What is PTSD in Children?
Andi Hefton
PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a mental health disorder that can affect children who have either witnessed or experienced something so terrifying and distressing that it causes extreme anxiety. Although it is normal for a child to be upset when something scary happens, and to exhibit symptoms of stress immediately following the incident, not every child who experiences a traumatic event will develop PTSD. In order for stress reactions to be diagnosed as PTSD, they need to have lasted for longer than a month, and the incident that triggered them needs to have so overwhelmed the child’s ability to cope that it’s having a negative effect on his or her...
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