As we come close to the end of the Ju­ly-Au­gust school va­ca­tion, it is al­most a wait­ing game for par­ents and chil­dren look­ing to­wards the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

For par­ents, these may be dif­fi­cult weeks to keep chil­dren en­gaged. By now, camps have end­ed, ex­tra lessons are on a break, mon­ey is run­ning low, par­ents are go­ing back to work from va­ca­tion, and sundry oth­er sce­nar­ios.

These are the weeks of ad hoc arrange­ments. I re­mem­ber them well from my par­ent­ing days. When faced with the same is­sues, it be­came a mat­ter of how to keep a child en­gaged while we wait for the re­turn to school rou­tines.

I am prompt­ed to re­turn to child safe­ty with the knowl­edge of how easy it is to ex­pose our chil­dren to ad­verse ex­pe­ri­ences when pres­sure mounts.

Fol­low­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed se­ries on trau­ma, I feel even more com­pelled to ring the bell here to re­mind par­ents/guardians that most of our life’s trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences, which may cause se­vere life­time in­jury, be­gin in child­hood.

Of­ten when in­frac­tions oc­cur, our chil­dren, for var­i­ous rea­sons, do not speak or ex­pose the sit­u­a­tions. They may have been threat­ened by the of­fend­er or have been told that if they speak, they will be blamed and pun­ished, or they sim­ply are too ashamed and guilty to speak up. Some chil­dren may be too young to process, but they know in­nate­ly that some­thing is wrong with the in­ci­dent or ac­tion and car­ry the bur­den silent­ly.

Whichev­er, these in­frac­tions, whether ver­bal, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al or sex­u­al, sur­face/resur­face when chil­dren find the agency that al­lows for pro­cess­ing their feel­ings, form­ing and voic­ing their opin­ions and mak­ing their own de­ci­sions.

Re­search shows that for many, by this time of in­de­pen­dence and grow­ing self-es­teem, the in­juries from in­frac­tions are al­ready ev­i­dent.

Con­sid­er that it is in ado­les­cence and young adult­hood that the on­set of men­tal ill­ness most com­mon­ly oc­curs. Around 50 per cent of life­time con­di­tions be­gin by age 14, and 75 per cent by age 24.

The in­ci­dence of anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion is of­ten in the mid-teens or ear­ly twen­ties and is the most fre­quent mood chal­lenge for this pe­ri­od.

Bipo­lar dis­or­ders are typ­i­cal­ly ev­i­dent in the teenage years and young adult­hood, while schiz­o­phre­nia and psy­chosis of­ten be­gin in the late teens to ear­ly twen­ties (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/).

Not all of these are re­lat­ed to ad­verse child­hood ex­pe­ri­ences, since the ae­ti­ol­o­gy of men­tal ill­ness­es is di­verse, but the ev­i­dence re­mains that child­hood in­frac­tions are a ma­jor fac­tor. It is there­fore in our best in­ter­est to keep our chil­dren safe and pro­tect­ed from threat­en­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

None of us can be with our chil­dren every wak­ing mo­ment; there­fore, it is im­por­tant to find ways to mit­i­gate their ex­po­sure to ad­verse cir­cum­stances. The US non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion SOS Chil­dren’s Vil­lages gives these sug­ges­tions for mon­i­tor­ing and pre­vent­ing child abuse.

• Learn the warn­ing signs: Un­der­stand phys­i­cal, be­hav­iour­al, and emo­tion­al in­di­ca­tors of abuse or ne­glect. (Be suf­fi­cient­ly con­cerned to ed­u­cate your­self).

• Min­imise iso­lat­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties: Re­duce or elim­i­nate un­mon­i­tored, one-on-one sit­u­a­tions be­tween a child and a sin­gle adult. (This adult could be a rel­a­tive, a close fam­i­ly friend or even an old­er sib­ling).

• Main­tain open com­mu­ni­ca­tion: En­cour­age chil­dren and vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als to speak freely about their feel­ings and dai­ly ex­pe­ri­ences.

• Stay alert to changes: Watch for sud­den shifts in mood, re­gres­sion, sleep dis­rup­tion, or un­char­ac­ter­is­tic fear (or avoid­ance) of spe­cif­ic peo­ple.

• Trust your in­stincts: Do not dis­miss gut feel­ings or doubts re­gard­ing some­one’s safe­ty.

• Re­port sus­pect­ed abuse: Con­tact lo­cal child pro­tec­tion ser­vices, law en­force­ment, or rel­e­vant in­ter­ven­tions if dan­ger or harm is sus­pect­ed (sos-usa.org).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is key to pro­tect­ing our chil­dren and as par­ents, we need to un­der­stand ap­pro­pri­ate ap­proach­es. Whether you sus­pect an in­frac­tion or sim­ply want to cre­ate an op­por­tu­ni­ty to keep com­mu­ni­ca­tion open with your child, there are ap­proach­es that help to make your charge feel safe to speak up.

* Stay calm: Do not ap­proach the child in anger, look shocked, or be­have pan­icked, as the child may think they caused your re­ac­tion and may shut down.

* Do not lead: Avoid ques­tions like “Did he hit you?” or “Did they touch your leg?” Use gen­er­al prompts in­stead (see be­low for sug­ges­tions), and do not in­ter­ro­gate by ask­ing too many de­tails, which may re­trau­ma­tise the child or con­fuse them.

* Re­as­sure them: Tell the child sim­ply and clear­ly, “I be­lieve you” and “This is not your fault” (rais­ingchil­dren.net.au).

Safe, open-end­ed ques­tions to ask

Rather than press a child with di­rect ques­tions, ask “What’s been go­ing on?” And fol­low up with some­thing such as “Can you tell me more about that?”

Al­low the child to tell the sto­ry by prompt­ing with “What hap­pened?” Lis­ten qui­et­ly and fol­low up with soft in­quiry like “What hap­pened next?”, “Who was there?”, “When did this hap­pen?” keep­ing your tone con­ver­sa­tion­al and nev­er con­fronta­tion­al.

Ask­ing “Has any­one touched you in a way that made you feel un­com­fort­able or weird?” is al­so a good way to help a child to open up, and es­pe­cial­ly ask, “Has any­one asked you to keep a se­cret from me?” (https://rais­ingchil­dren.net.au/)