Rule No. 1 as a parent is to keep your kids safe. But sometimes we can’t. Sometimes experiences hurt them, emotionally or physically, no matter how many safeguards we’ve built.
The truth is, most of us will experience some level of trauma in our lives. Of course, what constitutes traumatic changes from person to person. Some experiences, like the death of a parent, sexual assault, a car accident, or natural disaster, are referred to as acute traumatic events, or “Big-T” traumas. “Big-T traumas have a very high probability of causing intense distress in just about anyone who goes through them,” says Caroline B. Adelman, Ph.D., founder of Chicago Psychotherapy PLLC.
And then there are the more common traumatic stressors, sometimes referred to as the “little-t” traumas. Accumulative experiences that can be just as impactful, disruptive or overwhelming as their capital letter counterparts, but are sometimes dismissed
