Compassionate Love: Displaying compassion for those who struggle with mental illness   (c) 2018  Nancy Virden, Always The Fight Ministries

PTSD. Those affected by Post-traumatic Stress Disorder come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.

Even the very young need help to overcome emotional and biological scars from sudden, uncontrollable loss and fear. 

What you may not know is PTSD is not a catch-all to describe the effects of trauma in children.  Information in news reports is often incomplete or misinformed. If you want to know what it is actually like for many of these children, I recommend you read this or this or this.

It’s about the kids

You may or may not like U.S. immigration policies. Asylum, human trafficking, drug smuggling, family rights, and vetting are each serious issues deserving thoughtful consideration and debate.  We can agree to care about the children, right?

Many citizens of the world cry for an open-door policy. Other citizens of the world believe walls and zero-tolerance for illegal entry are the solution to more egregious evil.  Desperate refugees of war and crime need hope and protection.  Wicked people exploit desperation for their own gain.

We have to care about and protect the children.

The recent  wave in the U.S. of outrage and sympathy for children and adolescents caught between their parents, politics, and immigration  law is a sign, I hope.  Maybe some hearts are now stirred by children’s issues in general.

In the U.S.A.

• Children are sold as sexual tools
• Children’s Services Departments are overcrowded and underfunded
• Suicide has moved up from the number 3 to number 2 cause of death for children age 10 and older.
• Bullying, violence, disparity between quality of schools, medical care – all these are children’s issues we can choose as our national and personal focus.

A woman said to me yesterday, “There is nothing I can do, so I just do not watch the news. It is too distressing.”  We need to know what to do beyond railing against each other with political rhetoric.

Proactive ways to help 

1. Write to your legislators. America is is not a democracy. It is a republic which means we are allowed to tell those in power what we will and will not endorse with our votes.
2. Vote
3. Financially support those institutions and organizations that are fighting against child exploitation, suicide, and any of the other issues.
4. Volunteer hours with ministries or child advocacy groups that directly address these issues
5. Teach your children to use their voices. They too can call and write to legislators.
6. Be a foster parent to refugee or other children in distress

If we are going to use quotes from scripture to guide our decisions, then we do well to remember Today’s Helpful Word.  Jesus loves the little children. We need to care about that in more ways than one.

 

Cook, A., Blaustein, M., Spinazzola, J, & van der Kolk, B. (Eds.) (2007). Complex
trauma in children and adolescents. National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Retrieved from http://www.nctsnet.org/nccts/nav.do?pid=typ_ct