How to tell if your child is traumatized

Every child has moments of sadness in response to life’s disappointments, but how can you tell if your child has been traumatized?

Unlike adults, children are not always able to express their emotions in words. Therefore it is critical to pay attention to significant behavioral changes, particularly those that occur following an injury, illness, death of a loved one, or catastrophic event such as a natural disaster or major accident. Divorce, separation, or other disruptions to family life, such as moving to another city or changing schools, can also be difficult for children to tolerate and could lead to problems adjusting.

Children who experience a major loss or other traumatic event respond in many different ways. Some may have difficulty sleeping, or develop a fear of the dark. Others might have a loss of appetite, throw tantrums, or be more irritable or impatient than usual. Children are incredibly resilient, and such symptoms usually subside within a few weeks or months without any clinical intervention or counseling. However, if your child displays any of the following symptoms for six months or longer, you may want to have them assessed by a licensed mental health professional.

• Sleep disturbance: sleeping too much or too little, avoids going to bed at night, nightmares or terrors, restless sleep, sleepwalking, or talking in sleep, refusing to get out of bed or having difficulty waking up in the morning
  


• Change in appetite: eating more or less than usual, loss of appetite, refusing food, hording or hiding food
  


• Irritability or tantrums: excessive arguing or complaining, hysterical crying and screaming in response to changes to daily routine or minor disappointments
  


• Worry or anxiety: fear about personal safety or the safety of loved ones, persistent fantasies involving death, illness, or other distressing events
  


• Violent or aggressive behavior: throwing objects, destruction of property, hitting, kicking, punching, yelling, or threatening siblings, other children, adults, or pets
  


• School refusal: not wanting to go to school, refusing to do homework or engage in other academic activities
  


• Loss of interest: dropping out of sports or other extracurricular activities, not wanting to interact with friends or other children, indifferent towards toys or other things once found enjoyable
  


• Regressed behaviors: bed soiling, thumb sucking, wanting to be held constantly, separation anxiety
  


• Acting out behavior: lying, cheating, stealing, promiscuity or inappropriate sexual activity
  


• Somatic complaints: headaches, stomach aches, or other aches and pains not caused by a medical condition
  


• Repetitive play: Re-enacting the traumatic event over and over through play
  Phobia: sudden development of irrational fears that interfere with daily functioning
  


• Suicidal ideation or attempts: talking about wanting to die or wishing they were dead, engaging in high risk behavior or self harm such as cutting, scratching, burning, or hitting, suicidal threats
  


• Alcohol or drug abuse: drinking or using illegal drugs, taking more than recommended amount of prescribed medication, overuse of over-the-counter medication
  
  It is important to remember that some children might not display any of the above symptoms in response to trauma and seem to go on with life as if nothing happened. This is not unusual and should not be cause for alarm, nor is it necessary to encourage a child to “talk about” the event. Trying to make children talk about their feelings or a distressing event may seem like a good idea, but it can cause more harm than good. Imagine for a moment something painful or difficult that has happened in your life. Now imagine someone asking you about it on a daily basis. Do you really want to be reminded of it all the time? For many children, talking about a distressing event can cause them to experience it all over again which may be re-traumatizing. With children, it is better to let them share if they need to, calmly listening to whatever they have to say and using reflective or mirroring statements to let them know you hear them without adding interpretation or asking probing questions.
  

Finding Flow

You know when you’re in the flow. You move through life with focus and momentum that comes almost without effort. Things seem to come easily, synchronicity abounds, and you feel alive, energized, and in harmony with your surroundings. It’s as if you’ve found the perfect wave and if you can just keeping riding it, it will carry you to the shore of all your dreams and goals. Athletes call it “the zone,” and sports psychologists use many methods, including hypnosis, guided imagery, and meditation, to help their clients get there. Yogis call it Dharana, a state of total focus and concentration in which we are able to eliminate distractions and achieve deeper awareness. Indeed many systems of thought recommend various ways to harness the vital life forces that energetically sustain and nurture us on our path through the world. Some of these systems refer to the flow as the Tao, the way of universal light, being in alignment with a higher power, walking the medicine path, etc.

These systems exist partially because while most of us know the feeling of being in the flow, most of us also know all to well how it feels when were not. We feel “off,” things don’t seem to be going our way and obstacles appear to block our progress at every turn. Things may seem stagnant, or feel as though we’re moving backward. It’s as if we’ve been caught in a vortex that is bent on pulling us down into a bottomless sea of darkness.

In nature, vortices come into existence when oppositional forces cause a certain element (usually water or air) to form a spiraling, sometimes helix shaped, motion around a center point. A familiar example is a shower drain which is designed to utilize gravitational forces to draw water into a septic, sewer, or grey water system (for the environmentally conscious). A common New Mexico phenomenon, the dust devil, is another example. Dust and debris get drawn into the air by swirling currents of wind. However, more menacing phenomena, such as tornados, hurricanes and the massive oceanic whirlpools known as maelstroms provide us with a much clearer idea of the destructive potential of the vortex.

Obviously, resistance to such forces is likely to be exhausting, if not futile. It’s exponentially more difficult to row upstream, or ride into the wind as it is to simply “go with the flow.” Yet what are our options when we don’t like where the flow is taking us? What can we do when we find ourselves caught in a vortex of self destruction? Anyone who has tried to manage panic attacks, recover from depression, or beat an addiction has probably had the experience of feeling swept up by an energetic force greater than oneself. Anyone who has successfully overcome one (or all) of the above has probably done so not by sheer strength of will, but by harnessing a more powerful energy—a counter vortex, if you will.

I have a dear family friend who used alcohol and other substances for years recreationally, but ultimately found herself at the mercy of a serious addiction to alcohol and cocaine. Her family and professional life suffered greatly, until at the urging of a friend she began to attend 12-step meetings. Incredibly, she was able to break the addictive pattern, and was even joined in her sobriety by her husband. Thirty some years later, instead of drinking and using drugs together, they spend time together exercising and cooking.

I have another friend who at a certain point in her life became severely depressed. The depression worsened until she decided she would be better off ending her life. The downward spiral seemed endless and she had lost all hope. However, someone told her to see a psychologist who asked her if there was even one thing in her life that brought her joy. There was. She was an artist and she loved to paint. She began to paint everyday and with time the depression subsided and she found herself enjoying life again.

Both of the above cases illustrate the power of both the vortex and counter vortex. Addiction and depression can feel insurmountable, as if they have a life of their own, and energetically speaking, they do. However the support of AA, the “high” of exercise, the loving connection of family and friends, and the creative drive to make art and gourmet food provided an equally and ultimately more powerful counter vortex that helped draw these individuals out of the old circular pattern and into a healthier, more fulfilling one.

When we feel as if we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control we don’t have to give up. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be swept away be the current. We also don’t have to fight it. Once I was caught in a rip tide on a trip to the beach with my family. I tried to swim back to shore but soon found myself shaking with fatigue. I was no match for the powerful forces intent on pulling me out to sea. I stopped to rest, and breathe, then called for help. My Dad yelled out to me to start swimming sideways, parallel to the waterline. To my surprise I found that and after a few minutes I had entered another current that carried me back to safety.

Finding flow means making a choice to seek out and harness a new and different force. It might be a very small thing, barely noticeable at first, but when we pursue it and give it energy it will grow. Pretty soon it will become an equal and/or greater force than that which we wanted to escape and we will find ourselves back in the flow that feels like it’s taking us where we want to go.