Your questions answered: Can we prevent trauma in kids?

This is a question that often comes up with questions like Am I traumatizing my kids by doing XYZ?  If I do/don’t do ABC will my child be “messed up” forever?

First things first, if you haven’t read my blog on what trauma is and how a behavior analyst can fit into a trauma treatment team, check this out first.

When you look at the trauma research greats, the through line between all of their advice on trauma prevention is not  (bold, underline, and italics for extra emphasis) to live in a protected bubble and avoid anything that could possibly hurt, scare, or otherwise possibly traumatize you.   Many (including several authors on my resources page here) talk about “grit” as the trait that sets kids up for success in the face of difficult situations and potentially traumatic events and come out with minimal or no effects of trauma.

Grit has several definitions, none of which should include “to grin and bear it”.  The APA defines grit as:

grit
n. a personality trait characterized by perseverance and passion for achieving long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously to overcome challenges and maintaining effort and interest over time despite failures, adversities, and plateaus in progress. Recent studies suggest this trait may be more relevant than intelligence in determining a person’s high achievement. For example, grit may be particularly important to accomplishing an especially complex task when there is a strong temptation to give up altogether.

So, to directly answer your question: yes!  The effects of trauma can be mitigated if we help children develop a love for working through difficult things, aka grit.

In my practice, I focus on presenting lots of challenges and the support to complete them so that kids routinely run into difficult situations and (in this safe environment) learn how to problem solve and work through them.

For example when I see kids in the farm setting, they are often intimidated (or downright terrified) of the loud, honking, flapping flock of 3ft tall geese and smaller (but always very forward) beady eyed ducks.

The geese want nothing to do with you and the ducks just want snacks, but they are still a lot to encounter all at once.

If kids want to go anywhere on the farm, they will have to engage with these goofy creatures so we take time to clearly communicate our boundaries with the birds (yes, this is possible), calmly move among them, and support each other while confidence grows.

In the future when something potentially traumatizing occurs, they have the experience of setting boundaries, working through difficult situations without being consumed by them, and accepting support successfully all of which can reduce the chances of them experiencing trauma.

Got a question?  Send me a message and let me know!