I ran across a very good article, or at least part of it, in the November/December 2007 issue of Fostering Families Today magazine. Part of the story is missing because I tore out another story about a friend and mailed it to her.

The article is about the impact of a traumatized child on a family. We often talk about trauma’s impact on a child, but bringing that traumatized child into a family will have repercussions, no matter what the family dynamic is.

This was a consideration in our family recently. Someone had asked me to do respite for a little girl very close in age to my own Hannah. I have been working with this family for several years and this little girl is severe on the attachment spectrum. For this reason, I could not bring this child into my home. I knew that the impact on Hannah would be devastating. While she would love to have a sister to play with, this little girl would not be that kind of child. She rages, hits, kicks, bites, would terrorize our animals and so on. Hannah would have major regressions over bringing this child into our home, and I was not willing to do that to her.

That is part of trauma. It doesn’t just affect the traumatized person. Everyone within the family unit feels it. Other children can be fearful of the child, parents can become stressed, frustrated, and exhausted. Other times the other members of the family may be physically traumatized after suffering injuries in various forms at the hands of the child. Continually being around a traumatized child can cause Secondary Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Just as the child is a victim of PTSD by being on alert around their abuser, the other members of the family begin to be on alert as well. It may be because of a child’s violent outbursts, physical attacks, your possessions not being “safe”, seeing parents or another child being physically or emotionally hurt, being unable to leave the house and get a break or various other forms of trauma and abuse.

It is important that everyone in the house take care of themselves physically and emotionally. Avoid anyone else becoming a victim if at all possible.



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