Essay: Understanding Trauma In Children: Effects, Types, And Treatment." (70 Characters)

What is Trauma in Children?

In event in life which is disturbing, dangerous, violent threatens the well-being of an individual leads to trauma (Balkin et al.,2021). It is a response to a distressful situation or event that cause stress such as physical or mental abuse, violence, bully, discrimination, racism or natural disaster. Trauma can generate feelings of unhappiness and excessive stress. A traumatic event disrupts the ability to cope giving rise to the feeling of hopelessness or helplessness. “Child trauma” occurs within the age range of 0-18 years when a child is exposed to terrifying events themselves or is impacted by the frightening experiences of others (Oh et al., 2018). It originates negative emotions and reduces the ability to fight or flight from the circumstances. There can be long lasting effects on the regular functioning of an individual’s life inclusive of changes in mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and social health. Response to threatening events can reflect changes in child’s behaviour like being more irritable, difficulty in maintaining social interaction, problem sleeping or eating, depression, nightmares, lacking attention (First et al., 2021). The symptoms can stay for weeks, months or years after the experience or can recur throughout the lifetime.  Some children are more vulnerable than others in facing traumatic events. However, not all stressful situations are considered as threatening. It is evaluated differently according to the experiences of the children.

A traumatized child feels a wide range of varied emotions that can appear immediately or after a certain period of time from feeling overwhelmed to shock or face difficulty in regulating their personal experiences (Ireland & Huxley, 2018). It has been estimated that almost 46% of children have experienced trauma in their life time. Continuous exposure to trauma can affect the mental health of an individual causing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Bryant, 2019). The severity of trauma can be of several traumas such as (a) Acute trauma - arises out of a specific dangerous or stressful event (b) Chronic Trauma – occurs due to prolonged and frequent exposure to stressful events (c) Complex trauma- subjected to a number of traumatic events (Meiser-Stedman et al., 2019). Secondary trauma is another form also known as vicarious trauma that is developed indirectly due to the traumatic event experienced by the close one (Kim et al., 2021). Emotional struggle within the children can create feelings of emotional vulnerability, isolation, betrayal or violation within the victim. Such disruptive effects can hinder the internal regulation of development in the later stages of life. 15% girls and 6% boys suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been found to experience trauma (Astitene & Barkat, 2022). Children who do not encounter PTSD can still demonstrate emotional malfunction. 1840 children have died due to emotional or physical abuse and abandonment in U.S. Traumatic events can impact the functioning of the nervous system and brain. It also impacts the self-identity, language, or delayed cognitive development Children may become hyper vigilant in order to avoid further traumas. Older children are more prone to developing unhealthy habits in order to cope with the trauma by inducing in unhealthy risk behaviour such as consuming alcohol, drugs, and smoking or behaving in abnormal manner.

Types of Trauma in Children

Trauma can be of various types such as bullying, community violence, complex trauma, disasters, early childhood trauma, physical abuse, medical trauma, refugee trauma, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, traumatic grief, terrorism and violence (Zara, 2019). Bullying is also referred as peer victimization. It is a premeditated and unexpected act committed with the purpose of causing social, emotional, psychological or bodily harm to those who are seen as weak. Bullying is a aggressive behaviour and a form of harassment that inhibits someone from living freely and creates unnecessary pressure. Children suffer the most from bullying in schools by their peers and it can impact the child’s self-image, confidence, social interaction, performance in school causing various mental health problems. Complex trauma occurs when a child is exposed to a number of traumatic events mostly interpersonal in nature and have a prolonged effect on children. Abuse or neglect are examples of complex trauma. The events frequently appear in earlier stages of life and is capable of interfering with the development of child and sense of identity. The interferences of traumas can disrupt the child’s ability to develop a stable relationship with caregiver. Families or caregivers who fail to provide comfort, safety and protection may learn to cope with stressful situation. The attachment theory of Bowlby suggest that particular actions and behaviours of children are associate with attachment such as seeking comfort to their attachment figure when feeling threatened or stressed. According to Bowlby, children when encounter with an unfamiliar situation generally react in any one of three ways to get along with their attachment figure that is parents, secure attachment that infants show during the time of separation and try to seek comfort within the parents. Anxious resistant attachment occurs when an infant experience higher levels of stress and on meeting their parents tend to calm down and attempt to punish the parents as the consequences of their behaviour. In avoidant attachment, the child does not show any stress or minimum stress during separation with the parents as they have faced avoidance from their parents and has learnt to cope with it (Leone et al., 2018). Erikson theory of psychosocial development aligns well with the concept of Bowlby and Ainsworth attachment theory (Donald et al., 2020). In the initial months of an infant, a strong bond is developed between the caregivers and the infant that leads to the first stage of Trust vs Mistrust in psychosocial stage. The infant learns to trust the primary caregivers and rely on them. The infant tends to feel safe and comfortable in the presence of caregivers and anxious when not around them. Children who have secure attachments are more likely to be competent, friendly and optimistic in the later stages of life and children who failed to receive secure attachment will face conflicts in developing relationships later. A children can be immensely affected by the behaviour of the parents such as avoidance that can act as a traumatic event where they might develop attachment pattern that are not considered suitable for healthy development of a child.

