When Your Child’s World Tilts: How to Be Their Anchor When You’re Traumatized Too
I was at the height of my career—flying home from New York City to attend an event at the United Nations about trauma in children—when my own world abruptly tilted.
Somewhere over the Midwest, my phone buzzed with a text from my husband: “[Our daughter] has little red spots on her legs.” I asked him to send me a picture. Tiny red dots scattered across her skin. As a psychologist who works with medical trauma, I knew this could be nothing… or something.
I landed late that night and peeked in on her sleeping. She looked fine. I told myself I was being paranoid.
The next morning, I woke her up for school. As she sat up, my heart dropped. Overnight, those small red spots had multiplied, and now her arms and legs were covered in large, dark purple bruises. Her torso was mottled. Her skin looked like a map of something terrible.
Calling her pediatrician set off a chain reaction—stat blood work, rushing to the ER, doctors moving quickly but speaking in hushed, serious tones. Within hours, we had a diagnosis: immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a rare bleeding disorder.
Her platelet count, they told us, was the lowest her pediatrician had seen in her entire career. Any small bump to her head, any internal injury, could result in what they candidly called a “catastrophic bleed.”
As a psychologist specializing in child trauma, I know that when something frightening happens, children are watching their caregivers closely. They’re not just listening to our words but scanning our faces, our breathing, our tone of voice. They’re asking, “Am I safe?” and “Are you okay enough to keep me safe?”
If we show them we are terrified, their terror amplifies. If we can act steady and grounded, even when we’re shaken, they feel more secure and contained.
Parents often ask me: “How can I help my child through something traumatic when I’m traumatized myself?”
You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be unshakable. But there are concrete things you can do to project enough calm to anchor your child, even while your own insides are churning.
Here are a few practical strategies that helped me—and that I now share with the families I work with.
1. Regulate your breathing (even if nothing else feels under control)
When something terrifying happens, your body does exactly what it’s wired to do: Your sympathetic nervous system flips on. Heart races, muscles tense, breathing becomes rapid and shallow. This “fight-or-flight” response is adaptive in true emergencies but it also makes you feel more anxious, more flooded, and less able to think clearly.
Your child is reading that state in you.
One of the simplest, most powerful tools you have in those moments is your breath. When we emphasize our exhale over our inhale, breathing can help activate your body’s relaxation response (the parasympathetic nervous system), which slows your heart rate, steadies your thoughts, and softens your facial expressions and tone of voice—all of which your child will pick up on.
There are many different breathing scripts out there, but when you are in a panic, I find it’s best to go with simple. My go-to breathing mantra is “in through the nose, out through the mouth.” Because the breathing holes in our nose are smaller and more restricted than our mouth, this will help ensure we take in less oxygen, and emphasize our exhales.
2. Use healthy distraction—on purpose
When something frightening is happening, it can feel like you must focus on it constantly, as if vigilance will somehow keep your child safe. But neither you nor your child is built to stay in a state of high alert all the time. You both need breaks.
Distraction is not denial. It’s a way of giving your nervous system and your child’s nervous system short pockets of relief so you can come back to the hard stuff with more capacity.
Some ideas:
Do the daily Wordle or a puzzle together. Let yourselves get absorbed, just for a few minutes, in something completely unrelated to doctors and diagnoses.
Swap silly stories from your day, or share light, age-appropriate “gossip.”
Watch a short, favorite show or a movie scene that always makes you both laugh.
Play “categories” (name animals, foods, superheroes, etc.) or a simple card game in the waiting room.
When my daughter and I were in and out of the hospital, we created tiny rituals of distraction: a particular snack we only ate after blood draws (crispy tuna bites), a game we only played in waiting rooms, a running joke about the hospital smells. These small, ordinary moments were lifelines. They reminded both of us that even in the scariest seasons, life still contained pockets of normalcy and even joy.
3. Protect your own basics: sleep, food, and movement
In crisis, parents often go into sacrifice mode: skipping meals, sleeping in chairs, ignoring their own physical needs. It’s understandable—and unsustainable.
Your brain and body cannot function well on adrenaline alone. When you’re sleep-deprived, underfed, and physically depleted, your emotional regulation plummets. You’re more likely to snap, cry, or freeze in front of your child. This is not because you’re a bad parent, but because your system is running on fumes.
To the extent possible:
Eat regularly. It doesn’t have to be perfect nutrition; it just has to exist. Keep easy, portable snacks on hand (nuts, granola bars, cheese sticks, fruit).
Hydrate. Dehydration worsens fatigue and anxiety. Keep a water bottle nearby.
Sleep when you can. Trade off with another adult if possible. Even a short nap can improve your capacity to cope and to be present with your child.
Move your body. A short walk around the hospital corridors, a few stretches in a quiet corner, or simply standing up and rolling your shoulders can discharge some of the pent-up energy of stress.
It can help to reframe this: Taking care of your own basic needs is not selfish; it’s part of taking care of your child. Your stability is one of your child’s most important sources of safety. Keeping your body supported is one way you protect that stability.
4. Reach out for your own support
Even when your child is the one in the hospital bed, you are also going through something potentially traumatic. Your fear doesn’t cancel out your child’s experience, and your child’s experience doesn’t cancel out yours. Both matter.
Parents often tell me they feel they “should” be able to handle it alone, or that asking for help would take resources away from their child. In reality, getting support for yourself usually helps you be more present and effective for your child.
Consider:
Emotional support. Call or text a trusted friend or family member and give yourself permission to be honest: “I’m terrified.” “I feel numb.” “I don’t know how to do this.” Being witnessed and held emotionally helps metabolize trauma.
Practical support. Let others bring meals, take care of siblings, handle logistics, or sit with your child while you shower or nap. Think of your support system as part of your child’s care team.
Professional support. A therapist—especially someone familiar with medical trauma or crisis—can be invaluable. You don’t have to wait until “after it’s all over.” Support during the crisis can reduce long-term traumatic impact for you and your child.
Peer support. If your child has a medical condition, there may be parent groups (online or in-person) where others truly understand the specific fears and rollercoaster you’re on.
It can feel vulnerable to say, “I need help.” But sometimes the bravest, most protective thing you can do for your child is to refuse to go through this alone.
When I look back on that season with my daughter—those early days of terrifying lab values and unfamiliar medical language—I don’t remember myself as perfectly calm or endlessly wise. I remember crying in my car, Googling too much, negotiating with the universe in the quiet of hospital hallways.
But I also remember sitting on her hospital bed, doing silly quizzes on my phone with her, singing Taylor Swift to distract from blood draws, and texting friends from the hallway so I could release my own fear before walking back into her room.
You don’t have to be a trauma expert to help your child through a frightening experience. You just have to be a “good enough” anchor—a person who is trying, imperfectly, to steady themselves so they can steady their child.
Your child is not looking for a superhero. They’re looking for you: breathing, distracting, eating, sleeping, reaching out, and showing them moment by moment that even in the scariest times, they are not alone.