Childhood trauma and the scars it leaves on young minds

Research shows the majority of children in Kenya and across Africa will experience or witness a traumatic event before the age of four — with consequences that can last a lifetime.

By Wanjohi P. Mugambi

Childhood trauma occurs when a child experiences an intense or distressing event that threatens or causes harm to their emotional or physical wellbeing. These experiences range from extreme one-off events to prolonged, recurring stressors — among them community or domestic violence, neglect, medical emergencies, and physical or sexual abuse. Crucially, a child does not have to be the direct victim of such an event to be traumatised. Witnessing it can be equally damaging.

While trauma exists across a wide spectrum of severity, it is the individual’s stress response — rather than the nature of the event itself — that most shapes how a child copes and behaves in its aftermath. Research consistently shows that the majority of adults can trace some form of abuse or difficult family circumstance back to their childhood. In Kenya and across Africa, an estimated 60 percent of children will witness or experience a traumatic event before they turn four.

Studies drawing on therapy sessions and structured interviews with young people — from birth through to age 17 — have examined exposure to violence across the home, school and community. The findings are sobering. More than 60 percent of children surveyed had been exposed to at least one form of violence in the preceding year. More than 10 percent reported five or more separate exposures. Around 10 percent had suffered maltreatment, been injured in an assault, or witnessed one family member attack another. Roughly a quarter had been victims of robbery or witnessed a violent act, and nearly half reported being assaulted at least once during that period.

The data also reveals a pattern of compounding harm. Children who have been victimised once are far more likely to experience further violence. Those assaulted in the past year are five times more likely to have also suffered sexual victimisation, and more than four times as likely to have experienced maltreatment during the same period.

Not all stress is equally harmful. Psychologists distinguish between three categories: positive stress, tolerable stress and toxic stress. Positive stress is the everyday pressure that is a normal part of life and healthy development — the nerves before an exam, for instance, which subside once it is over. Tolerable stress arises from more severe disruptions, such as the death of a loved one or a natural disaster. With the support of stable adult relationships and community networks, most children can recover. Without those supports, however, the experience can exceed a child’s capacity to cope, putting their physical, social and emotional development at serious risk.

It is the third category — toxic stress — that poses the most lasting danger. When traumatic experiences are prolonged, as is the case with ongoing domestic abuse or persistent community violence, a child’s stress response system is effectively kept in a state of constant activation. This sustained overload, in the absence of appropriate adult support, disrupts normal development, impairs brain growth and delays the acquisition of social and emotional skills. Left unaddressed, it can fundamentally alter the way a child behaves at home and at school, with consequences that follow them into adulthood.

It is important to recognise that no two children respond to trauma in the same way. An event that triggers a toxic stress response in one child — hearing about the death of a peer, for example — may produce little visible reaction in another. Individual characteristics, family environment and the broader social context all interact to shape how a child processes and responds to what they have experienced.

Age plays a significant role in that response. Very young children are among the most vulnerable. Infants and toddlers face the greatest risk of witnessing family violence or being assaulted by a sibling, at a stage when they are still developing the cognitive and emotional tools needed to make sense of the world around them. They are only beginning to acquire language and communication skills, and they depend almost entirely on their parents to protect them and to help them interpret unfamiliar or frightening events.

The immediate effects of trauma on very young children can be easy to miss, but the developmental risks — both in the short and long term — are real. When overwhelmed, infants and toddlers may re-enact distressing events through imaginary play or suffer recurring nightmares. Having not yet developed the cognitive capacity to reason through what has happened, they may form distorted assumptions about the world that affect how they relate to others. Behaviourally, this can manifest as clinginess, temper tantrums, sleep disturbances, toileting regression, phobias, social withdrawal, poor concentration and aggression. Children exhibiting these responses often struggle to engage positively with teachers and caregivers, compounding the difficulties they already face.

Understanding how trauma presents differently at each stage of development is essential — not only for identifying children who need support, but for determining what kind of support will be most effective. A developmental lens does not just help us understand what we are seeing. It helps us respond to it more wisely.

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