"The Hidden Trauma Plaguing American Kids"

The Hidden Trauma Plaguing American Kids

by Sam P.K. Collins at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/12/3602474/ptsd-low-income-children/

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While conversations about PTSD often focus on soldiers returning from combat zones, research in recent years have shown the development of symptoms in children who live in violent environments. More than 60 percent of children have been exposed to violence within the last year, either as a witness or learning about incidences of violence from family members and friends, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence. Adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 also face the risk of being physically assaulted by peers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies symptoms of PTSD as flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety and loss of trust in people. For children of color still reeling from the effects of crime, poverty, limited health care, and poor schools in their low-income neighborhoods, the mental disorder can take a toll on the mind.

One in three young urban dwellers who experience mild to severe forms of PTSD say that people may doubt the severity of what they see, especially if they live in high-crime, high-poverty areas. But D.C.-based psychotherapist Lanada Williams argues that constant exposure to even the smallest incidences of violence — whether it’s physical, sexual, or verbal — can spur the development of mental ailments in children, especially in cases where school officials misinterpret cries for help as acts of delinquency.

“When children of color act up, we don’t try to get to the meat of what’s affecting that child. Instead, we adjudicate them and move them through the system,” Williams, also CEO of Alliance Family Solutions, a private counseling practice, told ThinkProgress. “People don’t realize those experiences affect children psychologically. Evidence of this might be when a child does not want to walk down particular streets. Another externalizing behavior is acting out and being destructive in school, often cursing out teachers and bullying others.”


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