The Impact of Violence, Disaster, and War &Terrorism upon
Adolescent Development

by Dr. Mick Maurer

Click here to learn more about the impact.
Helpful links:

In light of the recent research showing the negative impact PTSD can have on families, Veterans Affairs PTSD programs (http://www.va.gov/) and Vet
Centers (http://www.va.gov/rcs/) across the country are beginning to offer group, couples, and individual programs for families of veterans.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers facts for families about PTSD and other problems children may face. It is also provides
information about treatment.
http://www.aacap.org/

The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children
The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children's (TLC) mission is to provide direct services to traumatized children and families and to provide
specific intervention programs and resource materials needed to help children, parents, families, and schools traumatized by violent or non-violent
trauma-inducing incidents.

National Child Traumatic Stress Network
The NCTSN was established to improve access to care, treatment, and services for children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events and to
encourage and promote collaboration between service providers in the field.

American Psychological Association
The APA is the professional organization for psychologists in the United States. This resource provides practitioners with educational resources to help
children cope with terrorism. An APA task force has also been developed to assist clinicians with promoting resilience in response to terrorism.

National Institute of Mental Health
A website by the National Institute of Mental health designed to help young people avoid or overcome emotional problems in the wake of violence or
disaster through education.

Children's Bureau
The CB is the oldest federal agency for children and is located within the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for
Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families.

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
This information has been gathered by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to assist parents and children in coping with events
like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or other national disasters.

Sesame Street
Advice by Sesameworkshop.org about how to talk with children about tragedy, and when to seek professional help.

Harvard University
Information by the Massachusetts General Hospital about how to talk with children about recent terrorist attacks.

Mentalhealth.org
A guide for parents and teachers to help children cope with disaster. Information is based on a brochure developed by Project Heartland -- A Project of
the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Service.

For a site for CHILDREN to visit, see:

Federal Emergency Management Agency
FEMA's website is designed to be user-friendly for your children.

For teachers and schools:

The Child Trauma Academy
The mission of the Academy is to help improve the lives of traumatized and maltreated children and their families through education.
(Kinneret Haya) Direction: Ruth Yuval - Zamir Dahbash, IZR, 2005, , 50
min


In 2001, a café called My Coffee House was bombed in Tel Aviv. Thirty–
two people were injured, one girl died. Kinneret, a twenty–three year–
old singer and occasional waitress, was taken away from the scene
with extensive burns, a damaged eye and a mutilated arm. The
horrific attack transformed her life forever. Forced to abandon her old
self, Kinneret had to begin a new life. Initially she was given lengthy
treatment in Israel, later departing for New York, where she took part
in public lectures about the victims of terrorism, was photographed
for Time Magazine and underwent plastic surgery. Focused on
Kinneret's own videodiaries, which capture her moods, states of
mind and feelings, the film is an interesting mosaic that includes
sequences documenting the turbulent situation in Tel Aviv, interviews
with the girl's friends and relatives, and footage taken during her time
in hospital. With an unusual intimacy, it not only provides an insight
into the current situation in Israel and the danger terrorism poses to
innocent people, but also into the inner workings of a young girl
having to deal with a radical change in her life brought about by a
tragic event. Although its central theme is pain, the film is about the
inner strength that keeps a person going. Thus it is not about
resignation, but rather about the will to survive. In bringing the
audience closer to the elementary values of human life, such as
friendship and love, its message is ultimately one of optimism.
Revealing that the family can become a person's ultimate life support
system, it shows the need for faith in a better future.
Kinneret Lives is a rare self-documentation of a girl who was a victim
of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv three years ago. It deals in an
unsentimental manner with what happens to a beautiful girl whose world
burns down one night and she wakes up five months later to a harsh
reality. In her video diaries Kinneret comes to terms with her operations,
her pain, her family, the lack of ability of society to deal with her terrible
injuries and above all with the separation from Tal, her beloved boyfriend
for four years: "Even in the eyes of someone who knows me so well and
for so long, my appearance is still an obstacle, there is no running away
from the way I look." "But in spite of this" she says, "my story is not a sad
one. It's a story with a happy end."   
The Impact of Violence, Disaster, and War
& Terrorism upon Teens
www.MickMaurer.com
PTSD: A diagnosis of PTSD means that an individual experienced an event that involved a
threat to one's own or another's life or physical integrity and that this person responded with
intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

Children and adolescents may be diagnosed with PTSD if they have:

1. survived natural and man made disasters such as floods;

2. violent crimes such as kidnapping, rape or murder of a parent, sniper fire, and school
shootings;

3. motor vehicle accidents such as automobile and plane crashes;

4. severe burns;

5. exposure to community violence;

6. war;

7. peer suicide;

8. and sexual and physical abuse.
PTSD in adolescents may begin to more closely resemble PTSD in adults.

However, there are a few features that have been shown to differ.
  • Children may engage in traumatic play following a trauma.

  • Adolescents are more likely to engage in traumatic reenactment, in which they incorporate
    aspects of the trauma into their daily lives.

  • In addition, adolescents are more likely than younger children or adults to exhibit impulsive
    and aggressive behaviors.
Besides PTSD, what are the other effects of trauma on adolescents?

  • problems with fear,
  • anxiety,
  • depression,
  • anger and hostility,
  • aggression,
  • sexually inappropriate behavior,
  • self-destructive behavior,
  • feelings of isolation and stigma,
  • poor self-esteem,
  • difficulty in trusting others,
  • substance use and abuse,
  • also often have relationship problems with peers and family members,
  • problems with acting out,
  • and problems with school performance.

- other anxiety disorders such as separation anxiety, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety
disorder;

- externalizing disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant
disorder, and conduct disorder.
How do children respond to terrorism?

More severe reactions are associated with:

  • a higher degree of exposure (i.e., life threat, physical injury, witnessing death or injury, hearing screams,
    etc.),
  • closer proximity to the disaster,
  • a history of prior traumas,
  • being female,
  • poor parental response,
  • and parental mental health problems.

Research on children from the September 11th, 2001 attacks & the Oklahoma City Bombing.

- Two factors related to increased stress symptoms were:
1) amount of television coverage viewed by the child,
2) parental distress.

  • Children who lost a friend or relative were more likely to report immediate symptoms of PTSD than non-
    bereaved children.
  • Arousal and fear presenting seven weeks after the bombing were significant predictors of PTSD.
  • Two years after the bombing, 16% of children who lived approximately 100 miles away from Oklahoma
    City reported significant PTSD symptoms related to the event. This is an important finding because these
    youths were not directly exposed to the trauma and were not related to people who had been killed or
    injured.
  • PTSD symptomatology was predicted by media exposure and indirect interpersonal exposure, such as
    having a friend who knew someone who was killed or injured.
  • No study specifically reported on rates of PTSD in children following the bombing.
  • However, studies have shown that as many as:
- 100% of children who witness a parental homicide or sexual assault,
- 90% of sexually abused children,
- 77% of children exposed to a school shooting, and
- 35% of urban youth exposed to community violence develop PTSD.