The signs of trauma in a child include obsession with death or safety and issues with sleeping, eating, attention, and regulating emotions. Kids who have experienced trauma may also start to avoid school, especially if their trauma happened at school or is related to school, such as the death of a classmate.
A study of young adults found that childhood trauma was significantly correlated with elevated psychological distress, increased sleep disturbances, reduced emotional well-being, and lower perceived social support.
Children who have experienced complex trauma often have difficulty identifying, expressing, and managing emotions, and may have limited language for feeling states. They often internalize and/or externalize stress reactions and as a result may experience significant depression, anxiety, or anger.
The most common causes of childhood trauma include: Accidents. Bullying/cyberbullying. Chaos or dysfunction in the house (such as domestic violence, parent with a mental illness, substance abuse or incarcerated)
You might have difficulties trusting, low self-esteem, fears of being judged, constant attempts to please, outbursts of frustration, or social anxiety symptoms that won't let up. Can childhood trauma be healed?
Signs of Unresolved Childhood Trauma in Adults
Stress, anxiety, mood, or personality disorders. Behavioral issues or emotional immaturity.
Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities).
Examples of emotional neglect may include: lack of emotional support during difficult times or illness. withholding or not showing affection, even when requested. exposure to domestic violence and other types of abuse.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Children and adolescents with PTSD have symptoms such as persistent, frightening thoughts and memories or flashbacks of a traumatic event or events.
Other manifestations of childhood trauma in adulthood include difficulties with social interaction, multiple health problems, low self-esteem and a lack of direction. Adults with unresolved childhood trauma are more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide and self-harm.
Focus Area. Trauma and adversity in childhood raise the risk of numerous health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental illness in adulthood.
Re-experiencing or re-living unwanted memories as flashbacks or nightmares. Hyper-arousal: problems with sleep, irritability, anger, anxiety, hyper-alertness, exaggerated startle response. Hypo-arousal: feeling numb or cut off, feeling detached from others, dissociating, feeling flat or empty. Emotional dysregulation.
Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.
Children experiencing trauma (eg, witnessing the murder of a family member; sexual assault) are also at elevated risk of several other psychiatric disorders, including depression, PTSD, conduct problems, substance abuse, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Childhood trauma is a major predisposing factor in forming anxiety symptoms and disorders in adulthood. Traumas can include physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, exposure to domestic violence, parental substance abuse, and abandonment.
Maltreatment can cause victims to feel isolation, fear, and distrust, which can translate into lifelong psychological consequences that can manifest as educational difficulties, low self-esteem, depression, and trouble forming and maintaining relationships.
For children, affectional neglect may have devastating consequences, including failure to thrive, developmental delay, hyperactivity, aggression, depression, low self-esteem, running away from home, substance abuse, and a host of other emotional disorders. These children feel unloved and unwanted.
Child emotional neglect (CEN) is the parent's failure to meet their child's emotional needs during the early years. It involves unresponsive, unavailable, and limited emotional interactions between that person and the child. Children's emotional needs for affection, support, attention, or competence are ignored.
Childhood trauma in adults also results in feeling disconnected, and being unable to relate to others. Studies have shown that adults that experience childhood trauma were more likely to struggle with controlling emotions, and had heightened anxiety, depression, and anger.
Surviving abuse or trauma as a child has been linked with higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicide and self harm, PTSD, drug and alcohol misuse and relationship difficulties.
“Child trauma” refers to a scary, dangerous, violent, or life threatening event that happens to a child (0-18 years of age).