Traumatic event, my child won't talk about it

[Rosemary1981]

We were at a friends house last week and her husband had a major heart attack.

Unfortunately the children saw it all, thankfully he is in hospital doing well but not quite out the woods yet.

We are doing all we can to be supportive, and offering practical help with shopping, and meals ect, as well as emotional support to them all.

Unfortunately my own child won't talk about it, child is under 8 and just keeps saying "I'm fine".

I am still very shaken up about it myself, so I can't imagine what it must have all looked like for a child. I am worried.

We are all very close friends, I asked my child if they wanted to make a get well card, in a hope they might have questions or to open up a conversation but they said they didn't want to.

This is very unusual for my child. I'm not sure what I'm looking for here. I guess I just need to hold on a little and keep a very close eye, I feel like they are in shock and have shut down.

Has anyone been through similar and can offer advice thank you

I'd give space and time for chats, but if they don't arise that's ok. Visit him once he's doing well again will help. If you're worried longer term, play therapy may help, but perhaps he wasn't as affected as you think.

At under 8, I can well imagine it is very black and white for them. The person got poorly, went to hospital and are now ok. They may well 'be fine'. I'd leave them to it and let them come to you if needs be. But keep making a lot out of it won't help, especially if they have just taken it in their stride. Children are very resilient.

Is it possible that it isn't is traumatic for your child as it was for the adults?

They saw someone be unwell, go to hospital and now they are better.

Their world and understanding is very different.

If if helps, when I was 9 I witnessed my own father drop to the floor and have a major seizure, and I was also fine as soon as I knew he was alive and doing well.

The last thing I’d have wanted would be people trying to get me to keep talking about it, really. Yes it was frightening and awful while it was happening, but I didn’t want or need to dwell on it once he was recovered.

I think some people - both kids and adults - do just prefer to process most of their feelings quietly by themselves. The important thing is that your child knows they can talk to you if they want to. So I wouldn’t push it and I wouldn’t worry about it. If they want to talk, they’ll do it when they’re ready, and if they don’t, that’s fine.

OP honestly they might not be traumatised by what they witnessed so please don't try and talk them into having trauma they don't have.

As others have said I would give space, but don’t not talk about it if that makes sense. So don’t be asking the child if they are ok and want to talk, but also don’t think you have to go off in a room/make sure your child is not around when you mention the incident/other person. Have plenty of time with them 1:1 (like bedtime etc).

I would tell school so they are aware. Often with children if there is a problem there will be a behaviour change if they are actually anxious (wet bed, start being aggressive in school).

Your child may just be fine. We all react differently to things. I am sure we are all aware of importance of discussing (and that is different to my parents generation where nothing was talked about (but you knew there was a problem), but also sometime people can just process on their own.

I agree with the above. The child's knowledge of what could have happened is limited they only know that the man is OK now. Leave it unless they ask questions themselves and make sure you visit when the person is well enough.

My DS, 10 at the time, was at home alone with DH when he had a heart attack.

DD (then 8) and I got home, and so she saw it it too - they were very upset when the ambulance was arriving and he was taken away, but completely fine once we got to the hospital and saw that he was being looked after, and then when he was better post key-hole surgery.

I wouldn’t push it with your child too much - don’t make an even bigger deal out of it.

Just keep a watchful eye, but more than likely, they have processed it and moved on.

I think because you were there with them they probably felt concerned at the time, but protected. It might have been different if it happened on a playdate when you weren't there.
If the person is OK now, they might not be as upset.
I'm sure they will talk about it when they are ready.

She's probably fine as she knows he is OK. I saw my grandad have a stroke and my nan having 2 strokes. Kids are very black and white. I think If it was effecting her, you would know. Either behaviour changes, emotional, or withdrawn etc.

Maybe he IS actually fine.
He probably didn't understand how serious it actually was. He knows now that the patient is recovering and that's good.
Don't try pushing him to be traumatised when he isn't

At 9 I'm not sure I agree with the above comments that your child wouldn't have a nuanced understanding of what happened and the possible outcomes. Mine certainly would have. I guess it depends on the child and I do agree some children would be more traumatised than others by something like this. I'd be surprised if they just brushed it off and never thought about it again though.

But processing trauma is very different in children to adults. It comes out at times and in ways that can seem random to adults. E.g. bed wetting, or starting to talk about it out of the blue at school. You just have to wait and see and deal with it when it comes. Keep the lines of communication open and make it clear they can talk to you at any time, then leave it.

Some good advise on here.
My children had a very traumatic experience and although they did talk about it a lot and ask a lot of questions in the aftermath, they don’t mention it now. I on the other hand think about it quite regularly. I do remind them that if they ever think about it they can always speak to me, but they have said it’s me that reminded them and they don’t give much thought now.
So, as long as the communication channels are open and they know this, then they may not be as traumatised as you think.

When I was 8 my teacher dropped down dead in the classroom, or so we thought at the time, he had actually just fainted and turned out that it was the start of a leukemia journey, we never seen him again and all assumed he was dead!

