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S4E2 - How Does Trauma Affect a Child Years Later? · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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  You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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  with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  Hi,
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  I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
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  The Kid Counselor.
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  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where
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  I answer real parenting questions
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  about behavior,
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  emotions,
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  and the parent-child relationship.
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  In today's episode,
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  I'm answering a question from Michelle in Indiana.
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  Hello to all the Hoosiers up there.
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  I'm actually gonna be coming to Indiana in a couple of months to speak.
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  So,
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  I'm gonna be up in your neck of the woods in August.
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  So it'll be beautiful,
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  I think,
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  time of year and it's gonna be so hot in Florida.
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  So I'm gonna be thrilled to be up with y'all.
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  So this is about
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  something that happened when her daughter was very young at 3 and she's now 8
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  and really helping to navigate the memories of what happened early in childhood
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  as the child matures and grows and still has
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  memories and awareness of what happened,
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  but obviously couldn't process it at 3.
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  Really helpful question.
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  I'm really excited to dive in.
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  And with this new season,
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  this is all about you.
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  This is all about you,
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  real parent questions getting answered.
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  So,
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  if you would like me to tackle a question,
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  no question is too small.
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  If it is related to
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  behavior,
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  emotions,
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  your parent-child relationship,
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  struggles that you're having in the home,
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  please send me an email.
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  I would love to tackle it in an episode,
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  brenna@thekidcounselor.com
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  You can also,
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  if you're in the States,
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  leave a voicemail
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  on our call-in hotline,
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  which is 813-812-5525.
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  And that's actually where I got Michelle's question was from the number.
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  So,
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  I appreciate you calling in,
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  Michelle.
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  OK,
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  so let me read parts of this,
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  and then we'll dive in together.
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  My daughter was 3 years old when she saw me trying to give CPR to her dad.
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  She is now 8 years old.
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  I was listening to one of your podcasts about maladaptive behaviors,
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  and she seems that she does have some maladaptive behaviors.
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  She is in therapy.
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  I'm really thrilled to hear that,
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  Michelle.
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  However,
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  my question is,
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  with her seeing that,
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  how is it affecting her now,
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  with her growth and development?
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  Sometimes it seems,
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  and even her therapist has said,
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  That her behaviors do not match up with her age.
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  I'm trying to listen
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  to your podcast about parenting.
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  So,
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  I'm trying to incorporate that.
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  When I see her acting out
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  and addressing her feelings,
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  I then talk to her about that feeling and why she's feeling that way.
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  So,
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  my question is,
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  how did the scenario seeing her dad die affect her behavior now?
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  And does that have an effect on her?
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  She was 3,
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  and in the moment,
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  I did tell her about it in the emergency situation.
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  But how does trauma affect kids when they're young?
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  She does remember,
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  and I was hoping that she wouldn't,
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  but she does.
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  So how do I go about helping her to figure out exactly who she is without a dad,
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  because she also sees other kids with dads.
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  All right,
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  really helpful question,
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  and there's kind of two components to this,
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  so I'd like to address both.
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  And Michelle,
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  I really do appreciate you reaching out about this.
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  One of the really interesting things about memory
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  is we have different kinds
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  of memory retention.
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  In other words,
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  we do have long-term memory storage,
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  but that typically does not develop until about the age of 3.
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  And you said in the message that she was almost 4 when that happened.
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  So,
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  I suspect that her earliest memories
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  were forming
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  in long-term storage right around that time.
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  So,
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  she might actually have long-term memory cognitive
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  storage
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  with that event.
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  Previous to that development,
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  kids have anchored memories.
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  So,
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  the body remembers,
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  they
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  are aware of things that happened at a subconscious level,
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  but they can't extract them from like a cognitive long-term memory storage bank.
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  So often kids will play out things that happened before they were 2 years old.
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  And we look at that and go,
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  that's not even possible.
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  They didn't have short-term memory or long-term memory at that time.
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  Well,
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  they didn't,
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  the body remembers
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  and it gets anchored.
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  So,
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  it's often a mistake to say that,
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  oh,
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  a kid was so young,
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  they wouldn't remember that.
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  They do.
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  There's just different ways that they remember it.
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  I've had kids play out something that happened when they were 6 months old.
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  Now,
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  do they have a cognitive recollection of that?
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  No,
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  but they have an anchored memory
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  that is in the body
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  of that
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  experience.
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  So we do recognize that a 3,
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  almost 4 year old will remember this in one of those two capacities,
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  maybe both.
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  And
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  obviously that would have been.
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  A moment in time
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  that has
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  a ripple effect
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  in the future.
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  So,
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  a lot of times there's an experience and we process it and we move on.
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  In this case,
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  because there is a traumatic factor to it
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  and there's loss associated with it.
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  Obviously,
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  we recognize that that's going to have a longer term impact
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  than
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  going to a birthday party at 3,
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  for example.
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  So,
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  the fact that you're realizing,
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  OK,
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  she does remember this,
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  how do I help her
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  process it,
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  it does seem like maybe it's impacting
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  some of her development and growth because
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  she's maybe not at age level with some of the behaviors and
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  emotional maturity that we would expect of an eight year old.
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  So all of that makes sense.
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  When kids go through traumatic experiences,
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  when children have things that happen early on in life,
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  there is sometimes
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  impact
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  on regular maturation.
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  So the fact that she's in therapy,
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  that's going to help.
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  Essentially,
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  what is going to happen
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  is she's going to process
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  the trauma,
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  the pain,
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  the grief,
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  the loss,
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  the memories,
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  the emotions,
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  whatever it is that she's carrying,
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  and obviously we don't know.
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  We can't know,
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  we don't need to know.
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  But we know that she's carrying around
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  some of those things.
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  She will naturally work her way through them,
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  and there's a different.
