To think children did not used to get support for traumatic events?

[julieca]

This is just something I was talking about with DP. Looking back there were some difficult times. A boy in my class in secondary died of cancer. DP saw a friends brother die in front of him of a sudden asthma attack when he was 8 years old. A close friends father died when she was 15 of a sudden heart attack.
Although parents tried to support us, there was no formal support at all. No school counselling, no group support exercises, nothing. I don't know if this is the best approach or not, but surely these days the school especially would be offering support?

sadly I have PTSD from events in my childhood including being sexually abused my best friend dying of leukaemia when I was 6 when that prognosis was more or less a death sentence due to lack of treatment then several family deaths etc. I went to a child guidance clinic who were not very helpful their treatment was at the age of 7 putting me on valium which was then classed as the wonder drug of the time, from then on I was in and out of the mental health system, long boring story but I have ended up with PTSD as mentioned BPD anxiety and depression, most of my adult life has been connected with mental health services which have deteriorated rapidly though in some way the way they would section at the drop of a hat does not seem to have changed. it may help talking things through as they happen but often that does not eliminate the effects some people will carry things through their whole life though the effect it has in the future depends not just on counselling but personality etc

When l was 15 a boy in my class died in an accident and l was completely shocked as up to then had thought that only old people died. I couldn't sleep and was quite bereft. We had no school help. Nowadays psychologists would be called in but at the end of the day nothing they could say could make it go away but having it acknowledged does seem to help.
When my dh was 14 a boy died in the actual school and one of the teachers laughed at him for crying. It was a boarding school and his parents weren't contacted or told. It definitely is a different situation now .

I think it has come a long way, which is great. How good it is is sadly dependent on the actual school. We went through and incredibly prolonged difficult period of time.

At the primary schools they were amazing. Head teacher took time to chat to my DSs not about what was going on necessarily, but just so that he knew they were there and cared - that helped him a huge amount. They checked in with me at all times to see if there was anything. Else they could or should do and I felt listened to and supported the whole time.

In high school DS didn't want the teachers to know what was going on so was given a card from support services that he could show to the teachers if he needed to leave the class without having to explain why he was leaving, or the teacher even commenting on it. He never used it, but knowing that he could helped him a LOT.

They also had available a unit where he could choose to do all his lessons with the support teacher's assistance if he couldn't face actually going into class, to keep him in school. None of the other parents even knew it existed but it was there, and used l, heavily on occasions, by children who needed it.

Compare that with someone I know from my childhood who had a suicide jumper from a multi story car park land a couple of meters in front of him, and covering him with blood etc, in the 80s. He used his school blazer to cover the body up until ambulance and police arrived. Apart from taking his name nothing was ever done re support for him. Not even to just talk it through with him to help him process it.

But... I think we can go too far sometimes. A teacher at infant school had lost her adult daughter in a hit and run. The parents were frantic as to how they could help their children cope with this. She was not someone they had ever met. A small school so they did know the teacher well. I remember telling my 6 year old DS about it. He had a really sad face and said "oh that's so sad. Poor Mrs x". Then turned around and asked if he could go and play such and such a game. As parents we were feeling OUR distress at the thought of losing a child. They children themselves weren't suffering a loss and apart from needing to be aware of why their teacher wasn't there, really it was too distant to them to have much of an impact.

I was at secondary school in the 2000's a boy in my year dies if a heart attack and we were told in assembly and there was a quiet place with someone to talk to for anyone upset for that week. We had something similar in place a few years ago when a student died too alongside all of the normal counselling going on.

I think in the past trauma and death was more normal and more accepted. Less H&S guidelines and more people working in the military means more accidents and death. Health services weren't as good and people had bigger families in poorer conditions which meant more death and DV was probably seen as normal and if something is normal I suppose there's no point in having counselling as nothings wrong by yesteryear standards.

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur but they can help point them in the right direction. if a child discloses something to a teacher the teacher then has to disclose that to the safe guarding lead who will decide what to do with it. There will be a clear pathway for the Childs needs. A teacher will absolutely not be too busy to do this.

No teacher I know would walk away from a child that has disclosed deep grief or other safeguarding issues. They may not be able to deal with them directly but they will trigger the support that they may need. Whether they get that support further down the line is an other issue.

For what its worth I think there should be qualified councillors in every secondary school, in which that is their sole role.

Yes I know they will point them in the right direction. I haven't said they won't.
My point was that teachers aren't counsellors. Although I obviously didn't make it clear that they can be first port of call as it were.