Some kids were screaming but others including me just left the grown ups to deal with it and got on with our day.

Your child is probably not as affected as adults will be, I would suggest business as usual if they aren't giving cause for concern.

Yep. My Granddad had a heart attack in front of me when I was about the same age.

I calmly flicked to the page of my Brownies guide book on first aid. Gave him some aspirin while my Nan called the ambulance.

Didn't feel shaken by it at all. Often younger children can be a bit more like animals - they tend to live in the present moment.

You're shaken because you're relating it to 'what ifs' and perhaps people in your own life and how short life can be, how it can change in a blink of an eye, how his wife/children would be now if it had been fatal. None of that is in the 'present moment' and so probably isn't crossing his mind.

IMO one of the reasons teenage years are often so emotionally raw is that it's when our brain starts to live outside the present moment more so we have an adjustment period of ruminating on past mistakes and being anxious about the future because we didn't experience those kind of thoughts and feelings before then.

My kid (6) has experienced a number of losses - we lost three grandparents in a relatively short space of time. At the time of each she seemed fine. It's come out in bits and bobs over time. There hasn't been a major breakdown or reaction but moments of sadness. Sometimes with me, sometimes at school. I would tip school off, and be open to talking about it if your kid brings it up, but I wouldn't force it. Watch and wait sounds right!

something similar happened with my (then 6 year old) dc. There was a gang related stabbing outside our house and dc saw the aftermath as we arrived just after it had happened on the way home from school, There was blood all over the pavement, splattered up the walls and he saw the victim being put into the ambulance. It was very traumatic and as soon as we realised what was happening i turned dc away so he didn’t keep watching. Dc saw the knife which had been left.

it took him a while to talk about it and I just told him I’m here when he’s ready and eventually we spoke and I answered all his questions honestly. He’s luckily not suffered any long term trauma from it. We speak very openly which is important in these situations.

just reassure dc that your there whenever they are ready to talk but don’t push. Glad the person is recovering

Might not be a 'big thing' to such a small child. They probably are wondering if it should be, with the way you're acting.

I think that it’s important to be led by your child. Don’t place any expectations of how she should and shouldn’t react. She might be fine but not in a few months. She might not be fine but not want to talk about it yet.

Don’t hide your feelings about your experience, it won’t hurt her to know that Mummy was scared.

As others have said, children take it more at face value than adults. Adult got ill, ambulance arrived, adult went to hospital, adult getting treatment. They don't understand the wider implications of the illness.

My DS grew up seeing his DSis having many prolonged seizures and being carted off to the hospital on a blue light. On a few occasions he had to come with us in the ambulance as no-one around to have him - so he also witnessed the emergency care in resus! He has never been traumatised by it. One of the neighbour's DCs once remarked 'oh look, there's little lottery's ambulance ' to his parent and then carried on playing.

I agree with others your child may not be traumatised by it at all....for some it's quite matter of fact - person was ill, ambulance came, person in hospital, person gets better. Children don't think through all of the ramifications and the what ifs that we do.

I don't think you need to keep asking, just keep it light, and respond factually if your child has questions.

Just as an interesting point it's also why childhood trauma is so damaging in adulthood.

Children aren't able to process things that happen to them in the same way and so any significant trauma gets stored in the subconscious / a different area of the brain.

I believe there are MRI scans that show that childhood memories are stored in a different structure/area but would have to look this up to confirm.

The prevailing theory is that it's more 'embedded' in the subconscious and influences much more of our mental health, behaviour and thinking patterns than going through a similar level of trauma would as an adult.

It's also harder to treat and (usually) requires a fair amount of therapy - because being subconscious there's a serious amount of work to even become aware of how it's impacted you, let alone to change it.

(By trauma here I mean more significant trauma than this incident and usually things related to primary caregivers as that's what is important to children far beyond anything else).

My ex saw similar at that age. It made him decide to become a doctor.
She might be fine, she might need some time to process.

Give them a while to process. Our beloved pet died at the beginning of December and our almost 8 year old didn't want to talk about it and kept asking me why I was crying. They have now broken down a few times over the loss and last night were very upset. I think they just need a wee while to process it themselves and when they are ready the floodgates open.

I'd just clarify that children are more likely to be traumatised by the kind of illness / injury we're talking about in this thread if it happens to their parents (or other primary caregiver).

Primary caregivers are so central to the identify and psychological safety of children that frankly a lot could happen to other people, even siblings, without it being felt as a major trauma but things that impact their parents or their relationship with their parents have a significantly amplified impact.

That's why, for example, if a child has a sibling with a serious illness and they happen to grow up with some mental health issues as a result, it will usually be because they felt less important / less of a priority to their parents than the ill sibling as opposed to any kind of trauma from witnessing the sibling's illness/treatment.

It seems quite self-absorbed on the face of it but it's because we're so strongly wired as children that our survival depends on our bond with our parents.

See also; why any form of abandonment, any perceived emotional neglect/harsh criticism, etc by parents can lead to quite significant and long lasting mental health impacts which can (sometimes) seem out of proportion with the severity the adults at that time feel it should have.