Children may find it extremely difficult to disclose the traumatic event that they are internally dealing with, and without the right kind of support and help, the emotional and psychological effects of such an occurrence can be experienced during adolescence and adulthood further disrupting their normal functioning. The definition of a traumatic event includes first of all the subjective emotional experience of the event. Therefore, any circumstances that have as a result us feeling unsafe, afraid, powerless, or vulnerable, but not necessarily involving physical harm, can be traumatic, especially for a child.
Just to exemplify what events qualify as traumatic from a child's perspective we list the following: a serious illness that needs hospitalization and intrusive medical interventions (i.e. surgery), separation from a parent for a short or long period of time (i.e. in case of divorce), domestic violence (either the child being the victim or one of the parents), neglect, bullying at school, verbal, physical or sexual abuse, an unstable living environment (i.e. life on the road, moving often from one place to another).
Coping is a psychological mechanism that we all employ in order to deal with traumatic events and heal, but for children these coping techniques have not had the time to develop yet so that parents have to offer their full support and unconditional love to their child as he/she goes through the process:
· Create a safe and stable home environment for the child.
One of the most important and supportive things that you, as parent, can do for your child is to ensure that he/she does not have to go through other unnecessary distressful situations. Make sure your home is the place where your child feels free from harm, where he/she can be in control, where he/she is free to communicate without being judged or reprimanded. With every occasion reassure the child that nothing similar to the traumatic event will ever happen again and that you are there to make sure of that.
· Never belittle her/his traumatic experience.
Children who have experienced some traumatic event are often confronted with feelings of guilt and shame because they were not able to defend themselves. For this reason, a parent should never refer to the event as being unimportant, ignorable or unworthy of their attention. On the contrary, parents need to understand that a traumatic event is experienced very intense, reaching the depths of a child's whole emotional and psychological structure.
· Let the child express his/her feelings.
It is extremely important that the child can express his/her feelings whenever they feel like doing that, either through crying, talking or remembering parts of the event. This process helps the child enormously with accepting what happened and with moving on.
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