Talking to Children about Sexual Assault

With all of the stories in the news recently about sexual assault against children, taking time to talk to your children about what sexual assault is, signs of sexual assault, and other information is more important than ever! Children need accurate and age-appropriate information about child sexual abuse and confidence that adults they know will support them. Here are some ways and guidance for addressing the issue in a conversation with your child to make sure they understand and are aware of the danger.

Parenting Crucibles: Childhood Grief

My children were 4, 7, and 11 when their brother passed away.  That day, seemingly ordinary in every other way, Atticus slipped away from us peacefully in his sleep.  As I look back on his little life now, three years later, it seems impossible that a baby has ever been more loved. Our days revolved around him and we doted on his every move, fighting over who got to hold him next.  When love is so strong, it’s only normal for loss to be devastating.  Atticus’ death plunged our family into an indescribable darkness.  We found ourselves crushed under the weight of our grief. 

Helping Children Cope with Divorce

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Sitting on my couch with my sister, I start to cry as my parents tell us that they are getting a divorce. At 8 years old, I do not completely understand what divorce means and how my life is about to change. My mom hugs me and starts to cry. My sister asks if the divorce is her fault and starts to cry as well. All three of us continue to cry on the couch as my dad grabs his suitcase and walks out the door. After that, everything seems to start moving in fast forward and nothing feels real. I want my dad to come back, I want to keep living in the only house I have ever known. I want my old life back.

Dealing with divorce is difficult, especially when children are involved. Doctor Kevin D. Arnold, Ph.D and director of the the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy in Columbus Ohio, gives 6 tips to help parents talk with their children about divorce.

Guest Post: How to Reach Out to Grieving Parents

In 2013 the U.S. had 23,440 infant deaths.  Infant deaths are those that take place before the child turns one.  This does not include those that experience miscarriages and stillbirths.  Losing a baby, no matter at what point, is very difficult for a family.  For family and friends around them, it can also be very difficult to know what to do to show love and support to the grieving parents. I found myself in that exact situation just over a year ago when my friend Hailey gave birth to her son at 24 weeks.  We were hopeful that he would make it, but 32 days later, he passed away.  Hailey was willing to share her experience and how you can support grieving parents....

Team Member Spotlight: Barbara

It has been my privilege over the last thirty years to work with all types of families and specifically parents.  As a parent of four daughters I have learned that they are the greatest challenge and joy of life.  My own parenting has taught me that my ability to make better decisions and guide my child’s development is through information, resources and choice.  Raising my four daughters has helped me to realize how every parent in every situation can use help, and should feel that they have access to the information and resources needed.

Trauma: How to Help Children Cope

 The morning of September 11th, I was getting ready for school when my Mom received a call from my aunt in New York telling her to turn on the news. We started watching just as the second plane hit. I remember seeing panicked people running down the street and news reporters describing the horrible events. As a seven year old, I didn’t understand everything I was seeing. Afterwards I thought that planes were hijacked on a regular basis, which gave me great anxiety each time my dad left for business or when we took a family vacation. I also thought that all big cities were attacked by terrorists, which made our trip to Chicago months later, terrifying. Luckily, I had parents who noticed I was anxious and who were able to listen to my fears and help me better understand the events of 9/11.

News and media today are often full of traumatic and violent events. While, as adults, we understand that there is still good in the world and the motives behind some of these events, often children lack understanding. They can have a wide range of responses which vary from developing anxiety, having nightmares, seeming to be disinterested in what’s going on, or can even develop eating disorders. Many children will be increasingly afraid about their own personal safety. The more directly a child experienced the trauma (i.e. having a distant relative vs. a close friend die), the longer-term reactions kids can have. That being said, be understanding of children struggling with these things, but don’t ignore it if serious issues arise, such as behavior problems or other concerning trends.

Everyday hassles can take a toll on children as well. Whether it be that the family is in poverty, experiencing a stressful home life, or other stressors, these can have a great negative effect on children.

Jamie Howard, PhD tells us that whether it be a major traumatic event, or an everyday stressor, children have a difficult time knowing how to cope and that it can become difficult for them to manage their responsibilities as children. These include learning and going to school, making and keeping friends, and discovering what they enjoy.

It’s important to remember to consider each child’s personality, age, and circumstances as you help them through a difficult event.

Tips for discussing the event with your child

• Be the one to explain the event to your child when possible, so that they don’t overhear it from media or other children. Explain the event as brief and accurately as possible, without including graphic details or giving more information than your child needs or asks for.
• Be honest and tell them the truth about what happened.
• Encourage them to express their feelings and fears - Some will be afraid for their own safety even if the tragic event didn’t happen in their own state.
• Let them know that you’ll do everything you can to keep them and your loved ones safe.
• Don’t project your own fears onto your children.

Tips for helping them cope with a stressor

• Keep a normal routine.
• Allow children to use pretend play to cope.
• Correct inaccurate conclusions that they have made base of the traumatic event.
• Limit media exposure.
• Help your child come up with a “coping toolkit” of activities and strategies they can use when they become anxious.

For more tips and information about this and other topics, contact Help Me Grow Utah at 801-691-5322.

- Help Me Grow Team

Sources: Talking with Children about the News, The Dougy Center, Help Your Child Manage Traumatic Events

The Effects of Trauma on Infant Development

Thank you to our Guest Blogger Dr. Karen W Malm, PhD., Licensed Psychologist, for contributing this post!

