About Supporting Families With Children From Trauma

A Simple Guidebook on How to Support Families With Trauma

Remember the television show, “Leave it to Beaver”? I absolutely loved Wally and Beaver Cleaver. I related to Beaver as the younger sibling. He always wanted to be with Wally and to be like Wally. For the most part, Wally was good to him, but often, Beaver was the annoying little brother. I related quite well to the role of The Beaver, as I had the annoying little sister part down perfectly! This show was aired in black and white and only in reruns when I watched as a child, yet I loved it! Every day I would rush home after school to enjoy it while I munched on milk and cookies. It was so relatable to me in my own family, as our life was easy, our love was real, and times were simple. I suppose, if I am honest, I was also naive, like The Beaver!
As I matured, however, I began to comprehend that other homes and other kids weren’t experiencing the same kind of family. There was “that kid” in class in middle school. He wasn’t accepted, he smelled, and people made fun of him a lot. I felt sad for him. There was that “other kid” that bullied and seemed to spew anger at everyone. I felt confused by the anger. “One kid” dressed in black and loved to use shock value to make people afraid of him. I felt concern. Even as my home was not perfect, I was sheltered in safety to a point of true shock-value as I learned of others who were not so blessed.
Those moments of realization, outside my naivety, set the stage for my future and I didn’t even know it. I received a strong call in my soul for the “underdog” and being an intentional agent of change. It was a while yet, before I connected to the idea of trauma as the basis for their struggles, but I did connect to the fact they had pain and my response to that pain was sincere. I never saw myself as a “rescuer,” but I have always believed that through empathy and compassion, I could somehow make an impact. Some way, I thought, by aligning with the idea of other’s pain in a personal way, I could reach them with the ability to let them know I saw them, and I cared. I didn’t want to feel sorry for anyone. I wanted to align with them. I wanted to bridge hope and acceptance.
It went from wanting to ally with them, to being in the experience firsthand. I experienced my own pain. I faced many obstacles early on in my adult life, from cancer, to miscarriage, to the loss of my youngest child to terminal illness. Those battles took my breath away and caused me to dig deep in order to endure. However, my greatest struggle was in parenting my oldest two children, who were adopted out of trauma. Never could I have imagined the road we would travel. I never could have prepared myself for the isolation, fear, and secondary trauma that would come for myself and the rest of our children and family, as we worked to love and support our kids from trauma, down their difficult path. We failed a lot, learned a lot, and constantly got back up.
Understanding from others was the action that was most absent for us. We were a beautiful blend of adopted and biological children and we had a beautiful support system. Unfortunately, as is in most cases, they simply didn’t have the tools (nor did we have the energy to teach them) concerning how to support us. Consequently, through my own journey of pain, I learned that my empathy and compassion for others was refined and my ability to care for others in pain increased.
My experiences taught me what is important to know when supporting those in trauma. Trauma looks individual, but the brain responds the same. Craters of pain are imprinted on the brain during any traumatic event and without any warning, we can become completely stuck.
Others who have not experienced trauma to the level of brain impact, can find it difficult to know how to provide support without harming the already hurting person. This occurs even with the best intentions to help in place. The lessons learned through my own journey of personal experience propelled me to a study of massive research on the topic, including achieving master level education. My focus moved into working with many people struggling through trauma from many various angles as I believe in the need for support, but even more, the need for correct, beneficial support. I have learned how to combine my knowledge of learning, with what I learned through my own experience of trauma events and consider it a requirement to share that information as means to empower others to do the same.
The purpose of this writing is to create a simple guidebook for anyone struggling with how to support families dealing with someone in trauma or post-trauma circumstances. This works whether you, like me, started life sheltered or not. Even more, I believe it is my ethical duty as a therapist to assimilate information and strategies to those needed support teams for the families with children in trauma. Quite simply, therapy sessions aren’t enough to provide the support they need. Families need help in the trenches far more than a one hour session, once or twice a week. They need an understanding, educated team to lock arms with them. Life is hard, but with the right tools, we can face hindrances with resilience while supporting others to do the same.