Children can go through a variety of emotions as they age, especially when hormones come into play, such as anger, rebelliousness, or restlessness.
Not only that, there are plenty of learning difficulties or mental health issues that can be difficult to diagnose in children if they’re passed off as general things (such as dismissing a rebellious teen as ‘just being a typical teenager).
It becomes much more difficult to identify trauma in a child if you’re not clued up on the specific symptoms. Things such as anger and an inability to concentrate can all come from a traumatic place, which is why it’s always essential to be patient with a child who appears to be struggling.
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Checkout Five 5 Key Signs A Child Has Suffered Trauma:
Here are a few signs that can indicate a child may have suffered trauma.
1. They Are Overly Focused on Their Own Safety
A child who is undergoing trauma may be on the defensive and put their own safety as their number one priority. A lot of the time, this focus on safety may relate directly to the type of traumatic event they’ve experienced.
For example, if a child has a family member who died in a car crash, they may become scared of any other loved one traveling in a car or develop a morbid fascination with road accidents.
2. They’ve Been Placed in Care
When it comes to fostering or adopting, a lot of the time, children may have been exposed to a difficult home situation (such as abuse or neglect) before moving into care, which could leave them with no small amount of trauma.
With fostering, agencies can discuss with you the background of their children in order for you to better understand the history of a child and how to manage such trauma.
If you’re looking for fostering Stoke on Trent, London, Yorkshire, or anywhere else, it’s important to understand that you may most likely deal with a child going through some form of trauma.
3. Behavioral Symptoms
Trauma can manifest as emotional issues, such as being angry all the time, defensive or argumentative. Alongside this, it may also see the child struggling to sleep or finding it hard to take part in a healthy routine if the trauma is interrupting their ability to lead a normal everyday life.
4. There Are Certain Triggers
Trauma may not be present in a child’s life all the time – it may even be that they seem happy and normal the majority of the time, and it may take a certain trigger to make them react. These triggers can usually be related to a traumatic event. Using the car accident analogy again, they may be triggered by the noise of traffic or a car horn.
5. Avoidance
When you’ve gone through something difficult – whether a child or adult – the natural reaction can be to avoid anything that reminds you of that.
For a child, this could be avoiding returning to a certain place – such as refusing to go back to school if a particularly traumatic event occurred there – or not feeling confident about certain situations and therefore avoiding them.
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