Eyes of a Child: How Do Your Littles Help You?

I see this a lot where people don't know if they should let their child alters out or not. In my system's experience, our kids have helped us in ways that our adults and teenagers cannot.

For example, we have an 11-year-old named Jadden who has been very helpful. Once, he took care of a medical issue that even our adults were afraid to handle. From his brave example, our adults now have almost no problem addressing this health issue. The other night, Jadden was able to objectively help one of our young adults rationalize the problems with a maladaptive behavior that our adults are too embarressed to talk about.

Do you have a possitive testimony concerning a child (or children) in your system? Please share.

- Cullen, age 14


I'll be reading and responding to this thread, too. I love hearing about other child alters.

- Jadden, age 11

They help by cheering me up and making me laugh

More along the lines of what you were asking. Some of my littles tell of the danger we can see, so that those with us - family, social worker, housing staff - can see what is making us anxious e.g car coming, crack in pavement.

I think one of the best things the kids do for us, is meet new people. They chatter away and ask all those funny questions that as an adult you are dying to ask but find it impolite to.We seem to find out where each new housing staff used to work and why they left, if they are planning to get married, have kids, move countries, if they live alone etc. As an adult those topics could take months to just crop up in normal conversation.

our littles, Daimen and Delphinium help in odd ways. Daimen is very shy and quiet in public but he seems to be able to help we with my anxiety and delphinium is very wise and you know what they say. From the mouths of babes.

-- Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:33 am --

i play with Legos and stuff to help Steve calm down. And I cover his eyes cus he's part tiger and animals calm down when you cover their eyes.

-- Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:36 am --

i use similes and metifors to help people understand things.... poetic is what the others call it.

Aha, Delphinium! You're the one who wrote "Battle for the Top Shelf". Nice to meet you and Daemen.

Steve, you are part tiger? That's intresting. Would you mind talking about yourself and Fenris on the Non-human Alter thread? (dissociative-identity/topic191004.html)

- Cullen

Hi to everyone. I am 8 and a half. Okay here is how it works for us.

First we have a system rule that the bigger people are in charge and they have to do the stuff that bigger people have to do. This is hard because our bigger people have the most feelings that hurt. So sometimes our bigger teens end up doing the grownup stuff.

But then sometimes some of the bigger teens who do the grownup stuff end up getting mad or tired about doing so much. Our grownup bigger people talk to our T a lot about this. And they are trying to act more like grownups now even if it is hard sometimes.

Anyway about the system rule. The second part of it is that kids should not have to do big people stuff. Cuz it should not be our job. And we should just be kids. Which is hard for some kids who had bad stuff happen. But we can just be kids now. It is okay if we want to do stuff that helps our bigger people or makes them happy. But it is not our job.

Joseph with Allegra sitting next to me

Hi Joseph!

I noticed, too, that our younger alters are more functional than our older ones. It explains a lot, like why our old host was a teenager instead of an adult. (She felt like a teenager struggling to live an adult's life. Now she knows that her feelings were right!)

Why are littles better at coping with trauma? (Or, why does it seem that way?)

We don't understand why but I (Sarey) am more happy than the others. Sometimes I jump in a puddle or play with our dog and it makes things better. I also like to say "now is now" and when somebody is upset I jump up and say it and it makes things better. Please tell us why it works like this? We read stuff that says Littles are the ones with all the problems but I'm not!
Sarey

Truly_happy wrote:Why are littles better at coping with trauma? (Or, why does it seem that way?)

That is a good question. If I had the answer I would make a gazillion dollars and buy lots of bacon cheeseburgers!

We have a few kids that are happy most of the time. I am one of them. But I am a lot more than that too.

And our bigger people are learning that the hurt feelings hurt everyone even if we are not all close to the feelings. Like if we are a pond and the hurt feelings are a stone that you throw into the pond. And it makes ripples. The ripples are what the hurt feelings do to us. Our happy kids are at the far end of the pond but sometimes the ripples reach us.

Joseph

I love my little shard of childhood innocence that got to remain in tact. On occasion, other little children will see her somehow, so she comes out and they get to interact. There is a significant amount of co-consciousness and co-presence, so we make the interactions brief so it doesn't draw too much attention. I love feeling her untainted delight (as in feeling emotions of child-like delight), and her genuine sweetness. She is our light, and we do what we can to protect her because no one else would.

one of them is really carefree and makes me feel warm and fuzzy when she is around. i have been co-conscious with her a few times, so she doesn't fully take over. but feeling her is really calming because she just feels things that i don't/can't, so in that way she helps. she reminds me that not all parts are sad/scared, etc. which also is helpful since a lot are. it is nice to know that she has that innocence that a child should have.