Children and young people, just like adults, can suffer a traumatic stress response if they witness or experience an extremely frightening event which provokes feelings of fear, horror and helplessness, such as the threat of injury or death.
Most young people in these circumstances will experience some symptoms, which gradually improve over several weeks. However, in a minority these symptoms are prolonged, worsen over time and affect day to day life.
Symptoms of PTSD can include
- Re-experiencing the trauma – flashbacks, intrusive and distressing thoughts, recurring memories or nightmares. These may be accompanied by physical sensations of anxiety, including a racing pulse, sweating, shaking, feeling nauseous
- Avoidance symptoms – staying away from places or events that are reminders of the experience, feeling emotionally numb and an inability to recall the event
- Hypervigilance – being jumpy and easily startled, difficulties with concentration, sleep, feeling irritable and angry at times
- Mood symptoms – negative emotions such as fear, sadness, anger and guilt, loss of interest in previous activities. Children can become irritable and push boundaries at home or complain of physical symptoms, such as stomach aches.
In the initial weeks following a traumatic event, the child may experience episodes of distress and parents can help by allowing them to speak about it if they wish or relive it in games and drawings. This allows them time to make sense of what has happened.
If symptoms are severe and persist for longer than a month and prevent the child getting on with day to day life then it may be helpful to speak to your GP to consider referral into your children and young people’s mental health team for an assessment.
Evidence based treatments for traumatic stress include talking therapies (trauma focussed CBT) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). In EMDR, the child is asked to think about an aspect of the trauma for short bursts whilst a distracting activity takes place, which helps them to process the trauma.