When a child witnesses something scary or grotesque or experiences something traumatic, the key to helping them process the event is to help them tell the story as much as they need to in order to digest the disturbance.
We know from a solid body of evidence that avoidance is the key ingredient for developing PTSD in adults, and it has been true in my clinical experience with childhood traumas as well.
The less mentionable an event is, the more likely a child is to internalize self blame and shame and get stuck with a deeply distorted version of the story in their body.
For a great primer on how to do this and the neurosurgeon behind it, check out Dr. Dan Siegel's Whole Brained Child.
It is awful when we and our children experience scary and painful things. If you know this reality, I see you. It's no simple process.
Thank goodness we are wired to be social story tellers and attachment creatures. When we are surrounded with support, we can get thru some profoundly painful stuff.
Remind yourself and your kids "whatever we go thru, we go thru together and we will find our way thru heart to heart"
Acquaintance was just telling me the other night that she was in a car accident with her two young children and her four year old was starting to exhibit some signs that it had affected him. He was feeling more anxious and more stressed out than he normally is, so she asked me what can I do to help him?
First thing I would say is understand that a lot of that trauma is going to come out sideways because kids haven't developed the ability to connect their feelings to meanings, and they aren't always able to make a connection. Why they feel what they feel. It often comes out in behavior. They might melt down about something that seems small to you, but they're actually processing the information from this bigger event in this smaller moment.
Which brings me to the second thing, which is this. Help them tell the story of their trauma. If they're really tiny, you're gonna have to do it for them. You'll say, we were in that car accident and it went bump that car ran into our car, and we shook. That was really scary, and I felt scared, and dad felt scared and you felt scared.
But our car protected us and it kept us safe. People tend to avoid doing this, probably even listening me to do that feels like too much, too much, too much, but actually that's actually inside of your child's body, so it's not too much. They need to be able to put words to this process. And have you helped them do it with regularity?
Because the more that they can talk about it, the more that story will be. With health instead of what happens inside of a child without any social storytelling, which is those stories start feeling shameful and they start putting blame on themselves.
Acquaintance was just telling me the other night that she was in a car accident with her two young children and her four year old was starting to exhibit some signs that it had affected him. He was feeling more anxious and more stressed out than he normally is, so she asked me what can I do to help him?
First thing I would say is understand that a lot of that trauma is going to come out sideways because kids haven't developed the ability to connect their feelings to meanings, and they aren't always able to make a connection. Why they feel what they feel. It often comes out in behavior. They might melt down about something that seems small to you, but they're actually processing the information from this bigger event in this smaller moment.
Which brings me to the second thing, which is this. Help them tell the story of their trauma. If they're really tiny, you're gonna have to do it for them. You'll say, we were in that car accident and it went bump that car ran into our car, and we shook. That was really scary, and I felt scared, and dad felt scared and you felt scared.
But our car protected us and it kept us safe. People tend to avoid doing this, probably even listening me to do that feels like too much, too much, too much, but actually that's actually inside of your child's body, so it's not too much. They need to be able to put words to this process. And have you helped them do it with regularity?
Because the more that they can talk about it, the more that story will be. With health instead of what happens inside of a child without any social storytelling, which is those stories start feeling shameful and they start putting blame on themselves.
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The difference between consequences and punishment is important to understand, as consequences are the natural outcome of an action and necessary for learning, while punishments are intentional pain inflicted to control behavior, which can damage the parent-child relationship and hinder a child's growth towards internal security.
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