Blog Post #2 -Project Plan

This semester, my inquiry question is “how does childhood trauma impact child/adult development? This is a heavy topic with many layers to it, so I will be breaking it up into different sections that I think are important.

My first step to my research will be learning about how childhood trauma affects emotional regulation skills in children. Experiencing childhood trauma is something that can impact how children regulate and express their emotions, and I want to have a better understanding of this on more of a detailed level. There are so many ways that childhood trauma impacts child development, and I think that looking at the emotional aspects of this first will be a good way to start answering my inquiry question, and will give me a good foundation to continue my research.

My second step will be researching about how experiencing childhood trauma can impact social relationships. When people experience trauma, it becomes more difficult to build healthy relationships and trust others, and I want to have a deeper understanding of why that is. This will help me answer my inquiry question because social skills are a huge part of child development, and in order to understand how childhood trauma impacts child/adult development, I need to look at various areas of that. After I research social relationships in childhood trauma survivors, I will have a better understanding and a new perspective of child development.

My final step will be researching how childhood trauma impacts mental health. Experiencing trauma is something that can also increase the risk of developing mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. People who have been through trauma have a very different experience with their mental health than those who have not experienced trauma, and I think this is a topic that is very important to understand.

After researching all three of these sub topics, I will have a much deeper understanding of how childhood trauma impacts child/adult development, and I will be able to answer my inquiry question!

How this question will have implications for other individuals and my community: 

I think this is an important question because people need to be more aware of childhood trauma, and the drastic effects it can have on someone’s life. One common form of childhood trauma can stem from experiencing abuse, and I think the more people understand the signs of trauma and abuse, the more preventable these situations can be. Trauma is something that I believe everyone needs to be educated and informed about, and I think this question can raise awareness about it, and even make people become more empathetic to those around them.

5 sources:

1. https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/complex-trauma/effects#:~:text=Emotional%20Responses,depression%2C%20anxiety%2C%20or%20anger.
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091823/
3. https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-childhood-trauma-affects-adult-relationships#:~:text=Childhood%20trauma%20can%20impact%20relationships,rapidly%20from%20newborn%20to%20toddlerhood.
4. https://www.bridgestorecovery.com/blog/trauma-childhood-abuse-affects-interpersonal-relationships-begin-healing/
5. https://onlinenursing.duq.edu/blog/childhood-trauma/

Thank you for reading (: