Dr. Maneet Bhatia, Clinical Psychologist, discussed helpful tips on how to help your children process events that may be traumatic in an interview with City News. You can watch the interview here or read the transcript below:
Interviewer 1:
When things like this happen, what can you see happening with kids?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Well, that’s a very good question. I think depending on their age, it can make them feel overwhelmed, feel anxious, feel a bit scared, and uncertain about their safety. For example, kids that are at the preschool level, a young age, you might see difficulties with sleep. You might see them not want to leave their parents’ side when they go to school. They don’t want to be separated from them. You notice when it comes to playtime, they don’t want to go outside and venture out. They might be feeling a little bit uncertain about the situation and their safety’s at risk.
Interviewer 1:
What can parents do then if that’s all happening because of terrible situations like this and kids are feeling anxiety? What should parents do and how can they talk to their kids about that?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Yeah. I think the first thing is showing them that you love them and you give affirmations of love and support and care and that they know that you’re there for them, whether it’s a hug, whether it’s affirmations.
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
The other piece is teaching them through your own behavior. So you yourself remain calm. You don’t demonstrate overreactions or anxiety yourself.
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
You also keep them in their normal routine. Life has to go on, and you don’t make them feel that the world has changed and to ensure them that there’s still safety in the world, they are still good people in the world.
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Also, it’s important to talk to them. Depending on their age, it’s important for the parents to interpret the facts and provide the facts of the situation and in an age-specific way talk to them.
Interviewer 1:
What about if they’re having specific anxiety about the details of this? Like now walking on sidewalks, that kind of thing?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Right. I think that’s the key thing to look at is behavioral changes. You might even notice physical changes like stomach aches or headaches. Behavioral changes would be things like you mentioned, not wanting to go outside, maybe not doing well in school, maybe avoiding situations or social settings. It’s important to talk to them, to be aware of it, to be mindful, to ask them what’s going on, and to have them express to you what they’re feeling to give them that validation.
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
For some kids who don’t have the capacity or the ability to express their emotions, you could ask them to write things down on paper, maybe journal something. If you’re noticing it’s becoming progressive and it’s not tapering off with time, that’s the time to not have any shame about reaching out to a mental health professional and seeking out some supportive counseling to help them with their anxiety.
Interviewer 1:
We have social media coming from everywhere, news coming from everywhere, can that actually add to people’s anxiety? Should they be thinking of disengaging? How do you manage how much you immerse yourself in this?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Right. That’s the question of the day with social media because there’s so much access to information. If you’re immersing yourself and repeatedly in media images and getting stuck there, that could be reinforcing your anxiety, and it can make you replay it. So I think disengaging in those situations is important, to say that, “I can’t continue to torment myself by keep looking at this,” and disengaging.
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Maybe a response to that is calling up a friend or going for a walk or getting support from a loved one. But absolutely, if you keep replaying it, it can heighten your anxiety, and it can lead to similar symptomology that you’d find in the responses to traumatic stress, where people have intrusive thoughts and flashbacks and reminders. This process of continually checking your Facebook or your feeds is playing into that, and it can make things worse for you.
Interviewer 1:
Can that cause you to even have the same amount of anxiety or post-traumatic stress as somebody who is actually there because you’ve immersed yourself so much?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Yeah. They say that exposure to repeated images or events that are traumatic in nature can cause traumatic symptoms in the person who watches them. Absolutely. You can have similar symptoms of anxiety, distress, arousal, avoidance behaviors because of something you’ve watched, because of something you’ve seen on TV. It can create those similar symptoms you’d find in a clinical diagnosis of PTSD in someone else. Absolutely.
Interviewer 1:
So how do we monitor that? How do we keep ourselves informed, but disengaged as well?
Dr. Maneet Bhatia:
Right. It’s about balance. It’s about, like you said, you want to be a healthy consumer of what’s going on in your community and your world, but it’s that balance point. If you notice you can’t stop playing it and you’re getting anxious, or you notice that even if you’ve stopped, you’re still feeling that you’re having hypervigilant symptoms, you’re looking around, you’re more active, you’re having negative thoughts of bad things happening, you feel like you’re avoiding certain places and not feeling safe, and you’re feeling concerns about your own wellbeing, and it’s not just fleeting, it’s consistent and persistent, that’s a sign that maybe you need to disengage, reach out to a loved one and, more specifically, reaching out to a mental health professional.
Please contact us today if we can be of any assistance in supporting the mental health of you, your family or loved ones. Email info@bhatiapsychology.com