Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, has been studying the eff ects of trauma on children for decades. In the 1980s, he was part of a study that interviewed Vietnam veterans and their spouses. “We took a look at how the chil-
dren were doing from the spouse’s perspective,” Fairbank explains. “We compared the families of veter- ans who had PTSD with the families of veterans who did not, and not surprisingly, we found higher rates of reported problems among the children whose veteran parents had war-related PTSD. There was a sig- nifi cant diff erence.” According to the American Acad-
emy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, a parent’s PTS can infl uence a child in numerous ways, depending on age and other factors. The three most typical patterns among children are the overidentifi ed child, who expe- riences secondary traumatization and might experience some of the same symptoms as the veteran parent; the rescuer, who assumes the adult role to compensate for the parent’s diffi culties; and the emotionally uninvolved child, who receives little emotional support from the parent. These children are more prone to
depression, anxiety, and diffi culties at school. How parents express symptoms of PTS can infl uence the relationship they have with their children, notes Dr. Paula Schnurr, a psychologist and executive director of the National Center for PTSD. “One of the symptoms of PTSD is feeling numb or cut off from the world,” Schnurr explains. “The ex- tent to which that is communicated to a child can have the particularly negative eff ect of distancing the child from the parent. The child may feel unloved or less connected to the par- ent in that circumstance. And that is children across all age ranges.”
However, people vary in the extent to which they feel numbing or how they communicate, Schnurr adds. “I’ve had clinicians tell me about
parents who can communicate with their children but not anyone else,” Schnurr says. “Their children touch them diff erently. So it’s not a fore- gone conclusion that someone who comes back with numbing is going to be unable to communicate love or have feelings for a child.”
Consequences of anger Another common problem is anger, Schnurr notes. “Fortunately, many people with PTSD don’t display sig- nifi cantly angry behaviors, but if they do, I think there are obvious problems that can emerge,” she reports. “In extreme cases, anger can really chal- lenge the parent/child relationship.” Young people can respond to a par-
ent’s PTS symptoms in a wide variety of ways, experts report. Among tod- dlers, this might include regression, such as when a toilet-trained child suddenly refuses to use the toilet, or engaging in frequent tantrums. Older children might engage in potentially dangerous behaviors, such as getting into fi ghts, participating in risky ac- tivities, or using alcohol or drugs. “Some children really try to
behave,” says Schnurr. “They over- attribute their ability to control the situation, so they stay out of mom or dad’s way or try to prevent mom or dad from getting angry. They may also remove themselves from the situation. Children may also act out because they are angry themselves. In more extreme cases, they may have trouble with school work and general acting-out behavior.” Living in a household with an emo- tionally distraught parent can have an adverse eff ect on a child’s overall quality of life, observes Fairbank. Sometimes the eff ects are indirect. For example, a child might do poorly in school because he or she is kept awake
Related Resources
Why Is Dad So Mad? (Tall Tale Press, 2015) by 1st Sgt. Seth Kastle, USA (Ret)
FOCUS: Family Resilience Training for Military Families (
www.focusproject.org)
Free guides for supporting children from military families (for parents, teachers, and oth- ers) from Teachers College Press (
www.tcpress.com/militaryfami liesoffer.html)
Parenting for Servicemembers and Veterans free online course (
www.veterantraining.va.gov/ parenting)
The Coffin (War Writers’ Cam- paign Inc., 2015) by Jason Miller
at night by the aff ected parent’s pac- ing or because the child is concerned about the parent and can’t concen- trate. Similarly, if a parent is frequent- ly angry or irritable, the child might be reluctant to invite friends over to visit, resulting in social isolation. “There are lots of ways these things can aff ect children’s functioning within the fam- ily, within school, and with peers and friends,” confi rms Fairbank.
Longitudinal analysis In an eff ort to better understand how PTS aff ects young people in child- hood and later in life, Fairbank is working with the Millennium Cohort Family Study, which has collected information from nearly 10,000 mili- tary families, including active duty servicemembers and veterans. “The Millennium Cohort Family Study is specifi cally designed as a
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