Effects of Trauma in Children

One of the most common forms of abuse is physical abuse that a child encounters in school by their teachers, peers and even parents. It effects the mental health of the child as the figures they were dependent on are threatening. Children are prone to sexual abuse; it affects both the boys and girls who has an interaction with an adult. Sexual abuse is traumatizing as it not only affects the physical health but mental health of a children as well. A child who has been physically abused might portray a varied emotional and behavioural actions that characterised their entire being. Lee Vygotsky formulated a theory named, sociocultural theory that discusses the contribution of society to the development of a children (Newman & Latifi, 2021). Human learning is mainly based on the cognitive functional and social interactions that has been formed by interacting with the people and surrounding around us (Amodio, 2019). The psychological growth is mainly promoted by the close ones of live such as parents and teachers. Otherwise, the development of values and beliefs are influenced by the society interaction. A child with experiences where they have been neglected physically, mentally or abused, sexually exploited fail to create a connection between themselves and their social environment as they tend feel threatened stressed and vulnerable. Zone of Proximal development assessed by Vygotsky mainly states that the difference between the learner’s actual development evaluated by individual problem solving and their ideal development level as predicted by the ability of problem solving by supervisors and peers (Kostogriz & Veresov, 2021). It is inclusive of all the skills and knowledge that a person fails to acquire on its own but can learn under the guidance. Understanding the concept of zone of proximal development will act as a helpful tool for teachers. In classroom settings, the teachers can first evaluate the students current possessed skill. Teachers can offer assistance by expanding the limit of the child’s capabilities. Teacher can encourage the expansion by planning and implementing lessons and instruction in the classroom, by utilizing hints and prompts as a source of direct interaction, scaffolding is a practise that can be used by the teacher to provide prompts to the children to move forward progressively towards the achievement of the goal. It is a method that enables the teacher to offer assistance to the students in order to learn and formulate a new set of skills or concept.

Children sometimes are most dependent on their school and teachers to feel safe and a sense of belongingness. After home with parents, the children spend most of the time in schools with their teachers. Children believe that they are safe, surrounded by trusted people and enduring relationships. Teachers can recognise the children with traumatic experiences or trauma by close observation and analysis. Children exhibit signs of trauma through their behaviour, communication pattern and ability to develop social connection with others (Herrenkohl et al., 2019). The teachers can look for the following signs such as (a) extreme shyness (b) problem in engaging with peers or others (c) Difficulty controlling emotions (d) Clingy (e) trouble moving from one activity to another (f) poor memory retention ability (g) lack of awareness regarding safety (h) lack of effort and apathy (i) verbal or physical aggressiveness. As traumatic experiences damage the hippocampus it disrupts the memory processes (Kida, 2019). The higher the intensity of trauma, the lesser the child will have improved cognitive processing and learning ability. Teachers can identify students with trauma who shows slower language development, delay in expressive language. As language is considered to be an important aspect more children in school to learn, read and write.

Attachment Theory and Trauma

Schools must be trauma sensitive in order to foster the need of the traumatic children. There are a number of main components that can be addressed to develop a school for catering the needs of the children such as school infrastructure and culture, training of staffs, associating with mental health professionals, non-academic strategies, instruction for traumatized children, school protocol, policies and procedures. Teachers have the opportunity to identify the children with traumatic experiences and disruptive behaviour. The teachers must acquire certain ways to improve the condition of the children through primary curriculum by associating with parents and developing a plan to improve the various problematic domain of the children. Teachers must create a safe environment for the children to feel understood and supported so that they can let down their guards and be comfortable in becoming vulnerable. Protective environment at school can make the children be less anxious and improves the concentration ability of the children. Teachers must formulate opportunities where the children are allowed to set goals for achieving and develop a sense of control and mastery within themselves. Traumatic children have distracting behaviour and less attentive due to the inability to get emotionally available parents. Teachers can introduce the concept of brain breaks and promotion of social emotional learning. They can create space for the children for interacting with other children and teachers for improvement of social skills. Trauma teaching strategies shall be informed to all the staff, parent volunteer and guards of the school to consider children with extreme care and comfort. Students must be given small compliments, offering a smile can act as a medium to regain the resilience within the traumatic students.  Teachers must focus on imparting knowledge to the students and enables building connection. The teachers must keep the information confidential in order to protect the privacy of the students.  Teachers must help children to be able to control and manage their disturbed emotions and cool themselves as lack of secure attachment led to chronic dysregulation. Children who have been traumatized are likely to experience “hostile attribution bias”, they are pessimistic and are unable to have positive thought process. The teachers can assist the children by bringing in incremental successes and mistakes to be considered as an essential part of learning.

It can be concluded that children are prone to suffer from trauma and the trauma effects the way they behave think and process. It hinders the possibility of the well-being of an individual and affects the normalcy of the growth and development of the children. Teachers and parents are the main stake holders who are responsible to act as a figure for the children to develop. However, negligence is faced by the children from their caregivers or parents. Teachers can help children in growing and evolving in their various aspect of life.

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