Childhood trauma is a problem plaguing both children and adults across the world.
The importance of raising awareness around the topic is more important than ever to ensure that anyone suffering receives the support that they need.
Childhood trauma exceeds the confides of adolescence and is something that can stick with someone for the rest of their lives. If you are experiencing the long-term effects of childhood trauma or you know someone who is, this blog post will provide you with all of the necessary information for identifying and addressing childhood trauma.
Early Development
In the earliest years of our lives, our brains and bodies go through rapid growth and development. Millions of new neural connections form in our brains every second – more than any other time in our lives! Our everyday experiences, the interactions we have and the nurture we receive from our caregivers all play a key role in determining which of these neural connections are strengthened; ultimately laying the foundations for our future development and functioning.
Loving, warm and responsive relationships with the adults in our lives are essential to our development. As babies, we invite our parents and other adult caregivers to meet our needs by engaging in attachment behaviours like cooing, babbling or crying. When a caregiver consistently and sensitively attends to these cues, they provide us with repeated experience of positive “serve and return” interactions; a process which is fundamental to building positive connections in our brains. Whilst seemingly trivial, games of ‘peek-a-boo’, singing together, or engaging in shared play with the adults in our lives is crucial to providing us with the security and relational safety we need in order to confidently explore and learn from the world around us.
Childhood Trauma
The term ‘childhood trauma’ encompasses a broad range of adverse experiences that occur in infancy and childhood. In the same way that positive, nurturing relationships and experiences shape the wiring of our brains, adverse childhood experiences can leave a lasting imprint on our lives. Exposure to childhood trauma disrupts the fundamental sense of safety that children rely on for healthy development, resulting in deep-seated emotional wounds that can persist far into our adult years.
Consequences of Childhood Trauma
- Hypervigilance: When our basic needs are not met, and our formative years are marked by multiple and chronic stressors, we experience the world is a scary and dangerous place. We grow up to learn that we must rely on ourselves in order to survive, and we develop behaviours and strategies that intend to keep us safe. For example, we may learn that we need to remain ‘hypervigilant’, whereby we continuous scan our environments for threats. As a result, we may have difficulty relaxing, be startled easily, appear agitated, or they may show physical symptoms of post-traumatic stress such as excessive sweating or difficulty sleeping.
- Emotional Dysregulation: Children who have experienced trauma and significant attachment disruptions can often have difficulty identifying, expressing and managing their emotions. From infancy, we learn a language for our emotions and how to regulate them through repeated experiences of co-regulation from our caregiver. When a child has lacked a secure and nurturing attachment, they miss out on these key opportunities to develop an awareness and understanding of their emotions. As a result, these children often internalise or externalise stress reactions, and go on to experience emotional and behavioural difficulties associated with high levels of shame, such as anger, rage, depression and/ or anxiety.
- Dissociation: When in a state of fear or terror as a child, we may learn to dissociate (i.e., mentally leave the room or escape when a situation exceeds our capacity to cope). This is an effective survival mechanism that provides a child with the psychological and emotional safety they need to keep going in the face of overwhelming pain and fear.
A child who has experienced trauma can often continue to dissociate long after the danger has passed. They may appear ‘zoned-out’, have a glazed look in their eyes, seem absent, and/or they may have difficulty remembering certain points in time.
Dissociation can occur at any time, but there may be particular times or things which increase the likelihood that a child will dissociate. These triggers are specific to each child and their experiences, and may include both external (e.g., sounds, certain places) or internal (flashbacks, thoughts, feelings).
- Physical Health Consequences: Experiencing trauma in childhood can alter our body’s stress response, resulting in changes in to both our brain development and our physical health. Prolonged activation of our body’s stress response systems can increase our risk of developing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, psychological conditions such as depression, and cancers.
- Consequences for Relationships and Social Life: Our experiences of relationships in our formative years forms a template for our future relationships. If, as a child, we experience other people as scary and unpredictable, we are likely to grow up having difficulty trusting others. This makes developing secure and meaningful relationships difficult, as we spend our lives fearful that others will hurt or harm us rather than believing that they will keep us safe.
We also may have difficulty utilising social skills to make and maintain meaningful relationships. When a child’s brain is so heavily focused on survival, there are very few opportunities for them to engage in healthy social development and play. - Cognitive development and difficulties in academic performance: In the same way that a child may struggle to engage in activities which foster the development of important social skills, a child who has a lacked a secure, stable and nurturing upbringing may struggle to utilise executive functioning skills such as problem solving, attention and memory. In order to engage in the classroom, a child needs to feel safe and secure. It is perhaps not surprising then that research indicates that childhood trauma is linked to lower school performance, lower IQ scores, lower reading ability, and decreased school attendance.
Healing Childhood Trauma: The Importance of Nurturing Relationships
Supportive and nurturing relationships with family members and other caregivers or significant adults serve as a critical protective factor for children facing adversity. Frequently, children experience trauma within the very relationships that are intended to be their primary source of safety. In order to repair this relational trauma, we need to provide the child with repeated experience of positive, nurturing relationships. As Bruce Perry eloquently said, “Relationships are the agents of change, and the most powerful therapy is human love.”.
Caring for children who have learnt they must protect themselves from others in order survive is not always easy, but with specialist, trauma-informed guidance and support it is possible. At Meadows Psychology Service, we have developed a dedicated team who utilise specialist training in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and other relational approaches to support carers and young people to develop secure and healthy attachments which foster reliance and positive outcomes for young people.
By sharing our specialist knowledge of trauma informed therapeutic care, we provide carers across a range of settings with the therapeutic tools, skills and guidance they need to nurture secure attachments with the children and young people in their care.
If you want to find out more about our services, please contact us.
References
Cicchetti, D., Hetzel, S., Rogosch, F. A., Handley, E. D., & Toth, S. L. (2016). An investigation of child maltreatment and epigenetic mechanisms of mental and physical health risk. Development and psychopathology, 28(4pt2), 1305-1317.
Copley, L. A. (2023). Loving you is hurting me: A new approach to healing trauma bonds and creating authentic connection. Hachette Book Group.
Monnat, S. M., & Chandler, R. F. (2015). Long‐term physical health consequences of adverse childhood experiences. The Sociological Quarterly, 56(4), 723-752.
Duplechain, R., Reigner, R., & Packard, A. (2008). Striking differences: The impact of moderate and high trauma on reading achievement. Reading Psychology, 29(2), 117-136.
