Trauma Informed Practice: Child Traumatic Stress

According to the NCTSN, children who suffer from child traumatic stress has been exposed to one or more traumatic events over the course of their lives and develop reactions that persist and affect their daily lives after the events have ended.
Traumatic reactions might include:
- Intense emotions
- Depressive symptoms
- Anxiety
- Behavioral changes
- Problems relating to others or forming attachments
- Regression in young children or loss of previously acquired skills
- Attention and/or academic difficulties
- Nightmares
- Difficulty sleeping and eating
Children who suffer from traumatic stress often have these types of symptoms when reminded in some way of the traumatic event. Although many of us may experience reactions to stress from time to time, when a child is experiencing traumatic stress, these reactions interfere with the child’s daily life and ability to function and interact with others.
At no age are children immune to the effects of traumatic experiences. Even infants and toddlers can experience traumatic stress. The way that traumatic stress manifests will vary from child to child and will depend on the child’s age and developmental level.
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).
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) Trauma-Informed Approach offers similar helpful terms. SAMHSA refers to traumatic experiences and events, and the effects of these experiences and events, as "The Three E's of Trauma: Events, Experiences, and Effects":
Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being (SAMHSA, 2014, p. 7).