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?

People talk about mental health services for children "these days" like they have previously been better. I was 12 when my mum started getting sectioned repeatedly for overdosing. No one talked to me about that, no one told me what was happening, I just had to go and be looked after by my aunty miles and miles away, and then get bullied about it when I returned to school several months later.
When I was 14 I overdosed, cut myself, totally went off the rails. I didn't even go to the doctor's, my mum went on my behalf and the answer was to put me on valium and she refused (thank goodness). There was no further support offered. Support from school was that I was getting bullied due to my own faults and I had brought it upon myself. When I was skipping school, no one was interested in why, just in scaring me into going.
I think the help available to kids these days is amazing compared to what I got in the late 90's and 00's. Yes the waiting lists are long, but at least there is a waiting list.

Yadnbu
My mum's mum was murdered, she found her aged 7 in the garden. My grandfather was blamed for not protecting his wife and never spoke about her again so my Mum and siblings were not allowed to speak about her. She barely remembers her Mum. And though very loving has some emotional issues and is shit at being empathetic.

When I grew up in the 80s and 90s therapy was only for the rich and Americans.

I would say there has been professional psychological support for around 100 years, but you have to request it rather than being offered it. It’s the same nowadays.

A classmate of mine died when we were in second year of secondary school. We were having lunch, she said she didn't feel well, 2 of us took her to the school office and her parents were called. Sadly she died the next day.

Her parents requested that the school choir (which I was part of) sing at her funeral. Before setting off for the funeral, the deputy head threated us that if any of us cried we would be in her office and a whole heap of trouble when we got back to school. There was no compassion at all.

YANBU. When I was in 6th form (over 20 years ago) one of the other boys was killed in a really horrible way, I didn’t know him. I think there was suspicion it may have been murder, I wasn’t involved. But a lot of the other kids who did know him were really struggling with it, zero support was given. A fight broke out in the 6th form common room one day because of the tension & the teachers didn’t even care.

My dad dropped dead in front of me when I was 18. My brother was 10 and there was absolutely nothing. We were just left to get on with it. My mum didn't cope well and just fucked off and left us but we were still expected to just get on with it.

@HeyFloof thank you for sharing your experience of supporting your son through grief while in terrible pain yourself.

You have done so, so well and your son will grow up strong and able to express his emotions because of your guidance.

I'm so sorry you lost your baby

The babysitter is fine, we started 12/13 for neighbours.
My friend did receive support when a parent died from neighbours, school, church.
Thing's like sexual abuse were swept under the carpet, emotionally issues you were considered a wet blanket, advised toughen up wimp.
SEN wasn't obvious for a lot of children.
It was a harder time but I was much tougher and street wise at 13 than DD or most of her peers would be, they're 13 now.

Death varies hugely by culture as well, it does seem a very British thing to ignore it and even use silly language like “she passed away” or “we lost her”. In others death is very much talked about, in both a matter of fact way rather than sugar coating it and after a death in a supportive way, rather than the person essentially being deleted from the family.

Reading a lot of these, the thing missing isnt so much counselling but sitting with the child and explaining things in terms they understand, acknowledging their feelings about it and then showing a bit of ongoing compassion and awareness.
Thats not to say that counselling isnt needed for some people.

@KloppsTeeth

When my Dad died in 1994, I had just turned 17 and my brother was 15. We had absolutely no support or help whatsoever. Nothing was offered. School did nothing to help either of us. My mum had no support. It was very traumatic for us, yet there was no counselling or anything. Mental health knowledge has improved but is woefully underfunded and so things access to services probably is very poor, but there is the internet to look up support for that there wasn’t much info online back then either.

Mine died in 1986. Same. Nothing. He died on a Saturday and we were sent to school as normal on Monday. It just wasn't mentioned.

A school friend of mine died just after our GCSE's in the 90's the school had a book of condolence and a little ceremony where they planted a tree. Which helped me and if you wanted to talk to someone you could. It happened the same day Princess Diana died and I remember being irritatied that people were so sad about the death of a person they had never met.

When I was at high school in the early 1990’s a classmate died in an accident Sunday afternoon. All of our year of 86 students was called to an assembly and told. On hearing the news, 85 heads swivelled to look at the dead boy’s best friend, who was hearing the news for the first time. These boys were inseparable. The teachers knew this and it has always angered me that they didn’t pull him aside at the start and tell him privately.

In the 90s and 00s my younger DC lost their DF as a baby, first primary school teacher to cancer during the first year of school, and a good school friend to cancer in junior school.

The last loss was talked about in assembly but no support was offered that I’m aware of.

I’ve shared a lot of my childhood on here before. It was horrific and my brain has wiped lots of it.

My DM has BPD (back then it was manic depression) which was not helped by the fact she was literally given to the next door neighbour at 6 days old. She had many, many suicide attempts - serious attempts that often resulted in ICU stays.

