Key takeaways for caregivers
- Many children witness upsetting events. Contrary to what some adults believe, they often want to talk about these events.
- Acknowledging children’s talk about these events is important for supporting their healthy processing and development.
- Rather than avoiding children’s talk about upsetting experiences, caregivers should follow their children’s lead, echo what they say, and ask open-ended questions (e.g., “And then what happened?”). In this way, parents help their children make sense of those experiences.
- Caregivers can adopt an emotion-coaching approach to help children label their emotions rather than telling children what they should or should not feel about upsetting events.
Many children witness violence, death (of loved ones or strangers), natural disasters, abuse, and other upsetting events. Often, they want and need to talk about these events.
Consider this conversation between a researcher and a six-year-old research participant, which occurred during a study on the linguistic structure of children’s descriptions of everyday topics. While talking about going to the beach, the young boy said, “My brother died.” The adult, a trained interviewer, responded, “Your brother what?”
The boy continued, “My brother died. Um, he, um, was making a sandwich, and he fell, and a knife went in his heart.” Fortunately for the shocked interviewer, her protocol called for her to simply repeat the child’s words rather than evaluate what she had heard.
How likely is it that adults will hear such talk about troubling events in everyday interactions with children? Estimates of this occurrence are hard to come by and vary widely.
Children talk about disturbing events during spontaneous personal narratives
In a study of nearly 100 U.S. three-and-a-half to nine-and-a-half-year-olds on the developing structure of personal narratives, Carole Menig-Peterson and I found that more than half of the children who were at least six years old spontaneously produced narratives about the death of strangers, pets, and even immediate family members; such content was not as common among younger children. The interviewers had asked the children about likely events in daily life, such as whether they had ever gotten a shot at the doctor’s office or gone to a birthday party.
The children in this study were from a small town or rural area of a midwestern U.S. state and had no identified learning disabilities. All were European North American and from middle-class families, and none lived in a war zone or a high-crime area.
Children talked about upsetting events despite the fact that the researchers did not mention death or anything approaching such a potentially traumatizing event. To our surprise, many of the older children had experienced traumatic events and even more surprisingly, seemed to want to talk to us about them.
For children, exposure to disturbing events is not uncommon
In research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in eight- to 12-year-old Dutch children, scientists also found that many children had witnessed disturbing events in their lives. They defined traumatic events as those characterized by “death, serious injury, or other threat to physical integrity” (Alisic et al., 2012, p. 274), and prevalence estimates ranged from 14% to 65%.
For children living through times of war, of course, the incidence of witnessing traumatic events would be even higher. In short, exposure to deeply disturbing events is not rare in children’s lives.
Caregivers’ responses to children’s comments about traumatic events
Like the interviewer mentioned earlier, parents and other caregivers are often jolted by a child’s mention of these events and confused about how to respond. In reaction, most adults turn to a variety of strategies.
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Some do not respond at all, whether due to their own discomfort with the information or concerns about potential negative effects of focusing on the trauma. However, such well-intentioned efforts to protect children can backfire, leaving them without a supportive outlet for expressing and processing their thoughts and feelings about the experience.
Avoiding discussion with children about upsetting experiences can backfire
For example, in a study of 40 five- to 18-year olds (19 boys, 21 girls) who experienced a traffic accident, children who did not talk with anyone about the accident said they did not feel understood. They also experienced more symptoms of PTSD (e.g., irritability, trouble sleeping, hypervigilance) 30 weeks later than did children who spoke about the accident with trusted adults.
In this study, the children were questioned six weeks after the accident about whether they had talked about the accident with anyone (e.g., family, friends, therapist). This is important because of what we know about the value of psychologically debriefing individuals within days of a potentially traumatic event.
When such talk is initiated right after the accident by someone other than the person who experienced the event, it may do more harm than good, even increasing trauma rather than decreasing it. However, if a child initiates such talk soon afterwards, then parents should follow the child’s lead and listen responsively.
Opportunities to support children’s processing of trauma
Children’s spontaneous initiation of talk about trauma is key, and we encourage caregivers to see such initiation as an opportunity to support how children navigate their reactions to difficult experiences. Although almost all parents want to help their children do just that, not all parents are prepared to do so effectively, despite having good intentions.
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Researchers have identified three general parenting styles that actually exacerbate symptoms of trauma in young children (Alisic et al., 2012):
- Avoidant parenting: Some parents are withdrawn and unavailable to children as a result of their own insecurity and trauma.
- Overprotective parenting: Out of fear that their child may be traumatized again, some caregivers are overprotective, preoccupied with fear that their child will be retraumatized by talking about a difficult event.
- Frightening parenting: Some parents repeatedly quiz their child on details about the trauma, frightening their child in the process.
In contrast, consider what researchers describe as supportive parenting, beneficial parenting that occurs in response to children’s initiation of talk about trauma. These parents take care to feel safe themselves and to be in control of their emotions (though this does not necessarily mean refraining from crying). They listen to what their children say about the difficult experience.
What caregivers can do to support their children through trauma
Caregivers help by acknowledging children’s difficult experiences
Of particular importance is adults’ acknowledgment of what children say by engaging in a supportive dialog about the experience. Specific strategies include:
- Asking questions, especially open-ended questions (e.g., “What happened then?”)
- Making follow-up statements (e.g., after a child reminisced about a parent’s fear that a tornado would take their house down, one mother replied, “You’re right, we got lucky.”)
- Repeating the child’s words back to the child, which clarifies and ensures that they were heard. This strategy can be especially useful when a parent is caught off guard by a child’s comments.
Caregivers help by following children’s lead
Supportive conversations between caregivers and children about difficult experiences allow children to take the lead. If a child wants to talk about these experiences, responsive caregivers show that they are willing. If a child does not seem to want to talk about them, parents should not drill them for information.
Some caregivers find that their child is willing to talk under certain circumstances (e.g., while on a car ride) but not others (e.g., face to face). These conversations about difficult experiences occur when children (as well as parents) feel comfortable.