I can remember when I started working with preschoolers back in the early 1980's and the general belief of the psychiatric community was that trauma or abuse in children that young had no real long-term effects. Children could get over those issues readily and could move forward. Infant mental health did not even exist and the concept that an infant would have mental health issues was far-fetched. When Lenore Terr wrote her groundbreaking book in 1992, Too Scared to Cry, she described how psychic trauma affects young children across the lifespan. With the discoveries in the neurosciences, we can now look at how infant brain development is impacted by learning and experience and can see how trauma can impact infants and their long term mental health.

We know infants are not passively experiencing their world, but their neurons are actively making connections and growing into neural pathways. When an infant cries and is upset, he or she is trying to communicate a need for help. In a calm mother with good parenting skills, she takes the infant and swaddles him or her closely which helps control his or her limbs over which the infant has no motor control. Then she holds him or her close to her chest where her calm heart beat can help calm the baby’s heart rate and her steady breathing can help calm the baby’s breathing, and her soft words tell the baby, “shh, there, there, you’ll be fine.” This experience goes right to his or her brain and the neural connections to learn self-calming are made. 

As adults, when we hit our head, somewhere in our brains is that soft voice, “shh, there, there,” which triggers our ability to self-calm. In a home with trauma, such as with domestic violence, the mother is not able to engage in these self-calming behaviors. Her own heart rate might be beating rapidly, her breath might be shallow and rapid, and she is struggling to keep her composure and is unable to calm the infant. The infant not only does not get calmed, but also may get more stimulated and the neurons get short-circuited with over-stimulation. Replay this scene multiple times and those neurons for regulating emotions get short-circuited as well. Infants in these trauma environments end up with difficulty sleeping, feeding problems, and are hard to soothe. They may have difficulty with eye to eye gazing and being comforted by others. With neural networking, we can see that with ongoing reinforcement of these neural pathways, an infant could “learn” these habits. This would case long-term mental health issues and difficulty with regulating emotions later in life.

As mental health experts in the field of infant mental health, our interventions involve re-teaching these self-calming skills. This involves working with the mother and helping her learn how to be a calming person who can provide safety and nurturing to her infant. She needs to learn to use her own calm body to provide a model for her infant’s sensory system and developing brain. By making new neural connections, the infant can start the process of learning to self-regulate and self-calm; a healthy step towards positive mental health.

Here is a great video to supplement this article!

Teaching Young Children about Loss and Grief

My baby cousin passed away recently – she was seven days old.  Baby Kate has two older brothers. One is five and one is three.  The three year old doesn't really understand the concept of death, but the older brother gets it – he knew that momma was pregnant and was going to have a baby and that that baby is now gone to heaven.

This is a difficult thing to talk about with young children.  Dr. Brazleton wrote about “Loss and Grief” in his book, Touchpoints and here are a few suggestions he gives:

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1. Talk about these tragedies with young children. “Grief is a vital and inevitable part of life. Longing for someone who is temporarily or permanently lost adds an important dimension to a child’s ability to care about others.”

Children are exposed to tragedies almost on a daily basis.  Do you have the radio or news on while little ones are in the room?  What kinds of questions do they ask?  How do you explain tragedy to them?  As Dr. Brazelton explained, it is important to answer your child's questions, and explain to them in a way that they can understand.

2. Share your feelings with your child – this helps children understand what you are feeling and why – if a parent “withdraws without sharing their experience, it’s a confirmation of their worst fear- grandma has died -and now mom is sad and she might die too!”

Children give their parents a sense of purpose and hope for the future.  My cousin said her baby girl died to save her mother’s life, the ultimate sacrifice, so that she could raise her two boys.  This motivated her to want to get out of the hospital and back home to parent her boys!

3. “When (the child) makes her weeping mother smile, the child can experience a rare sense of power in changing her mother’s mood to a positive one, if only briefly.  I am constantly struck with the observation that a small child will attempt to comfort a grieving parent.”

As the tears came again and again just after baby Kate passed, finally their three year old stood up and, pointing his finger to his mom said, “Mom, stop crying! You have got to stop crying!! Just stop it!..." This young child's reaction definitely turned those tears of sadness into tears of laughter. 

4. Tell the child as much as you think the child will understand – but not too frightening

“You must prepare her for conversations that she will overhear”

Ask your child who is sad with the loss of a loved one he knew: “Can you remember some of the things about him to tell me?” When the child shares some of his memories, they become more ingrained in his memory, rather than the sad feelings he is now experiencing.  

5. Often, when a close loved one passes away, a full range of emotions are experienced.  When a child learns to identify her feelings, this can lead to the development of empathy for others who are sad or upset. Children begin to develop empathy as they reach the stage of "imaginary play" and develop their peer relations.  The development of empathy begins around three years of age.

My cousin and her family will indeed continue to experience a range of emotions as they mourn the loss of baby Kate.  Although her younger son doesn't really understand yet, his parents have taken the time to explain to him as much as he will understand.  And their older son is only beginning to understand, but his parents continue to answer his questions and talk with him about how he is feeling.

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For more information of helping children manage their emotions, check out a previous Help Me Grow blog post by clicking here.