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The coronavirus, trauma, and PTSD have become an unholy trio in recent months. June is PTSD Awareness Month, and to mark the occasion this post highlights preventative tools parents can use with children. This excerpt from my book, <\/i>Does My Child Have PTSD? What To Do When Your Child Is Hurting from the Inside Out<\/i><\/a>), explains how parents can help kids process trauma so it doesn\u2019t become PTSD.<\/i><\/p>\n Parents can practice proactive measures to help their children process traumatic events and thus prevent PTSD. In Trauma-Proofing Your Kids: A Parent’s Guide for Instilling Confidence and Resilience<\/a>, Dr. Peter Levine and Maggie Kline promote a step-by-step process they call \u201cfirst aid for trauma prevention.\u201d They suggest following these steps after a child has experienced a traumatic event.<\/p>\n When our son was four, he needed one final corrective surgery on his esophagus and stomach. Many, many years later he told me, \u201cWhen they took me into the operating room, it was so scary. They wheeled me in on a hard bed. The operating room was icy cold. The walls were glaring white, and the lights were so bright they hurt my eyes. Then these people without any faces leaned over and told me everything was okay. But it wasn\u2019t okay. It was terrible. And I went crazy, trying to get off the table and flailing my arms until those people without faces pinned me to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n His words perfectly described what masked OR nurses must have looked like to him\u2014people without faces. His recounting also reminded me of what a nurse said after our little boy arrived in the pediatric intensive care unit. \u201cHe went crazy.\u201d She sounded none too pleased. \u201cHe pulled all the monitor wires and his IV.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet me go in to him,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll calm him down.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she said firmly, \u201cnot until he\u2019s settled down.\u201d<\/p>\n I waited a long time, helpless and hurting, before they let me see him. If I had known then what I know now, I would have insisted on seeing him immediately. And if trauma first aid had been around back then, I would have used it to help him process what had happened to him.<\/p>\n Before entering his room, I would have taken some deep breaths to calm myself. Then I would have prayed for calm beyond what I could muster on my own. Once in the room, I would have taken time to study his face. Was it tear-streaked, pale, his expression pained? And then I\u2019d have checked his body for signs of shock. Was his body rigid? Trembling? Was his breathing too fast, too, slow, or labored?<\/p>\n Having just endured several hours of major surgery, our little boy would be in shock. I would have offered the best first aid possible at that point\u2014sitting beside his bed, holding his hand, stroking his forehead, rubbing his cheek, and giving constant reassurances of \u201cMommy\u2019s with you, Allen,\u201d interspersed with verses of his favorite lullabies.<\/p>\n Eventually, as the shock of the situation and the surgical pain eased, perhaps once he had moved to a regular room, I would have asked, \u201cAllen, how does your tummy feel?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHurts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes anything else hurt?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy foot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, the needle in your foot must hurt. Does your hand hurt, too?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He would hold up his hand and look at it. \u201cNo. No owie on my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen can I hold your hand?\u201d<\/p>\n Allen would nod, and I\u2019d hold his hand. \u201cLet\u2019s pretend we\u2019re holding a bunch of balloons together. Are you holding them tight?\u201d<\/p>\n He would nod.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, let\u2019s pretend to put all the owies from your tummy and your foot inside the balloons.\u201d I would wait a few seconds. \u201cDid you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d nod again and smile a little.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, on the count of three, we\u2019ll let go of the balloons and watch them carry your owies out the window and into the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n He would smile again, and we\u2019d look out the window, imagining the balloons disappearing in the bright blue Iowa sky. I would notice that his body would be more relaxed and his breathing would have calmed.<\/p>\n Over the next few days in the hospital, several times a day, I would have looked for signs of shock or pain returning. When it did, I would\u2019ve repeated the questions about where he hurt and how, along with questions about what parts of his body didn\u2019t hurt. Then I would have helped him focus his attention on where his body didn\u2019t hurt, perhaps by playing clapping games or singing silly songs, along with hand motions.<\/p>\n And we could\u2019ve made up stories\u2014a favorite pastime for him\u2014about one of his stuffed animals having a sore tummy after surgery. The story would have included the main character being frightened in the pediatric ICU and pulling at wires and needles. When Allen appeared scared by the story or trembled, I would have paused until his reaction, caused by the pent-up energy inside him, subsided. I would\u2019ve reassured him, \u201cMommy\u2019s here. I\u2019ll stay right here until the scary feeling goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n Had I known then what I know now, we would have repeated the stuffed-animal-has-surgery story for several days or weeks or however long it took until he could process all the trauma and dispel the energy trapped inside. Perhaps he would eventually have been able to further process the event by telling the story back to me in his own words.<\/p>\n Excerpted from Chapter 11 of Does My Child Have PTSD? <\/i>Does My Child Have PTSD? What To Do When Your Child Is Hurting from the Inside Out<\/i><\/a> (Familius, 2015)<\/i><\/p>\n Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the monthly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.<\/i><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][et_pb_row_inner _builder_version=”4.4.2″][et_pb_column_inner saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.2″ background_color=”#b4dbc0″ custom_padding=”20px|20px|20px|20px|false|false”][et_pb_blurb title=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3IiLCJzZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJiZWZvcmUiOiJCeSAiLCJhZnRlciI6IiIsIm5hbWVfZm9ybWF0IjoiZGlzcGxheV9uYW1lIiwibGluayI6Im9uIiwibGlua19kZXN0aW5hdGlvbiI6ImF1dGhvcl9hcmNoaXZlIn19@” image=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9hdXRob3JfcHJvZmlsZV9waWN0dXJlIiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnt9fQ==@” icon_placement=”left” image_max_width=”100px” content_max_width=”800px” _builder_version=”4.4.3″ _dynamic_attributes=”image,title” header_font=”Rubik|500|||||||” header_text_color=”#44465f” header_font_size=”14px” header_line_height=”32px” body_font=”Rubik||||||||” body_text_color=”rgba(0,6,69,0.6)” body_link_text_color=”#ffffff” custom_css_main_element=”font-weight: 400;” border_radii_image=”on|100px|100px|100px|100px” border_color_all_image=”#ffffff” box_shadow_style_image=”preset1″ box_shadow_vertical_image=”20px” box_shadow_blur_image=”40px” box_shadow_color_image=”rgba(68,70,95,0.27)” locked=”off”]Jolene Philo is both parent and daughter of loved ones with special needs and disabilities, as well as a former educator who worked with children for 25 years. She\u2019s written several books about caregiving, special needs parenting, and childhood PTSD, including the recently released <\/i>Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages\u00ae for Parents Raising Children with Disabilties<\/i><\/a>, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman. She speaks internationally about caregiving and parenting children with special needs and blogs at www.DifferentDream.com<\/a>.\u00a0Jolene and her husband live in central Iowa. [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.2″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.2″][et_pb_blog fullwidth=”off” posts_number=”3″ include_categories=”current” show_more=”on” _builder_version=”4.4.2″ header_text_color=”#42313A” meta_font=”||on||||||” read_more_font=”|||on|||||” read_more_text_color=”#B6452C” read_more_font_size=”12px” pagination_text_color=”#B6452C” pagination_font_size=”20px”][\/et_pb_blog][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The COVID-19 pandemic is causing uneasiness in many children. This post about the coronavirus, trauma, and PTSD explains how parents can tend to their kids’ mental health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3559,4164,3594,3579],"tags":[4165,4166],"class_list":["post-31997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-different-dream","category-does-my-child-have-ptsd","category-preventiontreatment","category-ptsd","tag-trauma-first-aid","tag-trauma-proofing-your-kids"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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