Childhood traumas can stem from the abuse/abuses a child has been subjected to, and this abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
These forms of abuse can be perpetrated by various individuals in the child’s life and have short-term/medium-term and long-term effects.
We most often find these forms of abuse in the family environment and/or in the school environment, including kindergartens and nurseries.
We observe the effects of these abuses later in children through their behaviors, but also as adults, especially if the abuse has not been discussed and explained in a healthy and safe setting with the help of a specialist or in some cases with the help of multiple specialists.
The behaviors of those who have experienced abuse vary from excessive aggressiveness to isolation, lack of self-confidence, lack of trust in others, suicide attempts, toxic or even non-existent personal relationships, deviant sexual behavior in some who have been sexually abused, or even avoidance of any kind of relationship that could lead to intimacy later on.
Some of the children who have been abused become abusers themselves, repeating the behavior they were subjected to, believing that what they have gone through is normal and that this is how they should behave in relationships with those around them.
Another way in which trauma is triggered in childhood is neglect. Neglect comes from parents and can be either physical or emotional.
Physical neglect can cause problems both in the short term and in the long term, depending on the period during which the neglect occurred. Emotional neglect, on the other hand, almost certainly has medium-term and long-term effects, possibly lifelong, if we do not work through what we feel and understand what we have been through.
With emotional neglect, we may experience a lack of self-confidence in the medium and long term, fear, possibly even anxiety and at least a few depressive episodes, plus other long-term side effects that may arise.
Other moments that can create trauma for a child are the parents' divorce, the sudden death of a very close person, physical and/or emotional violence between parents, substance abuse or alcohol abuse by one or both parents, or if one of the parents suffers from an undiagnosed and therefore untreated mental disorder.