Children can develop PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event, leading to negative emotions, unpleasant behaviors, and physical symptoms. Symptoms include nightmares, avoidance of the place where the event occurred, and an overall pessimistic outlook on life. Children may also repeat the event or imitate the behavior with others. PTSD can also increase symptoms of other disorders.
Children can develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to experiencing or having a traumatic event. This can include sexual abuse, domestic violence or a tragic accident, because such events can leave a lasting impression on a young person. Among the most common symptoms of PTSD in children are negative emotions due to the event. This can lead to unpleasant behaviors, such as getting into trouble at school and a lack of interest in activities. Also, some children get sick frequently after enduring a tragic event and may have frequent headaches or stomach aches.
Many of the symptoms of PTSD in children involve unpleasant feelings about the event. For example, children can reproduce the trauma in their heads, causing nightmares and reluctance to visit the place where the event occurred. They may also feel scared, anxious, or angry most of the time, which can lead to an overall pessimistic outlook on life. Children with PTSD may think about death frequently, leading them to assume they will die soon or frequently predict that tragic events will soon occur. Other PTSD symptoms in children that involve their feelings about the event include guilt, shame, and low self-esteem, in general.
While affected children’s feelings aren’t always apparent to others, their behavior usually is. For example, children may seem to stop worrying about most things shortly after the event, which means that some common symptoms of PTSD in children include doing poorly in school and avoiding activities that used to interest them. They may also act nervous or even paranoid most of the time. Furthermore, depending on the nature of the distressing event, some children repeat the event or imitate the behavior with other people, for example after sexual abuse. Many children seem overly emotional due to PTSD and can get angry quite easily and resort to behaviors they outgrew years ago, such as thumb sucking or bed wetting.
There are also some physical symptoms of PTSD in children, although they are not necessarily attributed to this disorder because they are usually common disorders. Some children experience frequent headaches due to experienced or witnessed trauma. They may also complain of stomach pain quite often, because negative feelings tend to manifest as physical ailments for many people. Additionally, some people find that PTSD causes an increase in symptoms of other disorders, such as depression, eating disorders, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
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