Honesty, vigilance, faith all key to kids' healing from trauma, say Catholic psychologists

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) -- Vigilance, honesty, emotional intelligence and faith all play critical roles in healing from the long-term trauma of violent attacks, two Catholic psychologists told OSV News.

The Sept. 10 targeted killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, and the deadly Aug. 27 mass shooting targeting schoolchildren at Annunciation Parish in Minneapolis, are among the many "great crises" that "people today, including children and adolescents -- who are very vulnerable -- are facing," said clinical psychologist Robert J. Wicks.

Wicks, author of "Bounce: Living the Resilient Life" and professor emeritus at Loyola University Maryland, told OSV News that "one of the great psychological and spiritual koans, (or) puzzles, in life is trauma and death."

"And they can produce a deep sense of loss and disruption in how we view the world, and the way we make meaning and understand from our vantage point how we believe life works," Wicks said.

That loss and disruption can be especially profound for children and young people, who are "tremendously resilient on the one hand," but also "very vulnerable," said clinical psychologist James Black, director of the youth services division at Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Wicks cited a poignant example from an encounter he had in Lebanon with a Marist brother ministering in war-torn Aleppo, Syria, who had been asked by a young volunteer why violence had scarred her life despite her faith.

"She pleaded, 'Why am I losing the best years of my life? Like the rest of the girls in this world, why do I not have the right to live fully my youth? Is this God's will? Why does he not answer our prayers and our pleas? In spite of our trust in him, we do not see the end of the tunnel,'" Wicks recalled. "And the (Marist) brother then added, 'What can I give to her and to many other young persons? I listen to them, I support them, I try to ... utter words of trust and faith, but it's not always easy.'"

Wicks said that "there's an opening" to healing amid such dark moments, but cautioned that "how we go through that opening with children ... is key."

Black told OSV News that it's crucial to first consider the existing "resiliency factors" in a child's life.

"Certainly, children who feel supported and loved and cared for and have a history of being able to count on a stable and safe environment -- those things all play to the good," he said.

However, kids lacking those resiliency factors find themselves "more vulnerable ... when they suffer trauma or abuse, because they don't have those protective factors that are kind of holding them up."

Wicks also highlighted the evolving needs of growing children as they recover from trauma.

"When children are very young, what they need is they need our support," he said. "And by support, I don't mean magical thinking or telling them, when there's a death in the family, 'Oh, they're in a better place.' They need to be able to hear that everyone dies at the given time in their life. We need to provide nurturing and feelings of security ... and say to them, 'We're with you.'"

But that same strategy won't necessarily work as well "once the child is in adolescence," when a teen might feel adults are "just covering things with spiritual romanticism and sugar," Wicks noted.

Instead, teens "need to be able to share their concerns, share their difficulties," said Wicks.

He added that parents can unintentionally try to shortcut that process, since they "become nervous themselves and try to offer quick supports."

But listening to young people and "helping them to live life to the fullest, while they're forced to deal with death and the fact that this could happen, is important," he said.

At any age, said Black, it's essential for parents and other adult caregivers to stay alert for "any changes in behavior" and "regular functioning," which are "warning signs" in children or teens who have experienced traumatic events.

"If there's sleep disruption, appetite disruption, acting-out behavior, aggression, changes in mood -- if you have a normally happy, joyful child, but suddenly that child's mood changes, and that child starts to isolate or appears to be depressed or anxious, you really want to be looking out for (such) change," said Black.

He also emphasized the need to recognize "there are so many layers" to trauma in the wake of tragic events.

In the case of the Annunciation shooting, trauma could manifest in various ways among "the families of the children who were killed, the kids who were injured, the kids who were close to those killed or injured" and "the kids who may not have been there at the time, but knew the kids that were," he said.

Wicks pointed to "the concept of post-traumatic growth," which embraces the initial "array of negative emotions" surrounding loss and death -- which paradoxically "may also be the seeds of new life that doesn't deny the loss or trauma, but offers gateways to new understanding and possibility.

"So parents can help this happen when they provide an accepting and safe environment so that children or (adult) persons can express any emotion -- and even the religious person can express anger at God without fearing they're doing something wrong," Wicks explained.

Modeling acceptance of such pain "as a mentor, a parent, a friend" enables those suffering to "feel more open with themselves -- and more open with God," he said.