The Scared Child: Helping Kids Overcome Traumatic Events

Brooks, a psychologist employed by an organization that sends mental health-care workers to counsel disaster victims (she has worked with survivors of Hurricane Andrew and the World Trade Center bombing), and Siegel, a contributing editor at Parenting magazine, present a four-step method to help kids negotiate their emotions following traumatic events. With colleagues, Brooks developed the ""critical incident debriefing technique,"" a straightforward approach that involves parents' preparing themselves, having the child retell what happened, sharing reactions and developing recovery skills. After disaster strikes, parents understandably hope to shield their children from painful memories, but, the authors explain, denial doesn't facilitate the healing process. It is more helpful in the long run, they aver, to encourage children to talk about their experiences. Chapters cover how to ""debrief"" for such eventualities as death of someone close, abuse, natural disaster, divorce, illness and injury and trauma by proxy (when a child is traumatized by another person's crisis). In a clear, levelheaded manner, Brooks and Siegel outline age-appropriate strategies for preschoolers, older children and teens. Although the text is somewhat dry, drawing more on bland composites than real-life examples, it is also authoritative, concise and sure to prove useful. (Oct.)