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Frontlist | Must read novels shedding light on childhood trauma

Frontlist | Must read novels shedding light on childhood trauma
on Jan 14, 2021

When we look back at the impact on children of the disturbing events of 2020 many adults will say, “ They were so young when it happened; they probably won’t even remember it in the future.” But, the reality is that childhood trauma can have a lifelong impact. While kids are often resilient, they are not as impervious to emotional harm as we might wish.

So what kind of experiences qualify as childhood trauma? Childhood trauma refers to a scary, dangerous, violent, or life-threatening event that happens to a child between the ages of 0-18 years. This type of event may not even happen directly to the child, but the child is affected by seeing or hearing about someone they love or simply know who is hurt, injured, or dies. But if there is any silver lining, it is important to know that each child interprets their unique experiences differently, and a life event that is traumatic for one child might not be traumatic for another.

Many of the traumatic events we are talking about are obvious such as physical or sexual abuse, natural disasters, acts of terrorism, cyberbullying, violence, fires and car accidents. While those listed above are easily identifiable as traumatic, other events might be less obvious when thinking about the potential for traumatic impact. For example, families may be forced to move due to job changes, divorce, household substance abuse, financial hardship, military involvement, or even discrimination. While these are common events in family life, they too could have a lasting traumatic impact.

So how is a parent to know and recognize when a child is struggling with trauma? When traumatic stress symptoms develop they can show up either immediately or even weeks or months later, as your child attempts to manage negative emotions like fear and anxiety in response to memories of the event. Some degree of stress helps children’s brains to grow and new skills to develop. However, by definition trauma has occurred when a stressful experience overwhelms the child’s ability to cope. Parents may observe changes in their child’s behavior such as acting younger, clinging, becoming irritable, withdrawn, or extremely upset following a small bump or bruise, fearing for their own or other’s safety, or becoming obsessed with death. Middle and high school children may act depressed, develop sleep disturbances, insist on being alone, take increased sexual or physical risks, insist they have no feelings about the event, or verbalize that they feel like they are going crazy.

Childhood trauma can have long-term negative effects on a child’s physical and emotional health. But there is positive news. Parental understanding, recognition of symptoms, consistent validation of feelings, and providing psychological help can help your child heal and even thrive.

The three novels below are important and timely reminders of both the heartbreaking impact of childhood trauma and the surprising resilience that can reside within.

“The Children’s Blizzard” by Melanie Benjamin is an extraordinarily powerful and breathtaking look at the devastating tragedy of the 1888 blizzard that cut across the Dakota and Nebraska territories.

The morning of Jan 12th, 1888 actually started out a bit mild, and the residents of the Dakotas, Minnesota and Nebraska went about life as they often did. Children walked to their one-room schoolhouses and parents tended to their farms. There was no indication of the brutal cold front and the monstrous snowstorm that would take hundreds of lives in the hours ahead. Two young first-generation Norwegian American sisters, Gerda, and Raina Olsen are in charge of two separate schoolhouses as the dark clouds descend. These young women make two very different choices that will forever impact the lives of both their young students and themselves.

“Only Child: A Novel” by Rhiannon Navin is a poignant and intensely intimate glimpse into the heart and mind of a boy and his parents as they struggle with the grief and anger of a school shooting.

Zach is 6 years old and is struggling mightily with the scary memories of the school shooting that took the life of his 10-year-old brother, Andy. With much pain and much wisdom, Zach shares his childlike reflections of grief, abandonment, regret and even anger at Andy for having been mean to him a lot. Zach shows us there is no going around the pain, but he offers a fresh voice and a 6-year-old’s heartfelt plan to get the family through their darkest hour.

“The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell” by Robert Dugoni is an inspiring, sensitive, and compelling account of a young boy’s journey into manhood as he struggles with life’s unfairness.

Sam Hill is born with ocular albinism, which produces red pupils. He is nicknamed “Devil Boy” by most of his peers at Catholic school and regularly abused and beaten up by age 6. But his mother tells Sam that it is “God’s will” and he will do extraordinary things. Her words provide little comfort, but he perseveres and makes friends with two other outcast classmates. One boy is black and the other is a girl with a difficult home life. By the time Sam is 40, he has worked hard and become a small-town eye doctor but the question remains whether he will ever find his place in the world and some true measure of happiness.

Source: The Patriot Ledger