A traumatic experience is any event in life that causes a threat to our safety and potentially places our own life or the lives of others at risk. As a result, a person experiences high levels of emotional, psychological, and physical distress that temporarily disrupts their ability to function normally in day to day life.
Teenagers who experience a distressing or frightening event are often concerned by these strong emotions. Despite the fact that these reactions usually subside as a part of the body’s natural healing and recovery process, it is important for parents or carers to understand the ways in which a teenager manages distress and trauma so they can support and help the young person.Teenagers can also be deeply upset by local, national or international tragedies, or trauma that affects their friends. Your teenager will handle trauma differently to younger children or adults. A younger child depends directly on their family, whereas many teenagers look to their peer group for support. In order to help them, parents need to understand the ways in which teenagers manage distress.The transition from child to adult can be rocky. A teenager may lose the confidence they had as a child. Unlike a younger child, a teenager isn’t as dependent on their family. A younger child realises they couldn’t survive without their parents, whereas a teenager is more aware of their ability to make it ‘on their own’.For teenagers, friends and peer groups are very important. By comparing themselves with their friends, a teenager gets a sense of how ‘normal’ they are. Teenagers tend to seesaw between independence and insecurity after a distressing event. This sort of contradictory behaviour can be confusing to the teenager and to the parents trying to help them.