Children’s Experiences of Traumatic Events: The Negotiation of Normalcy and Difference

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of childhood trauma. Aspects addressed were the children’s ‘trauma narratives’, how they told the story of what took place, and their current outlook after the trauma. Six participants, aged 9–13 years, who had experienced a traumatic event within the past two years, were administered a semi-structured interview. Participants’ traumatic events primarily consisted of traumatic loss. The data were then analyzed using grounded theory analysis. Results suggest that throughout the traumatic event, participants used a process of ‘negotiation’, in which they attended to both familiar or ‘normal’ aspects of everyday life, and the threatening or ‘different’ aspects of the trauma. This ‘negotiation’ process is a metaphor for participants’ ability to recognize both of these aspects of the traumatic event, and to maintain a balance between the two. This process continued to be used in children’s current post-trauma life experience. Participants described the post-trauma world as changed, and as not sharing aspects of normalcy from the pre-trauma world. This model of children’s experience of traumatic events suggests that in the treatment of traumatized children, it is necessary to broaden the definition of trauma to include sudden bereavement and the witnessing of violence.