Michele Rosenthal
One of my post-trauma coaching clients is the mother-in-law of an army man. When she first met Jack he was quick to laugh, tumble and play with his wife, Leann, and their three kids. He smiled often, loved being a family guy and was very social in his neighborhood. If you wanted dinner on a Saturday night, just stop by Jack’s house: there was always an extra steak on the grill for anyone who happened by.
Then Jack served three tours in Iraq. With each deployment he came home a little more changed. He became withdrawn, quick to argue (and unable to control his anger), jittery, suspicious and prone to physical expressions of frustration that included breaking household objects. One night he had even thrown a glass at Leann’s head while the three children, ages five, seven and eight, cowered in a corner of the room.
Anyone under the stress Jack had so extensively experienced on duty could return back to civilian life and find it difficult to settle into old routines. When you’re on the frontlines and safety is at stake in every moment, your entire neurobiology changes to accommodate the necessary level of survival mode. Making the shift out of survival mode and into rest and restore mode can be difficult, and even feel downright dangerous. While understandable, the effects of aggravated trauma on the children who witness it can be substantial.
Sources of Trauma for Military Children
For many military children daily family life can become traumatic in several ways directly related to the service of a parent and their behavior afterward, including:
• Violent outbursts in the home
• Physical violence between parents
• Uncontrolled and aberrant behavior on the part of an adult
• Violence or other traumatic expression directed toward the child
Of course, military children are not the only ones vulnerable to this type of trauma. All children can experience any of the above.
Children’s Response to Trauma
Technically defined, the word ‘trauma’ applies to anything that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. When this happens to a child, the experience can actually cause stunted emotional development at the age of the trauma.
After any traumatic event it’s natural for a child to move through a phase of acute stress, during which time you might notice erratic moods, nightmares, irrational behavior, increased anxiety and acting out behaviors. Usually these subside after a period of four weeks. When symptoms continue beyond that, it’s likely that the child struggles with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the presence of PTSD, a child will display such symptoms as:
• Swift mood changes ranging from calm and content to greatly agitated
• Agitation turns on and off quickly while a child can’t explain what the agitation was about
• Speech regression
• Uncontrollable crying
• Flushing in the face and chest
• Tenseness in the body
• Pacing
• Panicked expressions
• Pupil dilation
• Refusal to be comforted/touched
• Temper tantrums
Healing Trauma In Children
As you would with any illness, post-trauma care begins with observing behavior changes, noting symptoms and their expansion. The presence of acute stress suggests the child needs immediate attention. Deciding to seek treatment for a child with PTSD symptoms begins with a professional assessment. The sooner a child is treated for trauma the sooner and more likely he or she is to heal.
The good news is that the effects of trauma can often be reversed. However, healing from PTSD doesn’t happen alone or overnight. It requires proper trained interventions from a variety of areas in order to find the successful path for any child. The road to PTSD recovery is highly individualized, which means it can be frustrating when initial treatments don’t work, and highly rewarding when a process finally brings the desired results.
Popular healing techniques for adults (including talk therapy, cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy) can be used for children. For very young children, telling stories, enacting games and other techniques that engage the child’s automatic implementation of imagination can help them process the trauma without retraumatizing the child. Older children often do well with the more advanced techniques. For an expanded overview of treatment options visit, http://www.healmyptsd.com/treatment)
How Parents Can Help Children Heal
There are two important actions a parent can take when in the presence of a traumatize child. First, behave in ways that make a child feel safe and secure. Offer the child actions to take that allow him or her to participate in creating the sensation of feeling protected, supported, connected and loved. Second, become educated about trauma and recovery to make positive changes that benefit the child’s progress. Plus, share the knowledge with adults who interact with the child on a regular basis, including teachers, babysitters, family members, friends and other professionals.
As with adults, children may attempt to hide symptoms of trauma that they do not understand or are embarrassed about. Openly communicating about a traumatic situation, offering to hear the child’s perspective and making it clear that any response is acceptable can bolster a child’s courage to face what is being felt and find resolutions to it. Teaching children how to positively and proactively face fears and uncomfortable feelings and experiences strengthens them later in life and can even make childhood less stressful. Like adults, when children have support and tools they are more likely to access resilience so that they overcome trauma.
Michele Rosenthal teaches audiences how to create change they choose in order to conquer the past and create the future. A popular keynote speaker, award-winning blogger, award-nominated author, workshop/seminar leader and certified professional coach, Michele is host of the radio program, Changing Direction, and founder of HealMyPTSD.com. She is the author of Before The World Intruded: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future, selected as a finalist for the Books For A Better Life Award, Next Generation Indie Book Award, and the International Book Award. Her forthcoming book, YOUR LIFE AFTER TRAUMA: Powerful Practices To Reclaim Your Identity, will be available from W.W. Norton in 2014. To connect with Michele visit: ChangeYouChoose.com. – See more at: http://www.militarymentalhealth.org/blog/2013/06/post-trauma-identity-reclaiming-who-you-are-despite-the-past-you-are-more-than-your-ptsd-symptoms/#sthash.v40TFQC4.dpufma rather than being permanently altered by it.
I work with child care professionals who work with military families. Recently I was sharing information about the symptoms of PTSD/TBI in the context of parenting with a group of them and the question was raised of children’s safety. As mandatory reporters of abuse or neglect, child care professionals are in the difficult position of knowing how to respond when a parent’s behavior is endangering the child physically or emotionally. While we can be sympathetic to the fact that the parent suffering with the injury doesn’t want to be acting in a way that frightens or harms their child, nevertheless, child care professionals are among those who must think of the child’s well-being first and report the situation to those who can intervene when the situation reaches a certain point. But what that point is can be difficult to determine and VERY uncomfortable to deal with, especially knowing that the family is already suffering so much. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions that I could share with my colleagues? Thank you!