Children Changed by Trauma: A Healing Guide for the Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul

praise for

Children Changed by Trauma

No child should ever have to live with the terror of violence, whatever its source. Debra Whiting Alexander offers direction and hope. I urge anyone who has a child that has been subject to trauma to read this book immediately.

—Claudia Black, Ph.D., author of It Will Never Happen to Me

This book will soothe and inspire the parents of traumatized children. It is full of the kind of intelligent, compassionate, and clearly written advice that truly fosters healing. Dr. Alexander draws on both her professional and personal experiences to illuminate the issues, and the accounts of real-life trauma that she documents make the book particularly valuable. Her practical suggestions are a gold mine and will help children and adults grow strong again and regain humor, peace, and joy.

—Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon, and author of Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Abuse

"This powerful and useful book comes from an author with years of experience in the field. She boils down complex concepts and jargon-heavy theory into clear and concise methods of working with children who have survived a trauma. Children Changed by Trauma helps us all become more sensitive to traumatized children. Parents, friends, teachers and counselors stand to benefit from its lucidity."

—Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Florida State University Traumatology Institute

"Children Changed by Trauma is a wonderful book that blends what we know about the effects of trauma with first-hand accounts. I believe the book will help parents and teachers better understand children’s traumatic experiences. There is also much here that will assist adults in learning about their own early experiences with trauma. This is an important and relevant book as we begin to acknowledge how trauma can shape our past and our future."

—Marleen Wong, Director of Mental Health Services District Crisis Teams, Los Angeles Unified School District

"Children Changed by Trauma offers good, sound advice to childcare practitioners. The book is easy to follow and comprehensive and provides a personal touch with the incorporation of real-life experiences. This is a must read for anyone who works with children in trauma."

—Krista R. Flannigan, J.D, and Robin F. Finegan, M.A., Victim Services Consultants, Idaho Springs and Denver, Colorado

Unfortunately children’s lives today often include exposure to, or involvement in traumatic events. In this practical and user-friendly book, Dr. Alexander offers the parents of these children workable strategies to help their children recover from these traumas. Using the framework of trauma theory as a template, Dr. Alexander gives concrete case examples and interventions that can be explored both immediately and long after an event. Also a valuable resource for therapists, teachers, pastors and others, this book is designed to be used, and use it I will! I urge potential readers to do the same.

—Mary Beth Williams, Ph.D., CTS, LCSW, President, Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists

Publisher and Author Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the author/publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Children’s experiences with psychic trauma have been conveyed accurately but all names and identifying details have been changed.

CHILDREN CHANGED BY TRAUMA:

A Healing Guide For The Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul

FIRST EDITION Copyright © 1999 by Debra Whiting Alexander, Ph.D.

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

Distributed in the U.S.A. by Publishers Group West; in Canada by Raincoast Books, in Great Britain by Airlift Book Company, Ltd.; in South Africa by Real Books, Ltd.; in Australia by Boobook; and in New Zealand by Tandem Press.

Edited by Angela Watrous

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-74369

ISBN 1-57224-166-7 Paperback

SECOND EDITION Copyright © 2024 by Debra Whiting Alexander, Ph.D.

Cover and text design © 2024 by Duane Stapp

Additions edited by Angela Egremont

Cover Photos © 2024 by Katelyn Kelley Photography

Interior art: Shutterstock

ISBN 979-8-9907493-0-6 Paperback

ISBN 979-8-9907493-1-3 Ebook

All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

Wild Bloom Press

www.debrawhitingalexander.com

Contents

Dedication

New Author Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I Facilitating Your Child’s Healing

1 Healing the Heart

It hurts inside and out. • Trauma Hurts the Heart • The Emotional Balancing Act • Trauma Affects Self-Esteem • The Gift of Feelings • From the Eyes to the Listening Heart

2 Healing the Mind

I can’t stop thinking about it. • Trauma Leaves Painful Memories • Children Need to Speak Their Minds • Fear and Safety • School Life • Learning to Live with the Memory

3 Healing the Body

I get weak and dizzy, and I feel like I’m going to die. • When Trauma Has Physical Effects • When Art and Play is Hard Work • Physical Reactions • Returning to the Scene of Trauma • Anniversary Dates: Prepare to Remember

