Children and adults see and experience the world quite differently. Children lack the mental and emotional development and depth of experience that adults have. They also lack the often extensive array of troubling experiences linked by triggering events that adults have built up over the years.

While children ideally have protection from most severe events by their parents and care-takers, there is no use to try and protect them from the memory of something bad, after it has happened.

Those memories are there to stay – conscious or subconscious – unless and until we take effective steps to free children from their effects. You may have heard or read the limiting beliefs of some professionals who will tell you, in various words, that children cannot process trauma effectively. Don’t believe it!

The good news is children can be champions at making use of Traumatic Incident Reduction. In fact they have less fear and less urge than adults to repress painful memories, once they understand that we can do something effective to take the pain away. Children are willing participants in the work and they achieve lasting results faster than most adults can believe is possible. Precisely because they do not have the decades of experience and the layers of hurtful memories interlaced with triggering events, children can reach end points quite quickly. Free from the burden of a traumatic memory, a child can use the energy and attention thus released to live grow and learn. To read the full article visit: https://www.tira.org/enewsletter/tira-enotes-march-2017-no-4/