Loving the child with PTSD
March 4, 2011 11:07 AM Subscribe
Any tips for raising a child diagnosed with PTSD?
We are about to adopt our foster child who has been with us for well over a year now. Our kiddo has just been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the abuse kiddo endured prior to coming into foster care. Kiddo is 4 and the abuse occurred in kiddo's first two years. We've identified some of kiddo's triggers, but I'm not sure we've encountered all of them at this point.
We deeply love kiddo and want to provide a stable, loving and supportive environment in which kiddo can grow and heal and have as much of a normal life as possible. We are working to get kiddo into play therapy and know we'll need to have an educational team in place to facilitate transitions between each year's academic changes.
What else can we do? If you're parenting a child with PTSD, what helps you, your kiddo and your family? What advice would you give another parent in this situation? If you have PTSD, what supports do you keep in your daily life that help you? What do I need to keep an eye out for?
We just got kiddo's diagnosis this week and we're at the very beginning of this. We appreciate any and all insight and advice you can give.
We are about to adopt our foster child who has been with us for well over a year now. Our kiddo has just been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the abuse kiddo endured prior to coming into foster care. Kiddo is 4 and the abuse occurred in kiddo's first two years. We've identified some of kiddo's triggers, but I'm not sure we've encountered all of them at this point.
We deeply love kiddo and want to provide a stable, loving and supportive environment in which kiddo can grow and heal and have as much of a normal life as possible. We are working to get kiddo into play therapy and know we'll need to have an educational team in place to facilitate transitions between each year's academic changes.
What else can we do? If you're parenting a child with PTSD, what helps you, your kiddo and your family? What advice would you give another parent in this situation? If you have PTSD, what supports do you keep in your daily life that help you? What do I need to keep an eye out for?
We just got kiddo's diagnosis this week and we're at the very beginning of this. We appreciate any and all insight and advice you can give.
Best answer: http://tfcbt.musc.edu/. might be worthwhile to find a therapist who does trauma focused cbt with children
posted by namesarehard at 11:42 AM on March 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by namesarehard at 11:42 AM on March 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
There are horse riding academies/ Equine Assisted Therapy places that do PTSD therapy: I'm only familiar with the ones for veterans and for kids with chemo or other life threatening diseases but based on my experience volunteering at those I'd look into it. Kids who act inappropriately around people often do much better with animals and they gain a lot of self-confidence by having a big old horse listen to them. It's especially good for those tweenage girls imho, because there are are lots of strong female role models.
Also they get really tired, which the parents seem to appreciate.
posted by fshgrl at 6:23 PM on March 4, 2011
Also they get really tired, which the parents seem to appreciate.
posted by fshgrl at 6:23 PM on March 4, 2011
Best answer: While I certainly can't speak from an experience of parenting, I like what Boris Cyrulnik has to say about recovering from trauma. (Or, 'resilience', which, imo, is a worthy [overall] subject of study, despite being fashionable right now, as part of the 'positive psychology' moment.)
Cyrulnik is a neurologist/psychiatrist who, on this theme, approaches PTSD from the point of view of attachment theory and ethology. I hope I'm not reducing his ideas to nothing, but essentially:
- The 'secure' love and attention of parents (and later, partners) and peers is healing in itself. ('Secure attachment' has a specific meaning in attachment theory.)
- So does structure (expressed as, eg, special family occasions/ceremony) - this provides a frame of reference to mark time and events, and makes the world feel solid.
- He's wary of reducing traumatized kids to their diagnoses, which are too often fatalistic, or worrying over them in such a way as to 'train' them, in effect, to be wounded. Even when kids have survived war, rape, prostitution. Though children are surely marked by those experiences, they're not doomed by them, and adults around them shouldn't focus overly much on labels. Treating kids as though they have the capacity for strength encourages strength.
- He found that many adult survivors were able to rework their traumas through art, politics, and intellectual work. (I think this 'reworking' is a little different from Freud's 'sublimation', in that Cyrulnik's explanation is informed by neuroscientific underpinnings. Not that these are necessarily evident in his books, which are deliberately popular. And, fyi, atrociously translated.)
