It is possible for trauma symptoms to be transmitted to the second generation ?
Posted date : 18-07-2008
Source : Women's Media Center of Cambodia
Number of Visitors : 1205 
Studies on children of trauma survivors have found some evidence that the trauma symptoms from first generation trauma survivors are often passed down to their children.
Children who saw their parents as hyper vigilant and socially mistrusting responded with their own levels of hyper vigilance and mistrust.
Understanding the role of parental trauma can help to improve individual functioning as well as functioning within the family. 29
Such studies show that children who perceived their parent’s anguish and responded to it with empathy or over-identification experienced trauma symptoms, such as intrusion, avoidance, and hyper arousal. In addition, children who saw their parents as hypervigilant and socially mistrusting responded with their own levels of hypervigilance and mistrust. Finally, children whose parents communicated about their traumatic experiences in an open manner were found to experience less overall PTSD and fewer symptoms of avoidance than those whose parents were silent about their past experiences. 30
Cambodian mothers, who were traumatized during the Khmer Rouge years
- tend to be overprotective of their children
- tend to be unconsciously influence their children to fulfill their own needs rather than being aware of the needs of their children and instead of fulfilling such needs
- tend to fail to fulfill the developmental needs of their children
Most children who lived in the Khmer Rouge era did not get adequate physical and emotional care, as their parents were not able to spend the time and energy required to fulfill their needs. For example, one of the most important needs of a young child is to feel secure and to be able find a safe place if they are scared. But during the Khmer Rouge regime parents lived permanently under the threat of being punished, being separated from their families, or being killed. Thus, they were unable to provide the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere children need to grow up healthy. Also, many children were taken away from their families and forced to live in children’s camps, where nobody took care about their psychological and physical needs.
Another issue is that, in some cases, children think that their parents do not love them if they are not there to protect them or offer explanations.
The overprotective education patterns of the parent toward the child are significant obstacles for the children’s ability to develop independence and grow up without unhealthy behavior patterns. 31 Research in Cambodia also revealed that there is a significant correlation between overprotective and role reversing mothers ( tendency of the mother to unconsciously influence their children to fulfill her own needs rather than being aware of the needs of her children and fulfilling her children’s needs adequately) and psychological problems of the children, such as depression and anxiety. 32
Children of Cambodia parents, who were traumatized during the Khmer Rouge years:
-tend to of over-identify with their parents’ trauma
-experience a signifacant amount of their own trauma symptoms, including intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal
-see their parents as hypervigilant and socially mistrusting, and respond to this with their own levels of hypervigilace and mistrust.
Note
29 . Lichtmann, H.(1994) : Parental comunciation fo Holocaust experiences and personality chareacteristics among second-generation survivors Journal of Clin. Psychol., Vol 4: 914-24
30 Ibid
31. OM Chariya (2006) : Bachelor Thesis. Childrens’s perception of Parental Trauma on their perceived care and overprotection, Phnom Penh Unpublished Document.
32 KIM Thida (2006) : Bechelor Thesis.Role Reversal of Traumatic Parents from Khmer Rouge Regime, Phnom Penh : Unpublished Document.
Extracted from: Understanding Trauma In Cambodia. “It is possible for trauma symptoms to be transmitted to the second generation ?” page 104-105.
