Pediatric (Child) Emotional Injuries

Children can frequently reach the wrong conclusions from a traumatic automobile accident and acquire emotional injuries. A child, especially a very young one, attempts to read the environment in order to enhance his comfort and further survival. A traumatic event like a Michigan car accident is often misunderstood as a statement about life in general, that it is uncertain, painful and precarious.

A Michigan car accident might be internalized as a statement about the child himself, that he is somehow "bad" and responsible for the personal injury he has suffered. An entire family can be affected, including the emotional pain suffered by his parents as a result of the Michigan auto accident. These psychic wounds may become significant determinants of the adult personality, so that the Michigan automobile accident, by causing emotional injury, truly affects the child victim for life.

Some researchers believe that younger children are more likely to develop emotional injuries than older ones. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") is a common personal injury that can occur after car accidents. PTSD can develop at any age, including in childhood. Symptoms of emotional injuries typically begin within 3 months of a traumatic car accident, although occasionally they do not begin until years later. Once PTSD occurs, the severity and duration of the illness varies. Some people recover within 6 months, while others suffer much longer.

Emotional injuries to children may appear immediately after a dramatic Michigan auto accident or days and even weeks after the car accident. Rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") identified in child and adult survivors of violence and disasters vary widely. For example, estimates range from 2% after a natural disaster (tornado), 28% after an episode of terrorism (mass shooting), and 29% after a plane crash. The disorder may also arise weeks or months after a traumatic Michigan automobile accident.

Children and adolescents exposed to a Michigan car accident may suffer from various emotional injuries, losing trust in adults and having fear that the event may occur again. Other reactions vary according to age:

For children five years of age and younger, typical emotional injury reactions may include a fear of being separated from the parent, crying, whimpering, screaming, immobility and/or aimless motion, trembling, frightened facial expressions and excessive clinging. Parents may also notice children with emotional injuries returning to behaviors exhibited at earlier ages (these are called regressive behaviors), such as thumb-sucking, bedwetting, and fear of darkness. Children in this age bracket tend to be strongly affected by the parents' reactions to the traumatic auto accident.

Children six to eleven years old with emotional injuries may show extreme withdrawal, disruptive behavior, and/or inability to pay attention. Regressive behaviors, nightmares, sleep problems, irrational fears, inability or refusal to attend school, outbursts of anger and fighting are also common emotional injury reactions to auto accidents in traumatized children of this age. Also, a child with an emotional injury may complain of stomach aches or other bodily symptoms that have no medical basis. School work often suffers. Depression, anxiety, feelings of guilt and emotional numbing or "flatness" are often present as well.

Adolescents 12 to 17 years old in car accidents may exhibit emotional injury responses similar to those of adults, including flashbacks, nightmares, emotional numbing, avoidance of any reminders of the traumatic Michigan automobile accident, depression, substance abuse, problems with peers, and anti-social behavior. Common emotional injury responses are withdrawal and isolation, physical complaints, suicidal thoughts, school avoidance, academic decline, sleep disturbances, and confusion. The adolescent with an emotional injury after a car accident may feel extreme guilt over his or her failure to prevent injury or loss of life, and may harbor revenge fantasies that interfere with recovery from the automobile accident.

Emotional Injuries | Pediatric (Child) Emotional Injuries
Emotional Effects - Disfigurement | Treatment