4 Healing the Soul

If there’s a God, why did this happen? • Trauma Hurts the Soul • The Search for Meaning • Caring for Your Children’s Souls • Spiritual Dilemmas: Guilt, Anger, Forgiveness • The Gift of Spiritual Support

5 Healing Through Grieving

Someday I’ll be with her again. • Loss Is Part of Trauma • A Different Kind of Grief • Take Care of Trauma Symptoms First • Grieving Natural Disaster, Suicide, Family Violence, and Hate Crimes • It Happened Out of Hate—A Story for Children • Let Your Child Grieve • Finding Your Way to Professional Help • Stronger with Every Loss

6 Healing Through Humor

Okay, so it’s not as contagious as I thought. • Good Humor Is Goodness and Wisdom Combined • Stories of Humor and Healing • Baggy Ankles • Kids Just Want to Have Fun

7 Healing Through Parenting

It’s too cold, Mommy. I don’t want to get wet. • A New and Different Challenge • Attitudes That Promote Healing • When Anger Hits Home: Power Struggles, Revenge Fantasies, and Aggression • Common Challenges for Parents • Some Final Guidelines

8 Healing Is an Everyday Miracle

My family has peace again. • The Road to Healing • The Return to Joy and Innocence • Ways Adults Can Help—A Summary List

Part II How You Can Help: A Guide for Nonparental Adults

9 How Friends and Relatives Can Help

You need nice families and friends. They can help you feel like yourself again. • Your Role in the Healing Process • Ways to Assist • Timing • How Siblings Are Affected • How Grandparents Can Help

10 For Teachers and Professional Therapists

Thank you for helping me get my family back. • Guidelines for Teachers • What Professional Therapists Need to Know • Taking Care of Yourself

Epilogue

References and Resources

• Helplines • Professional Tools

Dedication

To all the children on these pages whom I have had the honor to know and love. It is through their eyes that this book began and from their hearts that the stories are told.

To my friend, Debora Jean Martin, for surviving and taking the path to healing with me.

To parents and adults everywhere for taking the path to healing with their children.

New Author Foreword

Since this book was first published, significant strides have been made in the treatment of childhood trauma. Many things have changed since 1999, including new cognitive and behavioral therapies, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, neurofeedback training, somatic therapies, and therapeutic creative arts activities. Even equine-facilitated psychotherapies are showing great promise and success for both children and adults.

New brain research has also increased our understanding of the ways children integrate and process memories as well as the way trauma changes neurobiology. In addition, the impact of chronic, severe stress on childhood development is now recognized as distinct from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting in improved, multifaceted diagnoses for children.*¹

However, while innovative treatment and research have emerged over the past twenty-five years, acts of trauma and violence continue to impact new generations of young people. Today, many adults remain unprepared for how best to help children in the aftermath of life-altering tragedies. **²

My advice to those who care for children remains unchanged: Never underestimate the power of a loving bond—it remains vital to a child’s recovery. There’s no substitute for genuine connection and support that provides comfort, security, love, attention, and acceptance. In my experience, loving relationships offer the best elixir for healing that there is. In short, the bond you share with your child can be a powerful gift and contribution to their complete recovery.

For this reason, the content of the second edition of this book remains true to the first. While you cannot do the work of healing for a child, you can guide and support their journey in powerful ways. This book will help you do just that—in all the ways only you can do.

Toward healing,

Debra Whiting Alexander, Ph.D., LMFT, CTS

*Recommended reading: For more information on attachment, neurobiology and the developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., Penguin Books, 2015.

**A word about language: The use of the words parent and adult in this book are meant to be interchangeable with any relationship where a significant, loving bond exists. This may include caregivers, grandparents, foster parents, step-families, and any other adult with whom a child has a healthy attachment.

Preface

When I was seven, I went to an air show with my family. Thousands of people had gathered and crowds of us were walking over a wide-open rocky dirt terrain. Ahead were old railroad tracks to cross before we reached the observation field where the show was to take place.

It was a hot, Sunday afternoon, like most I grew up with in San Diego. I remember seeing adults around me wearing fancy church clothes, but most of my steps were focused on the new pair of white buckled sandals I was so pleased to be wearing. I carefully navigated them over the unavoidable stones and around dry crusty ditches, trying to keep the dust off of them.

