Kudos: Truthfully Explaining Difficulties for Post-Traumatized Children

From time to time, REFORM Talk will offer our kudos to particularly insightful blog posts. This post is from Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and discusses children’s behavior post-trauma and how they will not be able to just begin acting normal. It is geared towards US foster care, but it completely applies to any traumatized adoptee-international or domestic-as well. All PAPs need to assume that their child has experienced trauma and frankly stranger-adoption itself should be considered a trauma.

The take-home line for me is “”It is a very rare child that can walk  from traumatic abuse into a classroom and just “be normal”. The biology of trauma means physiological change happens. Before a human  being can proceed to the next level of growth, like sitting for 8 hours a day in a classroom & passively soaking in lesson after lesson while interacting normally with other children, adults, and figures of authority, real healing needs to happen.”

I think all PAPs and APs need to reflect on this definition and subsequent behavior: ” The World Health Organization defines torture as “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”. “Abused children react is tortured ways.”

Orphanage life qualifies for this definition.

Read the whole piece at Everything Seems To Be Wrong With Them; The Other America

[Invisible Children.org 9/3/12 by Mike Tikkanen]