Parenting Children Who Have Experienced Trauma

How can we parent our children who have experienced trauma. How can we discipline them in a way that will help them learn and grow. We talk with Karen Doyle Buckwalter, a clinical social worker specializing in attachment and trauma, and author of Raising the Challenging Child: How to Minimize Meltdowns, Reduce Conflict, and Increase Cooperation.

In this episode, we cover:

Impact of Trauma

What is trauma?
Trauma vs PTSD
How does trauma impact a child?
3 levels of the brain and how many children are reacting from a primitive fear base if there’s a history of abuse or neglect.
Does the age of the child when they experienced trauma or the type of trauma affect the degree to which the child will be impacted?
If you can flee it lowers the incidence of PTSD
Preverbal trauma- before they have language and memory

How to Best Parent a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma

What is a typical behavior for a child who has experienced trauma?
Internal working model formed with earliest caregivers that forms a template for future relationships with caregivers
Children are terrified of being forgotten
The children often “reject you before you can reject them.” This helps protect them from this core fear of rejection and is a primitive survival mechanism.
MUST be aware of one’s own vulnerabilities and insecurities that may be triggered by caring for children with this history
How to help our kids heal and attach? Tips and Techniques

How to Discipline a Child Who Has Experienced Trauma

Connection before corrections
Build up your relationship account
Provide choices
Provide a balance of structure and nurture
The need for co-regulation with a safe adult rather than time out or other typical approaches.
These things take time to change. Just because the child is safe now does not remove these well-worn neuropathways.