Obviously you can't (and maybe shouldn't!) force/predict this kind of 'reworking', but offering your little one access to its tools - the stuff of culture, and love - is worthwhile in any regard.
Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who studies (false) memory, is one example of a successful 'reworker'. Her work is worth reviewing, and highly relevant to your situation - but also check out her own story (halfway down the page).
I think these two would suggest that rather than anticipating fallout from an enduring wound, it might be better to create or sustain a loving, stable, 'normal' (not repressive) environment, which the little one will use idiosyncratically, in whatever way his/her brain/heart takes him/her.
(has an appropriate genderless pronoun for humans been worked out yet???)
re my personal experience: I had my mundane traumas, and grew up in a chaotic environment. Took me a long time to find the resources to deal with the pragmatics of just living. I sought and found insight - and sometimes life just hurts, to paraphrase some country singer or other - but I think structure and discipline would have helped tremendously. Working on that now.
posted by nelljie at 9:23 PM on March 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
Cyrulnik is a neurologist/psychiatrist who, on this theme, approaches PTSD from the point of view of attachment theory and ethology. I hope I'm not reducing his ideas to nothing, but essentially:
- The 'secure' love and attention of parents (and later, partners) and peers is healing in itself. ('Secure attachment' has a specific meaning in attachment theory.)
- So does structure (expressed as, eg, special family occasions/ceremony) - this provides a frame of reference to mark time and events, and makes the world feel solid.
- He's wary of reducing traumatized kids to their diagnoses, which are too often fatalistic, or worrying over them in such a way as to 'train' them, in effect, to be wounded. Even when kids have survived war, rape, prostitution. Though children are surely marked by those experiences, they're not doomed by them, and adults around them shouldn't focus overly much on labels. Treating kids as though they have the capacity for strength encourages strength.
- He found that many adult survivors were able to rework their traumas through art, politics, and intellectual work. (I think this 'reworking' is a little different from Freud's 'sublimation', in that Cyrulnik's explanation is informed by neuroscientific underpinnings. Not that these are necessarily evident in his books, which are deliberately popular. And, fyi, atrociously translated.)
Obviously you can't (and maybe shouldn't!) force/predict this kind of 'reworking', but offering your little one access to its tools - the stuff of culture, and love - is worthwhile in any regard.
Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who studies (false) memory, is one example of a successful 'reworker'. Her work is worth reviewing, and highly relevant to your situation - but also check out her own story (halfway down the page).
I think these two would suggest that rather than anticipating fallout from an enduring wound, it might be better to create or sustain a loving, stable, 'normal' (not repressive) environment, which the little one will use idiosyncratically, in whatever way his/her brain/heart takes him/her.
(has an appropriate genderless pronoun for humans been worked out yet???)
re my personal experience: I had my mundane traumas, and grew up in a chaotic environment. Took me a long time to find the resources to deal with the pragmatics of just living. I sought and found insight - and sometimes life just hurts, to paraphrase some country singer or other - but I think structure and discipline would have helped tremendously. Working on that now.
posted by nelljie at 9:23 PM on March 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
I have no expert or first-hand experience with your situation, but I would recommend that you read the book "The Myth of Sanity" at some point (don't be put off by the title!) because it addresses the issue of dissociation and PTSD, explaining how episodes of dissociation can occur on a kind of sliding scale, and that perhaps even the majority of people experience this to some (usually very minor) degree. While the more dramatic manifestations are more well known (multiple "personalities," losing significant periods of time), there are much more common and less obvious dissociative episodes ... and if I'm remembering correctly, therapy can be especially challenging with those who've suffered abuse very early in life, because they don't have a context for what they've experienced.
