Trauma & Children’s Reactions

Trauma is a sudden and threatening event for children, as it is for adults. Trauma disturbs basic assumptions that children have about the world, namely, that the world is a safe and controllable place. Often, among children, reactions to trauma are quite intense since they may feel helpless and often do not understand what is going on around them. Trauma also upsets the delicate balance of parent-child relationships; the child’s confidence that his parent will always be able to protect him may be disturbed, and the parent’s sense of his role as protector may be severely undermined.