Often, healing from trauma is a difficult, painful process. How can you help a child who has had a traumatic experience? Here are some tips that loved ones can use right now.
1. Don’t forget physical contact. Show your child your tenderness and love. Hug him more. This will help him feel safe.
2. Set a daily routine. In stressful periods, the orderliness of life has a great healing effect. When it seems to the child that he cannot control anything, the routine becomes the “anchor” of stability.
3. Reassure him often and reassure him that everything will be fine. Remind your child that he is safe and everything will be fine. Teach him to deal with difficult emotions and calm down. Talk to him gently but confidently.
4. Help him choose a “transitional object” – for example, a teddy bear or a special blanket. Transitional Objects help children through the transition from dependence to independence. They can be very supportive.
5. Look into his eyes more often. Children who have experienced violence or abuse often avoid making eye contact. Try to make eye contact with your child as often as possible to help him get used to making eye contact.
“If a child has experienced a severe trauma, it is important for parents to understand that now is not the best time to teach him to be independent. What he needs right now is support. He can learn self-sufficiency and independence later, when mental wounds heal, ”explains psychotherapist Shari Stynes.
By helping children heal from the effects of trauma, parents gain self-confidence. And the confidence of adults in itself is very important.
What else should parents remember?
- Never forget to take care of yourself. Don’t try to devote your life entirely to caring for others. Rest, get enough sleep, eat right, exercise, have fun. If you want to help your children, first of all you yourself must be healthy and strong.
- Develop an emotional connection with your child. Many traumatized children fear intimacy. Your task is to establish and maintain a healthy emotional contact with the baby.
- Earn mutual respect. The child must respect you. How to achieve this? It is important that you yourself respect him and behave in such a way as to be worthy of respect. The child must clearly understand that you are stronger and wiser. You are not equal with him: you are older and more experienced, you can rely on. You are the person to whom he can always turn for advice and help.
- Maintain eye contact. Teach your child to look you in the eye every time you talk, and stick to the same rule yourself. Eye contact creates a feeling of comfort and safety.
- Don’t get annoyed. A child suffering from the consequences of a trauma can often behave inappropriately, it is important not to be angry with him, but to find a creative approach. The main thing is not punishment, but strengthening your relationship.
- Trust your instincts. Don’t start doubting every decision. Other parents may give you advice based on their own experiences, but only you truly know your child. Only you can decide what he really needs, no matter what others think about it.
- Deal with your own problems. If communication with a child often causes negative emotions, this is a sign that you still have to work on yourself. Until we make sense of our own past, it can always repeat itself. Analyze the problems coming from your own childhood and heal your traumas so that you do not repeat old mistakes and do not try to compensate for your own insecurities through children. In no case should you try to solve your problems with the help of children, this is fraught with disastrous consequences.
Psychotherapy of childhood trauma
If the parents are self-confident, psychologically stable and stable, the psychotherapist may limit himself to working with the child. But if they themselves suffer from insecurity, emotional instability and anxiety, it is also important for them to work with a therapist.
“If your child has experienced severe trauma and you feel like you can’t cope with stress, it can be very useful for you to get psychotherapy or enroll in parenting classes,” recommends Shari Stynes.
If parents overreact to their child’s problems, a therapist can help them deal with their own triggers. Yes, in the course of therapy, the child’s behavior will change for the better and perhaps the parents will also become calmer, but it is important to remember that the child cannot be responsible for the well-being of his parents.
“It is very important for children to feel the leading role of mom and dad in the family. It is especially important for parents of children suffering from the consequences of trauma to assess their weaknesses and try to eliminate the shortcomings. When a child feels strength and confidence in his parents, he himself feels safe, which is extremely important for the speedy recovery after an injury, ”explains Stines.
If the child begins to control the parents or even partially assumes their role, this family situation requires an immediate correction. This happens when parents trust the child with their secrets, or he himself begins to patronize them, or he is allowed to become the head of the family. Such children do not feel safe because they do not see a real “adult” nearby who can help and protect.
If such unhealthy dynamics have developed in the family, the first task of the psychotherapist is to help the parents look “big”, “strong” and “older” in the eyes of the child (this is especially important for young children). If we are talking about a teenager, a more diplomatic approach will be required in order to avoid a power struggle in the family.
“The teenager must recognize the primacy of the parents, but it is very important that they achieve this result with love and care, and not violence and coercion,” emphasizes Shari Stines.
October 16 at the traditional conference family psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya will talk about what parents need to do so that their child learns to cope with life’s challenges.
The conference will be held online.
The sponsors of the conference are Nika, AllTime, Dyson and Storytel.