As advocates, our initial primary focus may be on supporting the adult survivors who come into our programs for services, and we may feel less equipped to work with their children or may feel unsure of how to be helpful. This tipsheet is a
starting place for understanding how we can better support children who have been exposed to violence in their homes and how we can support parents to help their children cope more adaptively with trauma-related responses.
Many factors influence our developmental journey through infancy, childhood, and adolescence!our biology, our relationships with caregiving adults, our experiences, our environment, and the interaction between all of these. Painful, scary, and overwhelming experiences, such as community violence and domestic violence, can profoundly impact that developmental journey. Although there are common trauma responses across childhood, understanding the specific needs and experiences of children at each developmental stage will help you best support them in their ongoing development while increasing healthy coping skills in the wake of violence.