fluent well before my second.
The theory that "childhood amnesia" happens because we start encoding memories verbally and forget how to access the nonverbal ones would track with my experience. I just encoded mine verbally much earlier than most children.
Most people do not have memories of being two. But some of us certainly do.
What are those cases preventing a 2-year-old remembering something from a week ago, thus strengthening the memory, rinse and repeat?
> The first reason is that two year olds don't understand the concept of age in years
In my case, the memory is linked to potty training and I know when that happened.
> I cannot determine if they were real or a dream (because they are memories of an event of such non-significance[1] that no one else remembered).
I'm kind of confused that on one hand you say that you don't know if it was a dream or reality, and on the other hand completely discount the possibility of having such an early memory.
> because the odds are very much against it
You keep mentioning the odds. How do you calculate them?
I don't see how that is relevant to "we have all these examples of two-year-olds not remembering recent signficant events". I mean, we have observation that $X doesn't happen, but you know want to know what the mechanism is? Why is the mechanism at all important to the observation? With or without a plausible mechanism, the observation still stands.
> I'm kind of confused that on one hand you say that you don't know if it was a dream or reality, and on the other hand completely discount the possibility of having such an early memory.
Well, it's the same reason I am an atheist - as there's literally no evidence for any religions' specific story of a god, I discount the possibility of there being a god at all. People's subjective experience isn't "evidence".
> You keep mentioning the odds. How do you calculate them?
Because there's too many much more likely explanations, many of which I mentioned already, than a non-falsifiable belief in the memory of a two-year old.
Unless you want to dismiss the suggestibility of children, that's basically the most likely explanation.
You can't prove a negative. Did you know that the blue whale was declared extinct in the 80s only to have a pod show up some years later? We observed there were no blue whales and then there were.
You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do.
> You can't prove a negative.
Sure, but it becomes exceedingly unlikely as lack of evidence of existence continues.
> You didn't know about anyone with that early of memories and now you do.
Actually, no I don't. I know many many people with self-reported experiences, which is not the same as anyone with early memories.
I mean, if we're talking purely numbers, I'm guessing that the number of people who report god, divinity or occult experiences far outnumber those who self-report early memories, so it should be completely unsurprising that I am unconvinced of an assertion that has even fewer self-reported positive data than religion and god.
Looking at your other response, I don't understand why you feel my skepticism warrants (what I consider, maybe wrongly) your rather forceful assertions that your worldview is correct.
Would you respond the same way to someone who asserted "Well, I'm skeptical that the Gods of Abrahamic Mythology ever existed"?
Would you really tell someone "You didn't know anyone who experienced the biblical god before, and now you do"?
How is your assertion of "You didn't know about anyone with early memories and now you do" at all different from "You didn't know about anyone who was visited by aliens and now you do"?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1...
the earliest reported memory in this study is 14mo. We are not talking about aliens who's travel to our system defies our current understandings of physics. We are talking about memory. Similar, you have to rely on people to describe pain. Does that mean pain doesn't exist? Or doesn't exist for babies? We've studied memory a lot. Just because _you_ don't have an early memory doesn't mean someone else also doesn't.
I don't understand your position.
To assuage your faulty memory worries, the study's methodology and analysis included longitudinal interviews with children to go over memories over time and the researchers were convinced that they memories were valid enough for the study.
My earliest memory is at 18 months. How do I know? I recall the building (and some activities and decor inside) that I was in and my mom only went into that building for some medical appointments when I was that age.
How do I know it is not a fake memory? Not sure how I could build a fake memory and then ask my mom about a given building and decor (at like age 12 or something while discussing earliest memories) and she tells me, surprised, that the last time we were there was when I was that young.
Your mother has a perfect memory of all conversations she had with you or in your presence?
That's probably even more unlikely than retaining a memory from age 2 to age 12.
My mom and I, while I was 12, had a conversation. The conversation was about early memories. During that conversation I told of my earliest memory to which my mom replied, in that conversation, that that building and appointment(s) were from when I was 18 months old.
