Child Complex Trauma & Good Outcomes Blog Series by Dr. Jane Gilgun
The purpose of this blog series is to describe complex trauma, to show the importance of secure relationships, and to show factors associated with good social service outcomes when children have experienced complex trauma. Case materials bring the issues to life.
Last week I wrote about complex trauma and how traumatic experiences for children can lead to dysregulation. Today I will cover children’s capacity for coping and how insecure relationships can negatively impact their capacity.
Coping
Children do to others what others have done to them. If they have had the advantages of resource-rich environments and respond favorably to the resources, they will go on with their lives with little risk to harm others or themselves. Resource rich environments are composed of adults, such as parents, other family members, teachers, and social service professionals, who are safe havens that provide children with opportunities to develop capacities for coping with, adapting to, and overcoming the effects of trauma.
Some children live in environments where adults are inconsistent as safe havens. These children may have challenges with self-concept, such as fear that they have done something wrong, or issues with self-regulation that show as difficulties managing their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. These children may respond to reminders of trauma in inappropriate and self-harmful ways.
When adults don’t understand the meanings of these behaviors to the children, adults may subject the children to further trauma. One child’s inappropriate responses, for example, was to get on his hands and knees and bark like a dog when he relived his traumatic experiences. Teachers responded by grabbing the boy and putting him in an isolation room where he screamed and cried for an hour. They let him out when he became quiet.
Examples of self-destructive behaviors include over-eating and cutting. Many children are shamed and blamed for these behaviors. Appropriate adult responses are to form relationships with these children and gently explore what the behaviors mean to them.
Still other children grow up in environments that value verbal, physical, sexual, and psychological aggression to the point that children believe that these actions are the logical and necessary responses to a variety of situations, including situations in which they re-live traumatic events. These children can be verbally and physically aggressive to others and to property.
Twelve year-old Joe, for example, was usually calm and attentive in class. He had been exposed to various forms of trauma for his entire life, including rejection from his mother who abused him in many ways, including telling him he was worthless, she wished he’d never been born, and she never wanted him.
The night before a school day, Joe’s mother verbally abused him and beat him. He was under stress, on the alert for further trauma. When he got to school, something triggered his hot buttons. No one knows for sure what, but it was likely to be something that reminded him of previous traumas. He threw a computer on the floor but did not threaten other children or the teacher.
The teacher called the school social worker who spent time with Joe to find out what was going on. Joe told her what had happened the night before, cried, and begged to be sent to a foster home. He eventually calmed down, apologized to the teacher and other students, and helped the school janitor for an hour a day for a month as community service at the school to help make up for the destruction of the computer. His grandmother agreed to care for him, and he was pleased to live with her. She lived in his neighborhood. He underwent few changes other than going to a safe place. Joe is now doing well in school, at home, and in the neighborhood.
Insecure Relationships
Many children, such as those who come to the attention of social services, do not have the advantages of secure relationships. Instead, their parents may offer them preoccupied, dismissive, or disorganized relationships that compound the effects of other traumas. This was the case with Joe and his mother. Insecure relationships arise when parents give themselves reasons to reject children and/or have untreated trauma of their own and other stressors that hinder their capacities for sensitive responsiveness, which is a main quality associated with secure attachments.
Joe’s mother not only had untreated trauma, but she was an active alcoholic with heart trouble that kept her from working. She rejected Joe because he reminded her of her ex-husband who beat her until she left him and got a divorce. Joe’s biological father was in prison for attempted murder, and Joe had no contact with him.
When parents are the agents of trauma, children are in the impossible situation of being afraid of the very persons who are supposed to offer safety, comfort, and guidance toward optimal development1. If parents are unable to deal with their own issues and are on-going sources of trauma for their children, the humanitarian path is to place the children with adults who are sensitive and responsive and where the move minimizes disruptions in children’s lives.
Some children have trauma that goes unattended for years, typically because parents think the children will get over it. In these situations, when parents are not the agents of the trauma, the issue is with belief systems about how children recover from trauma. In some families, parents eventually realize that their children are not going to recover on their own but need professional services.
Questions To Consider
Please feel free to leave a comment below with your input on the questions posed here.
- How do you help families and school personnel to recognize coping behaviors that are a result of trauma vs. “bad behavior?”
- In what ways can we help children develop secure attachment relationships when they have been exposed to early trauma?
Next Week
My next post will feature a case study involving a parent who realized that his child needed professional services. Ian and his father David had the advantage of a long-term relationship with Mary, a social service professional. As you’ll see, without Mary, likely the case would have turned out differently.
Sources
- Lieberman, A. F. (2004). Traumatic stress and quality of attachment: Reality and internalization in disorders of infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 25(4), 336-351.