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  Many different options of how she'll do that.
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  So she might rewrite her story.
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  She might change the ending.
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  She might just play it out over and over and over again until
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  it desensitizes her from the rawness of the emotions attached to it.
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  She might put herself in a role of hero or rescuer
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  so that she has some ownership
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  in her play,
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  and she didn't have any control in the moment.
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  She was very powerless in that moment,
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  not only because of age,
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  but also because of the circumstance.
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  She felt powerless,
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  so maybe she gives herself a position of power
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  in her play
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  so that she feels like she has some
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  control and responsibility over things.
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  What is beautiful about the child-centered approach
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  is
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  that
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  children do not have the ability to change what happened.
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  None of us do.
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  The past is in the past,
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  but we can change our perception
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  of what happened.
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  And if you know anything about Viktor Frankl,
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  who,
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  if you're totally unfamiliar with that name,
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  was a Holocaust survivor,
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  wrote quite a few books.
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  One of the
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  one of the most significant contributions he made
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  in the wake of the Holocaust
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  was talking about suffering,
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  and he said,
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  Everyone suffers.
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  It's not the suffering,
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  it's your perception of the suffering.
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  And so what she's doing is she's changing her perception.
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  So we can't undo what was done.
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  We can't change what happened.
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  But as she works through this,
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  she's able to have a different perception,
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  which means
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  it's not so scary anymore.
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  It's not so overwhelming anymore.
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  I don't feel so adrift anymore.
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  It's not so emotional.
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  It's not
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  hard for me to manage.
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  It doesn't create anxiety for me,
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  so on and so forth.
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  So,
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  how do you help her?
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  Well,
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  continue
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  with the child-centered play therapy process for sure.
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  And then how do you help her as she gets older,
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  she will likely start to bring up things that happened.
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  If she feels safe with you and if she feels that you can be neutral
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  and that it's not going to create a negative emotional reaction
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  from your part.
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  In other words,
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  if she knows that if she brings up Dad,
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  you're going to burst into tears,
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  she probably won't.
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  But because kids are very protective of their loved ones,
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  so she thinks that it's gonna hurt you or upset you,
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  she will shield you from it.
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  But if she believes that you can handle it and that you can be neutral,
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  she will bring stuff up.
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  Between 8 and 9,
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  there's a developmental brain surge.
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  So she's right on the cusp of getting to a point where cognitively,
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  she can start thinking about things more and differently than she used to.
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  So what I anticipate is going to happen
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  when she's 9 or 10,
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  she's gonna start thinking about it
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  and
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  wondering about it and processing it,
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  likely need questions answered.
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  Because
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  at 3,
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  she experienced it and she felt it and she lived it,
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  but she couldn't think about it.
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  Well,
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  she's finally starting to have the ability to start to think about it.
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  So,
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  the processing looks different,
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  and kids,
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  even though they've already worked through
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  some things that they have experienced,
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  they work through them again
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  as they go through the maturation of childhood.
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  So how do you help her?
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  You answer questions,
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  you give her age-appropriate truth,
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  you reflect feelings,
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  you let her talk about it and feel it and process it.
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  And that will give her the ability to continue to heal from that.
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  And then your second question.
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  She
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  is realizing that she's without a dad and she sees other kids with dads.
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  That is going to be different,
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  and she's going to feel that and realize that and know that.
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  And so you're just going to reflect that
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  when she's expressing an emotion,
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  you're you're going to acknowledge it.
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  You might do an enlargement of sorts where you're like,
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  Yeah,
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  you're one of the few that doesn't have a dad,
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  and that's,
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  that's different.
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  Don't presume to think that it's hard.
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  Don't presume to think that it's
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  overwhelming or upsetting.
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  If she communicates those things,
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  reflect it absolutely.
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  But we don't want to make that leap.
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  So instead of saying that must be really hard.
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  We don't know that,
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  so we might just say
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  that probably feels different because lots of other kids have their dads.
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  And as you continue to acknowledge
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  the reality of the situation for her,
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  she will feel reassured and understood and seen and heard,
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  and if she needs to process it more,
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  she will feel comfortable bringing stuff up.
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  So those are the two strategies that we want to adopt as parents.
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  We reflect how a kid,
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  how a child is feeling,
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  and we acknowledge
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  in observation
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  what
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  we think might be a factor,
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  and that opens the door for kids to feel more
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  comfortable to bring stuff up when they feel ready.
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  And it's not always going to be verbal.
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  Sometimes they're going to emotionally
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  bring stuff up.
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  Sometimes they're going to behaviorally bring stuff up.
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  And we just give them grace and we understand that
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  they're only 8.
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  You know,
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  she's only 8.
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  She,
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  she's not
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  an,
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  an adult yet,
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  far from it.
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  So,
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  there's going to be some fallout from this.
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  I mean,
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  I'm sure there's fallout for you.
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  And so,
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  you know,
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  you're,
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  you're both kind of walking this journey of
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  healing and sorting through this and overcoming a tragedy.
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  And if you're patient with each other and gracious with each other,
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  and you continue to practice child-centered play therapy approaches,
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  she continues to see a therapist.
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  She will be better for it.
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  She will be stronger.
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  She will be capable,
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  and she will have the confidence that she can handle hard things.
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  She's already proven it.
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  She's already been through a hard thing,
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  but she will start to believe that about herself as well.
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  So Michelle,
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  thank you so much for the question.
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  I hope that that was helpful for each and every one of you.
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  If you want to reach out,
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  please do so.
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  I'd love to hear from you,
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  brenna@thekidcounselor.com
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  I love you all.
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  Keep loving your kids.
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  We'll talk again soon.
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  Bye.
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  Thank you for listening to
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  the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
• 12:07
  please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.