

Children and teens will experience events during their lives that will affect them emotionally and physically. Traumatic events do affect children and teens differently, depending on their age, personality and past experiences.
How a parent or care giver reacts to an event, will impact on the child’s ability to cope and recover. Trauma can affect children in many ways and result in strong feelings of fear, sadness, guilt, anger or grief, making it difficult for them to cope with everyday life.
A distressing or frightening experience can challenge a child's sense of security and predictability of their world. Children will look to the adults in their lives to help them better understand a traumatic event. It is therefore important for these adult role models to ‘tune in’ to a child’s fears and provide them with the comfort and support they need.
