Violence And Trauma In The Lives Of Children

Explains the neurological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of violence and trauma experienced by newborns, infants, children, and teenagers. Traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect children physically, mentally, and emotionally, sometimes with long-term health and behavioral effects. Abuse, neglect, exposure to community and domestic violence, and household dysfunction all have the potential to alter brain development and behavior, but few people are able to recognize or respond to trauma in children. Given the prevalence of childhood exposure to violence--with one in four children ages 5 to 15 living in households with only moderate levels of safety and nurturance and infants and children ages 0 to 3 comprising the highest percentage of those maltreated--it is imperative that students and professionals alike be able to identify types and consequences of violence and trauma. This book provides readers with the information they need in order to know how to detect and prevent ACEs and to help children who have lived through them. Explains the effects of a range of types of violence and trauma, including child abuse, sexual abuse, family violence, teen dating violence, loss of parent or caregiver, exposure to natural disaster, and more Addresses the impacts of violence and trauma during infancy and early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence Details mental health interventions to encourage resilience and posttraumatic growth Describes how public systems from schools to pediatric and obstetrical clinics to juvenile justice systems identify and work with children affected by violence and trauma

Explains the neurological, emotional, and behavioral impacts of violence and trauma experienced by newborns, infants, children, and teenagers. Traumatic events known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect children physically, mentally, and emotionally, sometimes with long-term health and behavioral effects. Abuse, neglect, exposure to community and domestic violence, and household dysfunction all have the potential to alter brain development and behavior, but few people are able to recognize or respond to trauma in children. Given the prevalence of childhood exposure to violence—with one in four children ages 5 to 15 living in households with only moderate levels of safety and nurturance and infants and children ages 0 to 3 comprising the highest percentage of those maltreated—it is imperative that students and professionals alike be able to identify types and consequences of violence and trauma. This book provides readers with the information they need in order to know how to detect and prevent ACEs and to help children who have lived through them.

...Kendall Johnson conveys great empathy and understanding of the problems, which have been prevented with wisdom and clarity.' Nursing Times

'I found this both remarkably informative (the book provides an excellent synthesis of current literature on child abuse research) and liberating when thinking about past and present clients. Briere has a special talent for making sense of the internal experience of child abuse survivors...An excellent book which should be on the bookshelf of counsellors or therapists working with adolescents or adults' - Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Journal of the British Association for Counselling and Psychothreapy This volume considers the unique and overlapping long-term effects of all major forms of child maltreatment. The author integrates information on seven types of child abuse and neglect - ranging from sexual and physical abuse to mistreatment by alcoholic or drug-addicted parents - and outlines the complex ways in which abuse impacts on later psychosocial functioning. Briere reframes traditional notions of psychopathology and describes treatment approaches to abuse-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, interpersonal dysfunction, self-destructive behaviour, impaired self-reference and borderline personality disorder.Child Abuse Trauma will be an invaluable resource for abuse specialists and for general therapists who want to understand the connection between many forms of psychological distress and the lasting impacts of child maltreatment.

"Childhood is ideally a time of safety, marked by freedom from the economic, sexual, and political demands that later become part of adult life. For many children, however, particularly those who live in our inner cities, childhood is increasingly a time of danger. The urban war zones of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington. D.C., are not unlike the war zones of Beirut, Belfast, and Mozambique. In both worlds, children grow up with firsthand knowledge of terror and violence. This book examines the threat to childhood development posed by living amid chronic community violence. It shows caregiving adults such as teachers, psychologists, social workers, and counselors how they can work together to help children while they are still children--before they become angry, aggressive adults." "Drawing on their extensive fieldwork in war zones around the world, the authors explore the link between a child's response to growing up in an atmosphere of violence and danger, and the social context established for that child by community and caregivers. They reveal the need for establishing predictable, structured, safe environments for children and they show how school-based programs, by providing children with the continuity and regularity that is otherwise lacking in their lives, can enhance children's natural resilience and help ameliorate some of the long-term developmental consequences of living in danger. In addition to providing firsthand accounts of how children growing up in an atmosphere of violence address their situations, the authors also examine the special concerns that relate to the training and support of teachers who deal not only with the violence in the lives of the children they teach, but also with their own personal safety and emotional response to their students' traumas."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This is an invaluable source for educating professionals and families about helping children regain security in times of trauma. Using a solutions-based interdisciplinary approach, this illustrated book explains how children react to specific types of trauma and how to work with a traumatized child. The nationwide movement toward School Crisis Response Teams, the DSM-IV's new category for post-traumatic stress, and the use of EMDR for treatment are covered.

For the last ten years Betsy Groves has been working with children traumatized by witnessing violence. In this book she shows how children understand, respond to, and are affected by violence, especially domestic violence. Groves makes the powerful case that traumatic events carried out by family members carry the most severe psychological risks for very young children. She uses clinical case studies to show that being young does not protect against the lasting effects of witnessing violence, and she offers ways adults can help.