At the age of 2/3 I found her hanging from the bannister of our house, over the years I have found her unconscious from overdoses, I have seen her attempt to chop her hand off with a meat cleaver. My dad left after my mum had an affair when I was 9.

In 1995 my brother was killed in a car crash, my DM’s MH took a serious turn for the worse. Her own GP actually stopped her getting sectioned more than once - stating ‘well she is grieving for her child’.

All through my childhood, my brothers death and subsequent court cases I had no help at all. Not one single person thought that this child who had witnessed things that no person should ever see, who was 15yrs old and grieving her 14yr old brother, who was supposed to be sitting her GCSE’s. Who felt abandoned by her dad - even though I saw him every other weekend (I also blamed him for not helping me) might need help.

At 25 I had a breakdown, I was given antidepressants and 6 sessions of counselling. I some how muddled through, met DH at 29 had DD1 at 31.

I had PND with DD1, again antidepressants. After DD2 was born I was sterilised then diagnosed with Adenomyosis had a hysterectomy at 33 unfortunately there were severe complications that left me with chronic pain and disabled.

My MH spiralled after this - I attempted suicide twice and hated myself because I didn’t want to turn into my mother, luckily to this day DD’s don’t know about this. I’ve been diagnosed with a whole host of MH issues, I have received so many hours of different therapies, had god knows how many prescriptions for antidepressants.

I’m the most stable I have been for many, many years but it’s a bloody fight within myself every single day. And I can only hope that I can continue to live like this.

Now, would help back then of helped, yes it would, would it have changed anything who knows. But I hand on heart will never be able to understand how the whole host of people that I came into contact with, including my dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers etc could stand by knowing everything I had witnessed without thinking I might need some help of any description.

A boy at DD's school was murdered by hs father 7 years ago. It was massive news at the time. The school did loads to support the other pupils. The safeguarding governor (an ex nurse with bags of empathy) went in to be available for any pupil who wanted to talk about it.

I often think of the evacuee children during WW2. Must have been traumatic, but they didn’t get much support.

My dad died when I was 6. Mid 80s. Like others, I was left to get on with it. I asked my mother about it 10 years ago and she just said no one though children needed counselling at the time.

It's totally fucked me up. Damaged the family (none of us have dealt with it). I've never had a 'proper' relationship and this is at the heart of it. I've also be suicidal in the past. I can't help but think that intervention at n early age might have mitigated at least some of the above.

We didn't have autism or adhd back then either, we just had the naughty kid.

Things are not the same

I got counselling in the 1970's when my dad died. It didn't do much good though.

When I was 12 a boy in town died by suicide. I didn't know him but my friends and cousins did. I was in the group that heard about his death from the boy who found him (not from an adult). We went to his funeral. I wrote a story about it in school. The only comment made was that I hadn't put a title on the story.

Same school, a girl in my class killed a man she worked for at the age of about 15. (It was she who did it, but she was coerced by a third party.) This was NEVER spoken about, by my parents, by the school. Nobody. She never came back to school. I don't know what happened to her. (There was a court case and I believe she was found guilty, but as she had been coerced, I don't know what her sentence was, if any.)

These events took place 25-30 years ago.

Zero mental health support.

@HeyFloof

We lost our baby last year late, under traumatic circumstances. In the fog of grief and horror I was absolutely aware that I needed to be present, capable, loving and constant for my almost 4 year old.

I have had bereavement training/experience before so knew (sort of) how to explain what was happening to him so that he could process it in a safe and age appropriate way.

As the year has gone on, he has discussed his baby sibling at least once a week, brings him up as part of his family tree at school and is confident in explaining to other people that "it's sad that our baby went to heaven but he was born too early and was too poorly to stay." He knows his heart stopped beating, that it was nothing to do with "falling asleep" and that dying is something that usually happens when you are old and have lived a happy, long life. He knows that he isn't going to die soon, but when he is an old man.

My DH's response would have been to tell him very little, probably nothing and just say that there was no baby any more. He isn't good at dealing with any kind of grief himself, so I can't imagine he'd have been any good at explaining this particular death to DS without causing confusion or upset. Dh worries that DS will be "the weird kid who talks about his dead brother" if we discuss it at home and he's comfortable talking about it. I could see that doing more emotional damage than dealing with it openly because then it becomes mysterious, the unknown and potentially scary.

Thank you on behalf of your son.

I’ve had so much pain from your DH’s approach being taken. Yours is much healthier.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

One of my school friends was killed in a car crash during our A level exams. My friend was driving with several others from school (they were in another car which didn't crash) and they were with him when he died. This was around 5pm. They sat an A level exam the next morning at 9am.

I can't believe that now looking back. A large group of us had an exam a few days later on life after death. We expected the school would flag up the circumstances to the exam board but they never did. We had a bit of emotional support from teachers in terms of a memorial assembly and to come and talk to them if we were struggling. No counsellors or anything like that.

This was 14 years ago.

Praying for all those affected xx