Intervention helps kids deal with trauma
COVID 19. Floods. Fire. Climate change. We’ve been through the wars. Now that we are coming up for air, you might be wondering how children have weathered the storm. Simply put, for some, it’s been traumatic.
Trauma is the experiencing or witnessing of an event that is so emotionally distressful, it can have a lasting effect on our well-being.
Left unresolved, it can even create changes to the way our brain functions. Trauma can be caused by lots of things, including all types of abuse and neglect, family break-ups and upheaval in our environment or community. Children can also experience trauma through the media, for example, watching confronting content on TV or online.
Children experience traumatic events very differently to adults.
They may not be able to describe how they feel and, without early intervention support, the impact of their trauma can grow with them into adulthood.
Multiple or prolonged exposure to trauma significantly increases a child’s risk of personal and community challenges later in life including poor mental and physical health, addiction, relationship breakdowns and unemployment.
Essentially, trauma can derail young lives. Before the pandemic, we knew that one in five Australian children experienced unhealthy amounts of stress and, for one in seven children, the levels were toxic.
Our recent KidsXpress survey found 85 per cent of parents and carers told us their children continue to experience negative mental health effects following the pandemic and other world events.
What’s even more alarming is that one in three respondents said they couldn’t confidently recognise signs of poor mental health in their child or in a child in their care.
To those of us who work in the mental health sector, it is obvious that these generation-defining disruptions have taken a dangerous toll on our kids. But our voice isn’t loud enough. We need a louder megaphone to generate as much awareness as possible and ensure that every child who needs therapeutic intervention has prompt access to it.
Something we can all do right now is to come together – parents, carers, schools and other adults who spend time with children – and intervene.
We can look for evidence of trauma in children and provide them with the support they need before it becomes a deep-rooted mental health concern. Boys often externalise their trauma by acting out. Their anger and fear is displayed through impulsivity and aggressiveness.
Girls, on the other hand, tend to internalise trauma and display this through struggles like depression, anxiety and extreme compliance.
When we teach positive social and emotional strategies to children early in life – skills like expressing and regulating emotions, understanding peers and engaging in safe behaviours – we strengthen their ability to bounce back from hardships and better cope with a world that has been largely unpredictable.