I almost lost my balance every time I looked up at the city of grown-ups around me. They hovered like giant skyscrapers, swaying against the sky. It was much easier to focus on the twelve inches directly in front of my feet. One time when I looked ahead to see how much closer we were to the railroad tracks, an ancient-looking woman off to my right caught my attention.

She was wearing a dark purple-and-lavender flowered chiffon dress. I noticed her because she reminded me of a bedspread we had at home. She wore a hat that had fake flowers on the side of it. A small purse hung on her wrist, which was covered by a white glove. Everything matched. I had never seen anything like it. More importantly, I had never seen anyone who looked like our bedspread before.

And then she lost her balance and fell. I had been looking at her shoes when it happened. I watched her step gingerly over the same ditches I was having trouble with when she suddenly became stiff and awkward. No one was able to catch her in time. I saw her head hit the metal track we were quickly approaching. The sound startled me. Something about it was very wrong.

Once she landed, she didn’t move. The grown-ups around her let out a horrified gasp and rushed to her side. One lady screamed so loud I thought she was falling, too. They sounded so scared and worried that I became frightened. I felt my heart beat faster than I could count.

Two men dressed in white pants and shirts carried the woman in the purple dress away. They put her on a shiny silver stretcher with a white sheet across it, and then they disappeared. I was perplexed. This frail old woman, who just moments earlier had been sharing the same kind of day I was having, was gone. We were going to watch the same show and stand on the same field to do the same thing. I couldn’t understand how she could be there one minute and gone the next. Hurt and dying, just that quick. No one was able to tell me if she would be okay or why it happened. Everyone kept walking forward. I tried to turn around to see where she went, twisting my neck until it hurt. But it was no use. I only saw swarms of legs marching forward, certain to trample me if I didn’t keep up.

After that, I didn’t feel happy anymore. Not even at the sight of my sandals. I only remember hanging on tighter to the hand holding mine, so it wouldn’t happen to me.

I’m told I watched the air show and saw famous planes performing spectacular maneuvers over a cheering crowd. I remember nothing more of that day than the old woman in the purple-flowered dress, who in an instant was hurled over a track and lay lifeless on the ground.

I worried about her for a long time, and on some level I suppose I have continued my concern for her over the course of my life. I never cross a set of railroad tracks without remembering her.

I often give the woman in the purple-flowered dress some of the credit for my training as a writer. Trauma does in a moment what writers spend a lifetime trying to do. It causes you to pay attention. The senses are heightened. Images, thoughts, feelings, smells, and a myriad of memories are recorded somewhere deep inside. Vivid details are preserved for safekeeping until they can be digested.

These moments are sacred, because in their own way they touch the soul.

For the writer, the experience must be properly placed on paper. For the trauma survivor, it’s an experience that must be integrated into life. Having done both, I know it is the trauma survivor who carries the enormous burden of bringing the experience back to life—so it can be put to rest. Children and adults who have experienced trauma can be tormented by what they went through or find meaning through their suffering and be strengthened. With some thanks due to the woman in the purple-flowered dress, this book is about helping children find meaning and strength.

—Debra Whiting Alexander, Ph.D., LMFT, CTS

Acknowledgments

Writing this book was a labor of love. Several midwives assisted me along the way. Thank you to Janice Carr, Susan Jorgensen, Corinne Marie, and Donna Yates for encouragement and refreshing insight.

I thank the staff of the Center for Community Counseling in Eugene, Oregon, for their generous enthusiasm and support for my work, especially Nowell King, Victoria Scott, and Nancy Weisel.

I gratefully acknowledge the work of Alice Miller, M.D., whose contributions have influenced my life both personally and professionally.

I am indebted to all the children, families, and adults I have had the honor of working with over the years. I have been enriched by being a witness to their growth and healing.

I thank my parents for sharing a spiritual foundation with me that I will carry always. And to my sister, Sherie Whiting, who shares my childhood experiences as no one else can.

To New Harbinger Publications, and especially to my editor Angela Watrous, heartfelt appreciation for your clarity and vision in bringing this book to life. It has been a privilege to work with all of you.