That's what's changed since I was a teen. My teachers knew I'd been bereaved. I was expected to be at school, on time and just get on with it. I was really struggling but no one told me where I could get support.

@Magicalwoodlands

I read an interview with a child psychologist where he stated that children who had undergone trauma needed, not more affection, but routines adhering to.

How true that is I’m not totally sure - he is the expert I suppose.

It is very much not true.

There’s no support now for many.

Domestic abuse and everything that goes with it what did we get???

A group for my autistic son that he absoloutly hated because it was around the corner from the house we had been forced to leave abd the social worker didn’t get autism (no surprises there, they never do) Nothing for me except for a family support worker coming around once a week telling me I needed to get my youngest into nursery and not to bother getting a carers assessment because the council had no money anyway so I’d be turned down even though my son was in receipt of DLA.

6 sessions of CBT

Begged for therap - none, for any of us

CAHNS told us to fuck off

GP wasn’t interested…

What support???????

@DDUW

“ A girl I went to school with was routinely punished for being upset after her mother had died. I remember a class trip to the churchyard to look at gravestones. The girl broke down in tears and the teacher shouted at her for making a fuss. We were about 9 and we all took our lead from the teacher. We all thought there must have been something mentally wrong with her for being upset about it.”

That’s really upset me. I hope that little girl got the help she needed when she grew up. That teacher sounds awful

@labazslovesliving so sorry to hear that

Just over 100 years ago, 700,000 British families were told by telegram that their son or father who had gone to fight in the war had been killed.

Those families of course included - typically - 3-4-5 even 8 children who had lost a father or sibling, often their beloved big brother who may have been as young as 17-18.

None of these millions of children, who must have numbered well over 2 million, were given any counselling, and nor were their mother or grannies, neighbours or best friends, nor were the sweethearts and fiancees of the dead youths.

In many cases no body was repatriated so no proper funeral, either.

(And a million young women had no man to marry because of the imbalance in the sexes.)

Things are moving on.

My nanas son died at 3 months old, in the 50s. They were offered any support. My mum (was about 4 at the time) still remembers being woken by her mother's screams while her dad came into her bedroom and told her not to come out and slammed the door. Her and her siblings were offered no support.

Around the same time My dad's school friend died. They weren't even informed in school. They knee because it was a fairly small village, so found out from their parents.

In the 90s, while at school, my brothers friend committed suicide. We were told in assembly. We were advised there would be people available to speak to. I have no idea what that looked like. Our parents weren't informed, I told mum when I went home. She knew the boys mother and didn't know.

About 10 years ago my dd (she was about 7) class mate died of cancer. They had trained counsellors available. Dd was upset but I wouldn't call it traumatised.

My ds is autistic and we opted to keep him home during lockdowns as the change in routine at school was upsetting him. A constant reminder of what was happening. The school were fantastic at providing practical support while I home schooled and worked full time. And when we went back they were great at supporting us on return. Not professional counselling needed. But they really pulled out all the stops to get home back in and in a settled way.

I do think having appropriate support is far better than what we had. I do also think it can be taken too far. Mainly, fueled by parents who think their kids recieving any bad news will leaving lasting damaging. Such as the example given above, where a teachers child died and parents want support for their kids.

We will all hear of people we know having bad things happen, treating it as though everytime a child hears these things they need masses counselling and support, as a given.

I also think these parents don't really have a clue how sparse these services can be.

I was sexually abused by my grandad and then had a really traumatic court case where I was a
witness he was found not guilty. My parents turned down SS offer of counselling because we didn't need it, then refused to speak of the whole thing ever again.

When I was 13 a boy I was friends with killed himself. No support, business as usual the next day.

When I was 14 I took an overdose, went to hospital, luckily I was ok and off I went back to school the next day. Not sure if school ever even got told.

When I was 16 I told my mum I was depressed. I took myself off to the doctors who prescribed me 25mg of sertraline and told there was a long wait for therapy so he wasn't going to refer me.

I think most of that would be handled very differently these days, the 90s were a trip.

Our grandparents were emotional wrecks and parents are traumatised. Our great grandparents were traumatised from war. You can trace my grandfather's peadophilia back to my great grandads wartime trauma, my father in turn was emotionally neglected.. This is the legacy toolkit I was given to parent my own children.

We are a nation that stoically embraces echo trauma, and we wonder why our kids are fucked up and cling to the easy validation of social media likes.

