9 Common Reasons for a Child to Develop Trapped Emotions

By Deborah Picou

9 most common reasons for a child to develop trapped emotions causing life altering negative behavioral & emotional recurring patterns that I see in my practice:   

1.  parental divorce when child is 2 yo, (often causing abandonment by one parent)

2. move from a foreign  country to USA under 10 yo (causing parentification of the child & severely harsh financial problems)

3. constant parental fighting

4. parental alcoholism &/or parental drug use

5. infidelity between parents

6. physical &/or verbal abuse of a parent or child

7. molestation of the child by friend or family member

8. lack of parental involvement in the child’s life

9. ongoing physical or mental illness of one parent

The trapped emotions of childhood are a special breed onto their own.  While any trapped emotions can cause disruptions in the peace, love and fulfillment of our lives, it seems that the emotions we trap during childhood tend to have long lasting deleterious affects on our entire life.  The reason is shocking.  We become addicted to these emotions, meaning we then continue to seek situations wherein we can get yet another hit of those negative emotions so we can feel like ourselves.   This occurs until we free ourselves of these trapped emotions.

So what, exactly, is a trapped emotion?  A trapped emotion is the chemical version of the negative emotion that was experienced in a traumatic event, combined with the body’s calcium ions and lodged in muscle tissue.  Emotion Code is a powerful technique, created by Dr. Bradley Nelson, & used to transmute trapped emotions that create emotional &/or physical dysfunction in your life.  The roots of them stem from childhood.  Emotion Code sessions are a life changer.  Sometimes the emotional clearing opens the way for a spontaneous physical healing when the two issues are connected.  Deborah does not do the healing.  The client’s body does it spontaneously.  When it happens, it is as a result of letting go of the trapped emotions that contributed to the physical issue.  When a client lets go of trapped emotions that affect the client emotionally, the client tends to feel lighter and free of the emotional baggage, allowing him or her to be more authentic.   

Let’s take a closer look at each of the most common reasons that eventually lead many of my clients to seek emotional assistance to redirect their lives.

Many parents divorce when their child or children are toddlers.  Perhaps one of the reasons is that they might think the baby won’t notice and grow up fine because having divorced parents is all they ever knew.  I am sure there are plenty of other reasons contributing to this choice to divorce.  The reality is that the baby is very aware of the discord  going on in the home.  In fact the baby is very aware even in utero of the discord  going on in the home.  It turns out that a blood microscopy will display a “trauma shard” in the live blood of a person when significant stress was present in a person’s life.  These shards can be dated to within 5 years of the event.  Everything that goes on in utero & in childhood (as well as during the entirety of a person’s life) impacts a person positively or negatively.  Everything!  Too often divorce causes collateral damage such as abandonment by one parent, financial struggles to name just two.  The trapped emotions in this scenario abound.

When a young child is brought to a new country, it is quite common & traumatic for the child because the child is forced to leave behind most everything he or she has known, family, friends, school, activities, customs, language & country.  The child is thrust into a new country, often with a new language, school, activities, customs and no friends.  The child often feels displaced, fearful, uncertain & lonely.  This situation has a great tendency to cause parentification of the child because the child is generally more exposed to learning the new language than the parent(s).  Way too often the family experiences severely harsh financial struggles.  Often the child becomes a latch key kid at a young age.   Some children even need to raise the younger ones while the parents are out working many hours to pay the bills.  Again,  the possibility of trapped emotions in this scenario abound.

As you can imagine, constant parental fighting, parental alcoholism &/or parental drug use wreck havoc on the emotionally developing child.   Again,  the possibility of trapped emotions in these scenarios abound.  I often see infidelity between parents causing children to trap emotions and make unhealthy determinations about the realities of marriage or men or women.   More opportunities for trapped emotions.  Another very scaring trauma  that many children endure is witnessing or experiencing physical &/or verbal abuse of a parent, siblings or themselves.  These experiences are very wounding and negatively impact children, leaving them with trapped emotions.   

While it might, on first blush pale in comparison, a lack of parental involvement in the child’s life can cause tremendous and long lasting trapped emotions for children.  Children want, above all else, to be loved by their parents.  If the parents are disconnected from the child, the child is less likely to feel loved.  That is a deep wound.   Again, the result is trapped emotions guiding the children, as well as the adults they become, to live life from a place of not loving themselves or not being willing to open their heart to be loved.

Lastly, when a child lives through the ongoing physical or mental illness of one parent it takes a toll on the child emotionally and causes trapped emotions.  The child tends to lose their innocence and joy because of the harsh realities and burdens they must endure in this sort of childhood.

There is hope.  A person can see a practitioner to clear trapped emotions and go on to live a happy, loving fulfilling life.