The core concept that is relevant to Geraldine is the danger and safety are core concerns in the lives of traumatized children. Geraldine experienced various signs and symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a skewed sense of safety. After her mother’s murder, Geraldine became triggered and frightened severely at night, became increasingly anxious, and was constantly triggered by the events from that night. Specific things would trigger Geraldine and she began to lash out in aggressive behavior at school and had difficulty focusing in class. As said in the core concept, Geraldine’s exposure to trauma made it more difficult for her to distinguish between safe and unsafe situations, and it lead to more risk-taking behavior. She would …show more content…
Risk factors can hinder a person’s growth, confidence, and likeliness to become resilient. Several risk factors are present in Geraldine’s life such as: violence at school, repeated cycle of domestic violence in her family, and the instability and drastic changes that took place after her mother’s murder. The biggest correlation between the core concepts and Geraldine’s risk factors comes down to her safety and stability. There is already a decline in her behavior at school, her academic success, and her mental health. Lehmann (2000) concludes the article by emphasizing how children who witness violent assaults of their mothers continue to be a potential at-risk population due to exhibiting symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Due to the many years that Geraldine witnessed the domestic violence in her household serves as a major risk factor. As the core concept described, children’s traumatic experiences can undermine children’s sense of protection and safety and magnify their concerns about danger. Geraldine must have been in constant fear for her mothers, sister, and her own safety. Since Geraldine recently lost her mother, she is also grieving her presence, relationship with her, and a sense of safety that she had with her. Geraldine did not appear to be frightened by her mother and showed signs of …show more content…
Geraldine did mention that there were a lot of fights happening at her school and that the neighborhood she is living with her grandmother is very different from where she was living previously. As mentioned in the core concept, children who continue to live in dangerous community circumstances may have greater difficulty recovering from a traumatic experience. This is a critical point because if she witnesses violence in her neighborhood or in school, it could trigger her to re-live her trauma each time. Since changing schools, the new school that she attends is overcapacity and underserved which leaves her with minimal resources and little attention. Many schools that are in a lower socioeconomic area don’t have the capacity to hire all the staff and assistance they need to better serve their students. Schools are a mezzo-level system that are extremely important but can hinder a student’s success if there is not a sense of safety or support. It appears that the new school Geraldine is attending is proving to be more of a risk factor for her because the only attention that she is getting from them is negative due to her aggressive behavior at school. She does not feel it is a safe or supportive environment for
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
The girl had been bullied by classmates before and after she was raped by the group that was terrorizing her. The fear never stopped for Cassidy, even after her mother, Linda Trevan, moved them from their home and switched her to a different school.
“We aren’t the weeds in the crack of life. We’re the strong, amazing flowers that found a way to grow in the challenging conditions.” (McElvaney, 1057) The book entitled “Spirit Unbroken: Abby’s Story,” offers a perspective on child abuse providing a positive outlook on a tragic situation. Even in the best of circumstances, however, victims of abuse can see the effects of the trauma for the rest of their life. For each individual person affected by this form of trauma, the reactions can vary. The same type of abuse in two different people can have very different outcomes – one could be that of coping, and the other a life of brokenness. Especially at impressionable ages, any form of abuse can be a hindrance in living a normal life. Children
Exposure to violence in the first years of life brings about helplessness and terror which can be attributed to the lack of protection received by the parent. The child can no longer trust their parent as a protector (Lieberman 2007). This lack of trust early in life can bring about serious problems later in life, as there is no resolution to the first psychosocial crisis, trust vs. mistrust. For these children exposed to domestic violence, the imaginary monsters that children perceive are not only symbolic representations or a dream. The monsters that children who witness domestic violence have to deal with carry the reflection of their parents. Children who witness domestic violence face a dilemma because the children’s parents are at their most frightening exactly when the child needs them the most. The security of the child is shatter...
Childhood Trauma is defined as “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.” (The National Institute of Mental Health). Childhood trauma is an epidemic that seems to be running its way throughout the world. Childhood trauma is a worldwide problem that can affect anyone and everyone. People tend to just try and help the problems that occur due to the childhood trauma, but not the problem itself. Many of these issues will also follow the child into their adult years and will cause negative effects. This paper will discuss the negative outcomes for a child who suffers from childhood trauma, and the negative outcomes that can follow them into adulthood.
In the essay "Overcoming Abuse - My Story", Shawna Platt talks about her childhood with her alcoholic parents and her struggles. She has experienced neglect, domestic, emotional and sexual abuse. She also talks about how she overcame all the abuse, the way the abuse effected her mental health, and how she broke the cycle with her children. While reading this essay, the one incident stood out the most was that her parents left Shawna alone with her newborn sister. At the time, Shawna was only ten years old.
