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Children can be adversely impacted by events in the lives of significant adults even when they have not witnessed the events or become privy to full information about them. Additionally, children themselves can be primary victims of traumatic events.

Vulnerability

Children are especially vulnerable during traumatic events because of their immature psychological and emotional development. They may not fully understand events or have the coping skills necessary to accommodate the increased stress of events. Additionally, since they are dependent upon adults for survival, protection, comfort and overall well-being, children can experience any endangerment or impairment of adults as overwhelming and terrifying. This is certainly true when children witness their significant adults in the midst of trauma, but it also occurs as children live with adults who need time to recover from traumatic experiences. For this reason, traumatized adults, as they cope with overwhelming events their children have not experienced directly, are likely to have distressed children who sense their parent’s difficulties. In extreme cases, such children may develop what is known as secondary trauma or the trauma of living with someone who is traumatized.

Dependency Needs and the Perceptions of Children

Children are affected by the crises in adults’ lives in many ways. The predictable routines of daily life, for example, help children feel safe and secure, but when an adverse situation interrupts ordinary family life, children react by becoming overwhelmed and stressed, with increased needs for comfort and security. Oftentimes, children will experience certain situations as extreme trauma when the adults who are also involved do not. This can occur for several reasons. Any impairment of significant adults, even for a brief time, can be disorganizing for dependent children. A child’s fears and understanding of adult events contributes greatly to how stressful an adult’s problems will be for them. For children, the facts of a situation are often emotional facts that are products of an immature understanding, logic, experience and beliefs. A child’s perception of events that have caused family distress is often more important in helping a child adjust than are the actual facts of an incident.

Adult Violence

Domestic violence is an example of adult victimization which can directly and indirectly expose children to trauma. Child witnesses of domestic violence can be traumatized in several ways: through their own physical endangerment or injury during the violence, through an adverse psychological impact when witnessing violence and fearing for the safety of others, or through the stress and fear experienced when learning about battering or seeing the aftermath of battering incidents. Some children in families where violence has occurred will fear for their own survival as well as the survival of the battered parent. These children will typically have experienced extreme helplessness and terror when confronted with the possibility of severe injury or death of the victimized parent. Similarly, if police are involved and an arrest made, children may fear for the safety of the battering parent. The child’s perception of such family events may be distorted due to age, development and understanding. The possibility of severe injury or death may not actually have occurred, however, it is the child’s interpretation of how serious the event is that will determine the severity of its traumatic impact.

Children as Primary Victims

Children may also be the primary victims of such traumatic events as sexual, physical and emotional abuse, war, displacement, accidents, disasters, kidnapping and other adverse separations from caregivers. Like adults, children can have trauma reactions as they try to accommodate and cope with direct exposure to abrupt and overwhelmingly adverse incidents. Both children and adults can develop persistent trauma-related symptoms that continue well after an event has passed. For children, persisting symptoms can dramatically interfere with their daily lives and how well they perform at home, with friends, and in school. Some children will develop Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after a severe incident or a prolonged adverse situation.

Children and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD symptoms in children are similar to those found in adults with the disorder; however, children may develop behaviors not typically seen in adults such as hyperactivity, clinging to caregivers, school refusal and intense separation anxiety. Some traumatized children will appear to regress to an earlier developmental stage and engage in behaviors that are appropriate for a younger child.

Developmentally vulnerable, with limited defenses, coping skills and resources, children may also develop PTSD when adults in the same situation do not. Some examples of this occur when children are separated from caregivers due to the hospitalization, incarceration, military deployment or addiction of significant adults in their lives. The events causing separation may not be extreme enough to induce PTSD in the adults involved, but may severely traumatize children who react with intense stress, fear and helplessness.