Anyway, this may be an old road well-traveled for you, but I mention it just in case there's any chance it can provide any new understanding or prove helpful in the future.
posted by taz at 12:03 AM on March 5, 2011
Anyway, this may be an old road well-traveled for you, but I mention it just in case there's any chance it can provide any new understanding or prove helpful in the future.
posted by taz at 12:03 AM on March 5, 2011
emotionally, from the aching heart inside me, the most cogent advice I can give is this: be gentle. be as tender as you can be in any given situation. do what you say you're going to do. love them unconditionally.
From a more mature perspective, the coping skills I've learned in solutions-oriented therapy have been incredibly handy. Teach these (or find a good therapist who can teach all of you), and you'll be providing the skills for overcoming the disordered thinking/feeling that makes PTSD such a hell. Simple things like using "Stop!" or "No!" (or a "nonsense" word, like "monkey") when disturbing thoughts come up. Checking in on my emotions to make sure I'm not disassociating or grinding from tension. Being honest when something troubles me.
That last thing goes back to the first paragraph - giving your little one room to be honest when they are remembering/reacting and loving them through it is the most crucially beautiful and necessary gift you can give, aside from the miracle of a loving and safe home.
Bless you.
on preview: there's also a recent-ish therapy that is being recommended for ultimately working through the trauma, but I don't know about age appropriateness - EMDR. You'd need to talk to a psychologist with experience in this, and there aren't many. One with current info on PTSD treatments will generally have someone they can refer you to, however.
posted by batmonkey at 2:49 AM on March 5, 2011
From a more mature perspective, the coping skills I've learned in solutions-oriented therapy have been incredibly handy. Teach these (or find a good therapist who can teach all of you), and you'll be providing the skills for overcoming the disordered thinking/feeling that makes PTSD such a hell. Simple things like using "Stop!" or "No!" (or a "nonsense" word, like "monkey") when disturbing thoughts come up. Checking in on my emotions to make sure I'm not disassociating or grinding from tension. Being honest when something troubles me.
That last thing goes back to the first paragraph - giving your little one room to be honest when they are remembering/reacting and loving them through it is the most crucially beautiful and necessary gift you can give, aside from the miracle of a loving and safe home.
Bless you.
on preview: there's also a recent-ish therapy that is being recommended for ultimately working through the trauma, but I don't know about age appropriateness - EMDR. You'd need to talk to a psychologist with experience in this, and there aren't many. One with current info on PTSD treatments will generally have someone they can refer you to, however.
posted by batmonkey at 2:49 AM on March 5, 2011
Stability, predictablity, love, opportunities to do things they love and feel good about, and play therapy, art therapy and children's EMDR. (Lots of counsellors do EMDR - it isn't just psychologists.)
posted by acoutu at 9:17 PM on March 5, 2011
posted by acoutu at 9:17 PM on March 5, 2011
I also agree that nelljie has provided you with great advice. I was diagnosed as a young child, and even today as a full grown adult, the security that comes from structure and stability in day-to-day life and interaction with loved-ones is something I need to function at the most basic level. Without this, therapy is fruitless.
Just based on your brief post, it sounds like you are already on the right track and your child is the right hands that he/she was once deprived of. I also agree with making sure not to reduce your child to his/her diagnosis. Trauma can be difficult to work through, but simply being there for your child, being a stable/positive force in his/her life, is key. 4 years is still quite young, and it sounds as though you have the ability and motivation to reverse the damage. It sounds overly simplistic, but stay on this track and you are going to do wonders for this child. Good for you. I wish you the best.
posted by overyourhead at 8:24 PM on March 6, 2011
Just based on your brief post, it sounds like you are already on the right track and your child is the right hands that he/she was once deprived of. I also agree with making sure not to reduce your child to his/her diagnosis. Trauma can be difficult to work through, but simply being there for your child, being a stable/positive force in his/her life, is key. 4 years is still quite young, and it sounds as though you have the ability and motivation to reverse the damage. It sounds overly simplistic, but stay on this track and you are going to do wonders for this child. Good for you. I wish you the best.
posted by overyourhead at 8:24 PM on March 6, 2011
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posted by ClaudiaCenter at 11:11 AM on March 4, 2011