When faced with a life altering situation although Molly’s characteristics and personality aid her in courageously defying them, the effects of facing this traumatic event will lead to long term psychological repercussions. When severe harm is inflicted on a person’s psyche, it is viewed as an emotional trauma (Levers, 2012). The emotional harm inflicted on Molly’s psyche originates from different dimensions; like her upbringing, her trauma is multidimensional too. As a child of the Indigenous community, whose ancestors and elders were killed violently in inter-group conflicts, and whose children were forcefully removed from families, Molly is would experience intergenerational trauma (Atkinson, 2002). Intergenerational trauma is trauma passed down from one generation to another; as a close knitted community group, the grief experienced by family members of losing their loved ones, would have been transferred across generations (Atkinson,
Jasmine Beckford’s case is the oldest out of the three; in 1984 Jasmine died as a result of long-term abuse aged 4. In 1981 her and her younger sister suffered serious injuries and were paced with foster carers for six months. After this they were allowed back home with their mother on a trial basis as social services were meant to support them. During the last ten months of Jasmine’s life she was only seen once by social workers (Corby, 2006).
Avery affected Jessica’s physical, social, environmental, and mental health. Jessica could be at home watching TV, when she would get an email or text. Those emails and texts would be filled with hateful words and comments. This would eventually affect Jessica’s mental health, in a way that she would be insecure about herself, thus resulting in bad behavior. In this case, she swallowed the pills, attempting suicide. Avery also attacked her physically. She would surround her in the bathroom stalls, with her friend group. She would push Jessica, trip her, and throw her books on the floor. She affected Jessica’s social health in a way that she would not want to go out or be seen, because people might insult her; so she was reserved. Jessica became desperate to find a way out and later committed something horrible. Jessica’s environment became like a safe haven hat protected her from the cruel, outside world. Jessica would rarely seem to do things she enjoyed because she had no positive outlook on life. She viewed her environment as something horrible, mainly because she wanted a way out. Her teachers even described her as more quiet, and this was all part of her newly affected environment, due to the
as Jennifer, a victim states, “I feel our childhood has been taken away from us and it has left a big hole in our lives.”
Childhood trauma can be from anything that makes a child feel helpless and disrupts their sense of safety and security, including: infidelity, alcoholism or abandonment. Beatrice could not escape her neglected past and Biff could not escape his father 's dreams and expectations. Both were traumatized. When a child is attacked by the person she/he counts on for nurturance it internally damages them. Since both Beatrices’ and Biffs’ parents lacked a balance for mature behavior, their children lacked skills in the real world and social
Lundy, M., & Grossman, S. F. (2005). The mental health and service needs of young children exposed to domestic violence: Supportive data. Families in Society, 86(1), 17-29. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230168631?accountid=10825
Social learning theory includes learning aggression by observing the behavior from a model (Bandura, 1977). Family violence has been a social problem for years that still continues to this day. Violence is defined multiple times throughout the years. Levesque (2001) defined violence with family as an "act of omission or commission resulting in physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect or other form of maltreatment that hamper individuals' healthy development" ( p. 17). The definition of trauma is an emotional pain that can be long-lasting (Abbassi & Aslinia, 2010). It has been shown that trauma, family violence, and children that pick up this kind of behavior are all related to each other (Abbassi & Aslinia, 2010). Children that observe violence are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, PTSD, and mood swings. They can become unstable when parents are not there or unreliable. They are also more likely to be violent to their home with their children.
When a child witnesses domestic abuse it can have many different effects on the child. From my research I found that one of the most common effects on the child were mental health problems. In one study, conducted in New Zealand, young people that reported high levels of exposure to inter-parental violence had elevated rates of mental health problems (Fergusson & Horwood, 1998, p.1). Some of the least severe mental health problems included anxiety, inability to focus, and nightmares (Brescoll & Graham-Bermann, 2000, p.2). But these problems, which appear to be less severe, can also be the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Brescoll & Graham-Bermann, 2000, p.2). In a study conducted in 2001 the results indicated that higher levels of symptoms indicative of post traumatic stress were associated with children who have witnessed domestic violence (Hill & Nabors & Reynolds & Wallace & Weist, 2001, p.1). ?Children who have witnessed domestic violence are more likely to develop symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; that is, high levels of an...
Trauma relates to a type of damage to the mind that comes from a severely distressing event. A traumatic event relates to an experience or repeating events that overwhelmingly precipitated in weeks, months, or decades as one tries to cope with the current situations that can cause negative consequences. People’s general reaction to these events includes intense fear, helplessness or horror. When children experience trauma, they show disorganized or agitative behavior. In addition, the trigger of traumas includes some of the following, harassment, embarrassment, abandonment, abusive relationships, rejection, co-dependence, and many others. Long-term exposure to these events, homelessness, and mild abuse general psychological