I am especially grateful for my friend, Kathryn Wilson, who encouraged and strengthened this book from its beginnings with her valuable input, steady wisdom, and unwavering support. Thank you for being the friend I always need.

Thank you to RCA (Bob) for the gift of your love.

And finally, my deepest thanks go to my daughter, Katelyn Jenne, who inspires me.

Introduction

My family is not unusual. We live in a relatively safe neighborhood, share the friendship of good neighbors, and live an average middle-class life. However, by the age of seven my daughter was aware of murder, shootings, and child abuse. Our family had been victimized by a destructive burglary in our home, and my daughter had seen prostitution on our streets and witnessed a physical assault in the parking lot of our local grocery store. Despite my best efforts to protect and minimize my daughter’s exposure to trauma, the world continued to roll a parade of tragedies before her eyes.

Today, all children are at risk. They are bombarded regularly by news of senseless tragedies. The media as well as real-life scenarios on the streets are packed with images that have the power to evoke anxiety beyond what most children are able to handle on their own. Children have a limited capacity to absorb this toxic part of life.

An increasing number of children are being more directly impacted by crime and trauma. They are the targeted victims, the loved ones of victims, and the innocent bystanders of random acts of crime and violence. They are also the survivors of community-wide disasters and traumatic events. Some children have witnessed unspeakable acts of violence in their own schools. Others witness it regularly in their homes. These children are forever changed. What they have learned is that life is not safe.

When trauma hits, it is usually sudden. It may be an act of human cruelty, such as a crime spree, or it may be a car or plane crash, a sudden or untimely death, or a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or hurricane. It can happen in seconds. Trauma abruptly rips you out of the comfort and safety of your life and thrusts you into the depths of loss and despair. Children are totally unprepared for these experiences in life. Most parents are unsure of how to help their children through such intense psychological, emotional, and spiritual injuries.

How do you respond to your children’s questions when they ask why something happened or if it will happen again? When children look to you for answers and seek your reassurance, what can you say? They want to understand and know they’re safe, and they want answers. Most of all, your children look to you to regain a sense of hope when the world has turned crazy and hopeless.

This book cannot offer you a detour around suffering, but it can offer you a path and direction through it. It also cannot take the place of therapy. Professional help is needed for most, if not all, children and their families following a traumatic event. Still, much successful healing work can and does happen through parents and other adults children love and trust. The relationship you share can be the strongest link in the chain of their healing.

Witnessing violence and trauma affects a child’s whole being: the heart, mind, body, and soul. Each of these parts demands healing. If wounds are not tended, the effects may last a lifetime. Untreated, trauma can even lead some children on the path to personal violence in the future.

Throughout each chapter of this book I have described case examples of children exposed to trauma. By illustrating their experiences, I will help you understand the impact of trauma, become familiar with the normal responses children are likely to experience, and give you specific ways to help your child feel whole again. Step by step, you will journey through the heart, mind, body, and soul of children who have healed—and see how they did it. For recovery to be complete, I believe it is the soul that lies at the root of trauma resolution. You will also read about the important role humor can play in your child’s healing process.

What I have written is a blend of my clinical experience as a child therapist and my personal experience as a mother. The majority of the case descriptions are from my work, but the personal insights also come from resolving the impact of crime in my own family. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect confidentiality of clients involved.

Trauma does change all who encounter it. For the survivors, life will never be the same. This does not mean life is over or that life will be worse—it simply means it will be different. The joy and innocence your child once enjoyed will return, but healing is a process that happens in unique ways to each person. You can use this book to help expand the love, wisdom, and knowledge you already possess, enhancing your ability to help your child through this process.

While trauma has the potential to tear families apart, the recovery process can also bond families together. By helping your children find meaning and strength in times of tragedy, they can gain a new appreciation for life and for those who love them. It is my hope that the information you find in this book will support the individual recovery and healing of your child, as well as strengthen your family relationship in new and meaningful ways.

Finally, it is important to note that healing cannot begin until you and your children are physically safe and protected. If you are experiencing violence in your home or feel threatened in any way, seek help and support immediately. Call the police, a local shelter, or a counseling center for assistance. No one deserves to be abused, threatened, or treated unkindly. You and your family have the right to live in a safe home. Your lives may depend on it. Domestic violence is a crime. Confidential information and help is