Children who have experienced trauma often battle to identify, express and manage their emotions. They may internalize their stress reactions and experience significant anxiety, depression or anger. This can result in them being fearful of new situations, clingy, easily frightened and aggressive.
Traumatic life events
A significant number of children are exposed to traumatic life events that threaten their safety and cause helplessness when they occur. These include sexual or physical abuse, bullying, community violence, unintentional injuries and loss.
Children depend on their parents or caregivers to protect them physically and emotionally. When they experience trauma, they lose their sense of protection and may develop symptoms and display behavior that adults do not know how to address. With Interactive counselling Vancouver, you can address the problems easily and look forward to a better future. It offers online, on the phone and in-person counselling services for the whole family. Some children even report finding new strength and coping skills when they undergo trauma counselling.
Symptoms of distress and behavioral changes
Young children’s brains are developing rapidly and they are very vulnerable. In some studies, early childhood trauma is associated with changes to the brain cortex. This could affect children’s ability to regulate emotion and make them feel unprotected. This area of the brain is responsible for thinking, perceptual awareness, consciousness, memory, language and attention.
Nearly all children and adolescents show distress and behavioral changes in the first phase of recovery from a traumatic event. Some of these changes may simply reflect their attempt to adapt and cope. Symptoms psychologists often notice in children who have experienced trauma include:
- Sleep disturbances
- Separation anxiety
- Reduced concentration
- Decline in school performance
- Anger
- Irritability
- Somatic complaints
Functioning within the family, in school and in a peer group may suffer as a result of these symptoms.
Children’s resilience
The good news is that many children and adolescents are resilient in the aftermath of a single traumatic experience. Those exposed to multiple traumas may not be so lucky. After a short period of distress, most children return to their former level of functioning within weeks or months. Recovery can be impeded by ongoing life stressors like poverty, family factors, prior trauma exposure, and ongoing safety concerns.
Trauma-focused therapy for persistent trauma reactions
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proved to be effective in treating children with persistent trauma reactions. It can reduce anxiety, depression and behavioral problems. Most trauma treatments that are evidence-based include the opportunity for a child to review the trauma in a safe environment under the guidance of a trained mental health professional.
CBT and other trauma-focused techniques can help children to deal with any self-blame and help change their perceptions about the trauma. Secure, safe, trusting therapeutic relationships support the process and recovery and enable parents and children to do the hard work they need to do to deal with the impact of the trauma.
How mental health professionals can help
Mental health providers are trained in developmentally appropriate evidence-based therapies for childhood trauma. They can effectively treat children who are unable to recover on their own and also help the parents of children who have suffered trauma to understand their children’s symptoms and behavior.
The family often has to face various other things like police investigations as a result of the trauma and mental health professionals can help families to navigate the real-life challenges that come along. Training in coping skills is often part of evidence-based trauma treatment. When parents know what to expect and what reactions to trauma are common, it can relieve their worries that a child will never recover.