Trauma & Your Child

In this short video, Kelly explains how children process trauma and how play therapy can help your child gain an understanding about what happened to them and work through their experience. Key takeaways: 

  • Trauma affects people differently
    • Two people can experience the same traumatic event completely differently with different reactions, processes and experiences
  • Trauma comes in through the senses 
    • The felt experience in the body; example: stomach tightening, the smells or textures, visual overwhelm
  • Play allows children to process and explore their experience of the traumatic event(s)
    • Adults typically get to process and recount their story over and over, providing different reflections of their account of the story and other's reflection of the story
    • Children don't usually get this opportunity; children process the themes of the overwhelm through play to gain a sense of control and understanding about what happened to them

If you are looking for more information about how you can help your child process their trauma, please contact us at info@playtherapyconnection.com and we can connect you to the right resources for your family!