Talking to Your Child About Trauma

• Learn about the effects of trauma to understand your child's behaviors.

• Admit that the event happened and allow your child to share his/her thoughts and feelings about the event in a safe place.

• Be available when your child needs to talk and have a daily check in with your child. Be prepared that children may bring up difficult topics while you are cooking or driving as it may be less threatening for them. 

• Allow children to ask questions and provide age appropriate information. Children do not process the same as adults and do not need as many details. 

• Don't force a child to talk if they are not ready.

• Use skills of active listening, acceptance, and understanding when your child shares. Make sure you are responding calmly. It is important not to take your child's reactions personally. 

• It is okay if children need to repeat their feelings and questions. 

• Children may need reassured that the event was not their fault.

• Ensure that children are both physically and emotionally safe. You can provide examples of how they are safe if they need reassurance. 

• Provide extra comfort in the form of physical touch, such as hugs, cuddling, pat on the back, etc. 

• Healing from trauma takes time and patience. Children may make progress and then regress as healing is more of a "Bunny Hop" than a straight line forward. 

(Childmind, n.d.; Robinson, A. et. al, 2020; Stanford Children's Health, 2020)

Helping Your Child Cope With Trauma

• Take any precautions that are reasonable and appropriate to ensure that your child is safe physically and emotionally. 

• Children do best with routines and schedules. Anchor points such as eating meals, waking up, and going to bed at the same times are important. Specific morning and night time routines are helpful.

• Keeping clear expectations and rules. Children do best when they know what to expect. If your child is struggling emotionally, you may need to temporarily lower responsibilities. 

• Spend extra time with your child.

• Keep your child connected with his/her friends, interests, and hobbies. 

• Have a support system for your child to include friends, neighbors, relatives, community members, etc. 

• Nature can be helpful in healing whether it is playing with animals, digging in the dirt, planting flowers, or taking a hike

• Creativity helps build resilience and some examples include: arts and crafts projects, make believe play, creating a game, writing stories, and playing music.

• It is important for children to learn how to calm down and soothe themselves when they are upset. Some examples are deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and stretching.

• Try to get physical activity daily. Physical activity can help balance your child's nervous system which is disrupted by trauma. Biking, dancing, swimming, and basketball, are some options. 

• It is important for children to eat healthy and get a good night's rest as dealing with trauma takes a lot of the body's resources. Eating healthy gives the body the nutrition it needs to grow. The body heals itself during sleep and children should sleep at least 10-11 hours a night.

• If your child is having trouble sleeping, they may need a stuffed animal or blanket, a flashlight, or light in the hallway. Do quiet activities before bed to help his/her body relax to get a good night's sleep.

• Reduce the amount of screen time as it can disrupt sleep and keep children from physical and social activity. 

• Reduce the amount of news, violence and disturbing events that children see on TV and video games. Even though these events are second hand and are real, they can still have effects on children (as well as adults). 

• Model appropriate ways to share feelings such as sadness and anger and help your child develop coping skills. 

• Allow for choices when appropriate so that your child has a sense of control over life. Examples can be choosing what to wear, what to have for dinner, or what friend to invite overall.

• Help build your child's self esteem and ensure that you are making more positive statements than negative or neutral ones. 

(Childmind, n.d.; Robinson, A. et. al, 2020; Stanford Children's Health, 2020)

Finding Professional Help and Resources For Your Child

• Children may need the help of a therapist or mental health professional to process the trauma, especially if their symptoms are not improving or are getting worse.

• Keep your child's mental health professional updated with his/her progress at home and school so they can use the most effective strategies.

• Inform your child's primary doctor about the trauma since trauma has both physical and emotional symptoms. 

• Keep consistent with appointments to improve progress in therapy. 

• Your child's mental health professional, primary care doctor, and school can link you to additional resources in the community.

• It can be very challenging to support your child with their trauma so it is important for parents to have their own support system, self care strategies, and professional help (if needed). 

(Stanford Children's Health, 2020)

Types of professionals:

• Psychiatrist- is a medical doctor who can prescribe medications and can do a psychiatric evaluation to diagnose trauma or a mental health condition.

• Psychologist-has a doctorate degree but is not a medical doctor; can do a psychological evaluation to diagnose trauma or a mental health condition; can be a therapist.

• Outpatient therapist- can have a masters degree or a doctorate degree and can be a counselor, social worker, or psychologist.

• Case manager/social worker-helps link families to community resources and advocates for them with mental health professionals and schools.

Types of outpatient therapy for children:

• Individual therapy-child is the patient although parents and siblings may attend parts of sessions and communicate with therapist.

• Family therapy-with whole or part of family; working on dynamics and relationships within the family

• Talk therapy-main form of communication is talking.

• Art or music therapy-uses art and/or music as a form of communicating and processing feelings.

• Play therapy-uses play, art, music, and other methods as a form to communicate and process feelings.

• Trauma therapy-therapist is trained in trauma techniques and uses different various counseling methods.

• Parent-Child Interaction therapy (PCIT)- a therapist coaches parents on how to play and interact with their child in the moment while it is happening.

• Group therapy-children participate in a group with other children who have had similar experiences.

*There are also in home based services such as BHRS (Mobile Therapy, Behavior Specialist, TSS) and Family based Services which are more intensive therapy than outpatient counseling. 

Since children spend most of their day at school, school staff can make a great impact in supporting students with trauma. Schools can do this by:

• Training staff in understanding trauma and how best to respond to students.

• Reporting progress and changes to parents so they are more aware of how their child is doing.

• Developing a community of learners that support each other and learn how to work together.

• Offering positive feedback, encouragement, motivation, and active listening.

• Teaching social and emotional skills (SEL).

• Offering support groups.

• Implementing a school wide positive behavior support team to encourage safety and community and to reinforce students for making good choices.

• Offering a Student Assistance Team that helps students and families find appropriate mental health services and community resources.

• Teaching students how to share and regulate their feelings and cope with conflict.

• Providing individual counseling through guidance counselor to help students to help process feelings and problem solve.

• Providing families with outside resources and guidance on a variety of topics.