I was twelve when I learned what my age was at the time of the early memory. I am now much older than twelve and I recall this conversation with my mom (and I still recall the memory we were discussing).
She was surprised, when I was twelve, that I had such an early memory.
You're taking skepticism of extraordinary recall much more personally than I am being skeptical. Your remark about self-reflection is a good one for you to consider too.
I already considered the possibility that my 2yo self might have created memories I know have, and rejected it as too outlandish.
> The conversation was about early memories. During that conversation I told of my earliest memory to which my mom replied, in that conversation, that that building and appointment(s) were from when I was 18 months old.
Unless your mum has a perfect memory, it's far more likely that she mentioned it to you or in your presence as you grew, and then forgot she did. You have never considered the possibility that your mum probably forgot that you were told or within earshot when she told someone else all about that place?
Surely, if that had been a memory, you'd have remembered steps, even if you never went down them.
Like remembering a table in the middle of the room even if you never ate at it.
I'm not a memory expert, but as I recently read a book on the subject I think I have better than average understanding of it. If you can read Swedish or Finnish I do recommend it, the title is "Minnets Makt" by Julia Korkman (freely translated "The power of memory", official title is "Memory Dependent")[1].
The book taught me a lot about how memories work, how they are formed, recalled and modified during the years. And as memories are a core part of everyone's life, I think it would be good for more people to understand them better.
I did find a youtube video where the author, does a short lecture meant for law enforcement to teach them the basics of how memories work. As for them it is even more important to understand how meories, especially the recall of memories work when they interview people.
Disclaimer, I haven't watched it yet, only skimmed it but it does seem to cover the same concepts as in the book.
I recommend spending 27 minutes watching it for anyone who's curious about how the memory work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSyEs6feH0M&t=442s
Have you ever heard about sub-consiousness? People behaving erraticaly without really controlling this aspect.
Ever met a person who was definitely not balanced down deep and even he/she couldnt point out why? I've met unfortunately many of those without even trying, they are all around us if you know what to look for/ask right questions.
Good for OP for testing such an extreme stuff so rest of us dont have to mess up out kids. I would never do such tests on my small kids, even remote chances for something bad is just cruel. Also, he writes it takes even 3s to drown a child, while describing doing even more.
As for trauma - it really depends. In her case, pretty sure she’s fine as in each case she was promptly rescued and as mentioned, no aversion to water, just to falling in.
In my case - I managed to have an earnest crack at drowning nearly a decade ago, aged 30 or so, and it hasn’t left me. Swimming between two small tropical islands. Tide changed. Calm waters suddenly became ferocious chop, and I swiftly realised I was being swept out to sea, and couldn’t fight the current - and I’m a respectable swimmer. Panic set in faster than I care to admit as I realised that I was pretty fucked.
Thank my lucky stars, someone was watching me, and appeared with a rib as I was starting to take lungfuls of water. I was purple, coughing up and vomiting seawater, sobbing.
Humbling. I’ve no problem with water in general since, but the ocean now scares the shit out of me, and I won’t get in it.
I was quickly fished out and then I just sat on that same tree and wiggled my legs and enjoyed myself while everyone else scrambled to save the things from swimming away.
I’m also pretty sure that I was thrown into the sea to teach me to swim at some point, but I have no recollection of that, just stories from my parents.
That is to say - I love swimming and feel positively untraumatized by the whole thing, even though it is scary in retrospect. Everyone’s experience is different, just my anecdata point to add.
What makes it worse is that OP described it as an experiment that was primarily for his benefit, because he wanted to see what it would look like to see kid drowning. No word of wanting his kid to learn something (which still wouldn’t have been ok but at least barely makes a tiny bit of sense). That is mental, and child abuse.
A bad parent subjects their child to an intentional near-drowning, leaving the child afraid, confused and fundamentally unequipped for the danger.
This is how it is now, and this is how it was in previous generations. I do accept that bad parenting was more prevalent in the past, but then, so was leprosy.