I personally think it is going OTT now each child is different and requires different interventions which the parents best placed to decide if and what their child needs. Is it any wonder mental health services is on its knees with every time something happens we immediately look for something to be wrong.

It’s a tricky one.
DH’s best friend died in front of him on the football pitch when DH was 10 and no one ever mentioned this boy again. This was in the 1960’s.
It seems very harsh and yet we didn’t have the tsunami of mental health problems we have now. So perhaps ‘not talking’ works for some people?

My Dad died when I was a child, there was no support, no counselling. For me, or my Mum. This was in the 80s.

I’ve never had any form of counselling over it. We were just expected to get on with it by everybody.

we didn’t have the tsunami of mental health problems we have now

Suppressed mental health problems still exist. How many people coped by hitting their wife? Or their kids? Or drinking too much?

In order to help a child deal with emotions, you have to be able to manage your own. This is really hard, but each generation is getting better at talking I think.

I agree it can be taken too far, but my kids come and say 'I'm sad' and I can listen.

I would like to point out though that mental health services for children are almost non-existent, they are so grotesquely underfunded. Even if your child expresses suicidal thoughts, the wait is really long - multiple years at times.

This is the reality of mental health support for young people - it is largely a mirage

mobile.twitter.com/Samfr/status/1448720072390942721

I agree with @Fairyliz. SOME people will need support, many many people prefer to deal with things themselves.
I was at school in the 90's and by todays standards things were brutal. Bullying was a part of daily life, a few students committed suicide, lots and lots of underage sex and drug taking etc.
My mother had an accident when I was 14 (very low survival rate but she did pull through) followed by my father's heart attack not long after. I was studying for my GCSE's at the time and heavily involved in the family business whilst they recovered. I don't recall any acknowledgement from school about what was happening in my personal life and I wouldn't have wanted any!
Not every child is traumatised by life and I do think too many parents of my generation have no idea how to instill any kind of mental resilience in their children (good example above where the teachers daughter died and parents were asking about support for their own children)
Children are far stronger mentally than a lot of parents give them credit for, I personally think in a lot of cases a loving supportive family will get them through a lot of lifes trauma. Maybe if some parents could just jump off the mental health bandwagon the children that actually need the support would be able to access it quickly enough for it to do them some good.

When I was 7, my teacher died in a car crash. My parents got a phone call and I will never forget the horror and grief I felt. The school did all sorts of 'support' activities, involving talking in groups and having children talk about how they felt or do small activities which were supposed to somehow help. The horror of those discussions turned me into a wreck, sobbing, and absolutely unable to function. My parents had to come pick me up from school and ended up having to keep me home from school until the discussions stopped, because I could not bear them. I remember thinking 'none of this brings back a person I loved who is dead; there is no point to it; people seem not to actually care; I can't even mention this person without being wracked by sobs; please don't make me share in this group who seem to be almost enjoying this'.

I think that group activities can be very deeply distressing at the wrong moment or for the wrong young child.

My parents were very sensitive to my pain, acknowledged and respected and didn't trivialise it.

I think support is a good thing & don't favour the brushing under the rug approach. Some older family members have had quite severe mental health problems & dependencies because of trauma from the past that wasn't dealt with & thats impacted their own dc.

The way children are viewed has changed rapidly and dramatically in recent years. Even in the 80s people would say 'children should be seen and not heard'. Now they are recognised as a vulnerable group. There is legislation just to protect them and recognise their small people rights. They are actually seen as people. So yanbu. I expect previously people would say little Jonny was too young to understand or whatever. Or simply not know what to say, so ended up saying nothing.

We are a nation that stoically embraces echo trauma, and we wonder why our kids are fucked up

It's not healthy

You would be surprised at how little is available to support people who lose a baby, whether miscarriage or stillborn. For a miscarriage, even if you end up hemorrhaging in hospital as I did, no one will check so much as check you for hours. I bled all over my clothes because i was put in an empty ward and left there for an hour with no sanitary pad and i couldnt get to the bathroom. I'd arrived by ambulance and DH was at home with our eldest.
A friend had a stillborn and got some immediate bereavement support in hospital for a couple of days then nothing once she got home.
Another friend lost one of a twin pregnancy close to term and the medical staff were really brusque about it, expected her to be happy one had survived and forget the other.

we didn’t have the tsunami of mental health problems we have now

Is that true? MH is more open & talked about but J would argue it always existed but was repressed.