PTSD in children and its effect. Causes of PTSD. Research Paper

PTSD in Children and Its Effect
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PTSD in Children and Its Effect
Introduction
Most people react with feelings of fear or sadness when faced with traumatic situations. Usually, there are a number of people that develop PTSD after undergoing a terrifying event. The people who develop PTSD continue experiencing fear and worry after the event has already passed. The natural reaction of the body when faced with danger is fear. The body either gets ready to defend itself from the danger or to flee. Fight or flight response is a normal physical reaction. However, for people struggling with PTSD, the fight or flight response is somehow damaged or changed. That is why they feel frightened and stressed even when they are not in danger. PTSD is a mental health problem that can affect people at any age. A person can experience persistent memories of an ordeal that happened. In other cases, the traumatic events can take a period of over six months without manifestation. However, when PTSD occurs before long after an event, the condition improves after a period of three months. Some people suffering from PTSD experience long term effects and feel emotionally and chronically numb. A child suffering from PTSD tends to experience persistent and scary thoughts of past memories. In children, PTSD becomes a chronic disorder. The essay discusses PTSD in children and its effects.
Causes of PTSD
There are several factors that cause PTSD in a child. PTSD can be triggered by events that happened in the life of a child. The event can happen to the child, someone close to the child or something the child saw (Sonis, 2012).Incidents such as bad accidents, critical medical procedures or animal bites are some of the causes of PTSD. Tragedies such as bomb blasts, sexual assault and emotional abuse can also cause PTSD in both children and teenagers. To add on, violent personal attacks like kidnapping or torture can trigger anxiety and depression and eventually lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Children at Risk of Getting PTSD (Risk and Resiliency Factors)
All children are at risk of suffering from PTSD. However, there are certain factors that can determine whether a child is likely to suffer from PTSD. For example, how bad the event was and the ability of the child to recover from difficult moments in their lives means a lot. Family support is also important in reducing the risk of getting PTSD (Sandica, 2014).In most cases, the number of times the tragic event has happened determines a lot. For instance, if sexual assault has happened more than once, it might be hard for a child to recover from the situation. This is because they keep anticipating of the same to happen every day.
Risk factors increase the prospects of a person suffering from PTSD. On the other hand, resiliency factors reduce the threat of developing the disorder. Both risk and resiliency factors play a role in the development of PTSD. Some of the risk factors include the family history on mental illnesses and exposure to extreme violence (Sandica, 2014).Neglect and experiencing the death of someone who met their emotional needs can trigger PTSD. Children rely on adults to provide for their needs. These resources develop the resiliency factors. Chi...