A traumatic event can not only disturb a family’s peace but also severely affect the mental health of the child. Any child (at any age) can develop traumatic stress after getting exposed to a traumatic event which can cause many emotional and mental disturbances. However, many of these effects can be managed without medical help. Learn what a child’s traumatic stress is and how you can help your child recover from it in this article. Visit the best Mental Health Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.

What Is Child Traumatic Stress

Child traumatic stress is a mental condition that occurs when children get exposed to one or more traumas in their lives and develop certain reactions that persistently affect their daily lives even after the events are over. These reactions can include a variety of responses like intense and ongoing emotional distress, depressive symptoms or anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with self-discipline, problems making relationships or attachments, regression, loss of previously acquired skills, attention and academic challenges, nightmares, difficulty sleeping and eating, and physical symptoms (such as unexplained aches and pains). Older children may start using drugs or alcohol, behave in risky ways, or engage in unhealthy sexual activity.

Children with traumatic stress often show symptoms when a trigger reminds them about that traumatic event. Commonly, we react to stress from time to time. However, when a child gets exposed to traumatic stress, those reactions interfere with their everyday life and ability to function and interact with others. No child (regardless of age and emotional resilience) is immune to these traumatic experiences (whether it be infants and toddlers or young adolescents). However, the effects can vary from child to child depending on their age, developmental level, and personality, as well as the impact of the crisis on their parents or significant relations. Your child may react differently from what you expect. It may include:

• Withdrawal: They may lose interest in activities and lose their confidence, withdraw, and not like to talk, or regress to more toddler-like ways of behaving.
• Preoccupation: They may need to relieve stress through repetitive activities or play. They may appear more overly concerned about the possibility of future events or may experience nightmares.
• Anxiety: They may experience difficulty concentrating or paying attention, show clingy behavior, separation anxiety, sleep problems, or irritable behavior. Sometimes, they show depressive symptoms as well.
• Physical symptoms: They may start experiencing headaches or stomach aches.

They may have a delayed reaction. Some children might cope well at first, but later they may also develop reactions to stress (days, weeks, or even months later). Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can significantly affect the brain and nervous system which increases risky health behaviors like smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities.

Research shows that child trauma survivors are more likely to struggle with long-term health problems like diabetes or heart disease or may die at an earlier age. This type of stress needs an increased involvement of health and mental health services like child welfare and juvenile justice systems. When these children become adults, they might struggle to build fulfilling relationships and maintain employment.

Family Routines for Helping Kids Recover

Family routines play a crucial role in helping your child to recover from traumatic stress. Here are some suggestions that might help:

• Try to stick to your routine (as much as possible): The reassurance for children lies in the family’s day-to-day schedule maintenance. So, try to maintain your regular routine as much as possible.
• Reassure your child that their routine will get normal soon: They might struggle with new routines/habits and fail to manage the process, so don’t force it.
• Don’t introduce changes at that time: Do this when your child is ready and able to adapt to change.
• Maintain family roles if you can: Instead of insisting that your child take more responsibility or expect them to meet your emotional needs during distress, allow them to feel and understand them by talking to them.

Some other tips that help your child recover healthily include:

• Realize that questions may persist: After the traumatic event ends, you may notice constantly changing situations, and children may have questions on more than one occasion. When you’re ready to talk to them let them know. Children need their time to understand information and questions might come out of nowhere.
• Encourage family discussions about the death of a loved one: When families can talk or feel sad together, they allow kids to share their feelings.
• Don’t give your child too much responsibility: Make sure you don’t overburden your kids with tasks that are too stressful for them. Instead, you should lower your expectations (for household duties and school demands) from them and slowly give them chores that they can handle.
• Give special help to children with disabilities: These children may need more time, support, and guidance than other children. You should use simple language and may need to repeat things to make them understand. You may need to look for information about your child’s strengths to better understand how to help your child.
• Watch for signs of trauma: In the first month after the disaster, everything may seem fine with kids. After that, you may notice the numbness starts to wear off and kids might experience more symptoms especially, children who have witnessed injuries or death, lost immediate family members, who’ve experienced previous trauma in their lives, or who are not resettled in a new home.
• Know when to seek help: Although anxiety and other issues may only last for months, however, if your child starts to hear voices, see things that are not there, become paranoid, experience panic attacks, or has thoughts of self-harm or harming other people, you should seek immediate help from a family doctor or a mental health professional.

Need help with child traumatic stress, visit our mental health clinic in Brooklyn to get professional medical help. Call us to book your appointment now!!!! If you need help finding a good therapist, visit our clinic; our therapists have years of experience in treating patients with therapy sessions. Your life will change with a single step. So, take that step with us!!

Call us on +1-718-367-2555 to get a consultation. If you need help learning coping methods, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors and psychiatrists to learn those methods, log on to www.doralhw.org. Visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.