+
upworthy
Pop Culture

Therapist explains 'Orchid vs Dandelion Child' theory and how kids react differently to trauma

Are you an orchid child or a dandelion child?

childhood trauma, hypnotherapy
@theorchidchild/TikTok

Judy Lee explaining the difference between dandelion children and orchid children

Sometimes it really helps to have specific words to describe difficult experiences. Labels have their limitations, of course, but they can help prevent someone from feeling further isolated by a negative circumstance. After all, if there’s a specific phrase, analogy, etc. for what you’re going through or have gone through, then it can’t be all that uncommon. And if there are words to describe it, then there might be words to help navigate through it as well.

This is why hypnotherapist Judy Lee is sharing a term that she learned in grad school, one that changed her life and one she thinks can help others—particularly those who grew up in an abusive or unstable environment.

As Lee explains in a now-viral TikTok video, siblings who grew up in the same unsafe household often have starkly different reactions. One tends to be more resilient, while the other is more sensitive. This sensitivity manifests not only emotionally, but with certain sounds, foods (i.e allergies), certain fabrics…you get it.

“There always seems to be that sibling that does really well and the sibling that doesn’t do very well in an abusive environment,” Lee says in the video.

These are “dandelion children” and “orchid children,” respectively.


The terms, coined by pediatrician Thomas Boyce and psychologist Bruce J. Ellis, are fairly straightforward. As the names suggest, dandelion children are able to survive and even thrive under whatever circumstances befall them. Orchid children, on the other hand, wilt and wither without a good deal of nurturing, much like the orchid flower itself.

“At first glance, it seems that one is much more preferable than the other,” Lee says, referring to the dandelion child’s apparent benefits.

@theorchidchild why some siblings raised in the same traumatic environment can react differently #orchidchild #traumatok #wellnessjourney #emotionalintelligence #hypnotherapy #dandelionchild #developmentalpsychology #ancestralhealing ♬ Lift Me Up - From Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Music From and Inspired By - Rihanna

But as she explained, there is also evidence suggesting that if “an orchid child is removed from that abusive environment and grows up and is then replaced into a nurturing and nourishing environment, they can actually surpass their dandelion counterparts.”

Really, Lee’s point isn’t to suggest that one type is better than the other. It’s moreso to encourage folks who might classify themselves as orchids to “find a beautiful community to be a part of.”

She should know—she’s a thriving orchid child herself.

As Lee revealed in an interview with Buzzfeed, she had harbored resentment against her dandelion sister, who seemingly came out of their shared traumatic childhood unscathed. Highly successful, even. Lee, on the other hand, battled with both mental and chronic physical illness.

However, learning about these terms helped Lee understand her and her sister’s unique paths and strengths. It even gave her the name of her healing practice, The Orchid Child.

Since sharing her TikTok, Lee has been flooded with comments from people who felt like the terms validated their own experiences.

“My sister is an orchid and I am a dandelion. She suffered at my parent’s house. She is in a safe and happy marriage now, watching her thrive is amazing,” one person wrote.

“Cries in Orchid,” wrote another.” But also thank you for the glimmer at the end. It’s up to me who I’m around now.”

As Lee also pointed out to Buzzfeed, in reality, most children fall somewhere on the spectrum between orchid and dandelion. In fact, there’s a third term, “tulip child,” to describe a kid who falls somewhere in between the extremes. All in all these terms help to provide some nuanced context, rather than give a hard-and-fast diagnosis.

Here’s to all the dandelions, orchids and tulips out there. No matter how your upbringing caused you to grow, you’re all valuable parts of the bouquet.

If you’d like even more content from The Orchid Child, you can follow her on TikTok here.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less

A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

Keep ReadingShow less

Derrick Downey Jr. has been dubbed the 'squirrel whisperer.'

Most of us who live in the U.S. are used to looking out a window or walking out our front door and seeing squirrels. The cute, fluffy-tailed rodents often appear perfectly pettable, but they generally scamper away when humans get too close.

That is not the case for TikTok creator Derrick Downey Jr., however, as he has not only befriended his neighborhood squirrels but goes all out to help them live their best squirrel lives.

Downey shared a video in May of 2022 in which he chats with a couple of squirrels on his porch while feeding them and offering them water. That video received over 26 million views and kicked off a whole series of videos showcasing the adorable antics of Richard, Maxine, Hector, Consuela, Norma (may she rest in peace), and Hood Rat Raymond. He's built Richard a house, rescued Maxine's babies, mourned Norma's transition (to wherever squirrels go when they die) and more.

People can't get enough, and who can blame them? Squirrels are the best (when they're not tearing up your patio furniture and stealing cotton for their nest, as Downey has experienced.)

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

Keep ReadingShow less