Children from the time that they’re born till age six are at the highest risk of experiencing some kind of childhood trauma or neglect.
With a prevalence of 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys experiencing child abuse in the U.S alone, what can we do to help the children? Continue reading to explore:
- How do we Define Childhood Trauma?
- How does Trauma Affect Children?
- Trauma Care for Children
- 5 Ways to Prevent Trauma in Children
How do we Define Childhood Trauma?
Before moving onto the different treatment options available for children, we need to understand what childhood trauma means and comprises.
The National Child and Traumatic Stress Network defines a traumatic event as directly experiencing or witnessing an event (in childhood) that is dangerous, frightening and put’s the child’s life and sense of physical and/or mental safety at risk.
Traumatic events can include an individualized event such as abuse or neglect of any kind (physical, mental, psychological), discrimination, the death of a loved one or serious accidents.
It could even be a large-scale event such as terrorism, mass violence, natural disasters, or refugee and war experiences.
How does Trauma Affect Children?
Childhood trauma can affect children in multiple ways:
- Mental Impact: Childhood trauma can cause long lasting psychological effects that, if left untreated, could turn into problems like depression, anxiety and PTSD.
- Behavioral Impact: Children are more likely to have problems with self-regulation, aggression, increased engagement in violent behaviors again themselves or others, and even substance use and risky sexual behaviors.
- Physical Impact: Children become more prone to health problems such as infections, injuries, or even heart disease or diabetes later in life
Trauma Care for Children
There has been a significant increase in the number of evidence based treatments (EBTs) available for childhood trauma, especially for the more vulnerable group of children aged 0 to 6. Some of the most well-researched options include:
1. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most widely evidence-based treatments that is used to help children who have experienced childhood trauma. It is ideal for children aged 3 to 18.
It is also a manualized treatment, which means that researchers have worked on outlining a specific method of working with children and mentioning which techniques would be best to use for the child.
It also increases the likelihood of you having the same experience with TF-CBT wherever you go.
This therapy usually has one on one sessions with the child and the parent separately, but can be combined if the therapist thinks that it is necessary.
Components:
The therapy mainly focuses on providing information about the trauma in a way that is understandable for the child and parent, working on coping skills and relaxation methods for their uncomfortable feelings.
There is also an emphasis on trying to understand the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviors and narrating the traumatic event to verbally process what happened.
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2. Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP)
Child-parent psychotherapy is another evidence based treatment ideal for children from birth to five years of age. It is a dyadic intervention, which means that this therapy also requires both the child and their caregiver to work together.
Components:
The therapy is divided into three stages and briefly explained:
- Foundational Phase – Assessment and Engagement: The therapist works on building a relationship with the parent and child while gathering information about them, the event and what circumstances they have to work with.
- Core Intervention Phase: The parent and child understand how trauma is connected to their emotional and behavioral reactions and intervene when appropriate to introduce techniques (e.g., play) that help the child as well as the parent-child relationship.
- Termination: Working on emphasizing how the patient has made so much progress since the start of their sessions and processing the end of their sessions.
3. Medication
Psychiatric medication for children has always been somewhat controversial as medical practitioners are divided on their use for such young patients. There is also not a lot of research to support its benefits for children.
If needed, medical professionals can briefly prescribe medicines such as antidepressants in combination with other EBTs (e.g., therapy) to help deal with the symptoms.
5 Ways to Prevent Trauma in Children
Children experience and understand the world through their immediate relationships. We as parents or any sort of caregiver can always find ways to improve these relationships and create a safe, stable and nurturing environment for kids to thrive in:
- Social and Emotional Competence: Take the time to foster your relationship with your child, validate their feelings and provide emotional and physical support where needed. It is also important to take the time to teach them about the world through modeling appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
- Parental Knowledge: Respected communication and providing age appropriate opportunities in a safe environment helps children thrive and make their own decisions.
- Social Connections: Parents fostering a good social relationship with friends, neighbors and others find it easier to parent as social connections foster positivity and reduce stress.
- Concrete Support: Working on getting basic needs or asking for help when unable to make it more likely for parents to be able to take care of their children and reduce any violence due to a lack of them.
- Resilience: Parenting and caregiving is hard. Make sure you take the time to take care of yourself and process your emotions so that you are more resilient for your child.
Conclusion
Child abuse can be treated through various evidence based treatments such as trauma focused CBT and parent child psychotherapy. Medications might also be provided but evidence about their efficiency is limited.
Lastly, if possible, we can do our best to prevent childhood trauma by fostering our relationship with our child, giving them the necessary opportunities in a safe environment to grow, and work on ourselves through social connections, ensuring basic needs and taking care of ourselves along the way.
