Hi again. In this video we will work on protective factors and risk factors on kids and teenagers in daily emergencies. Many things are used both for massive and daily emergencies. However, why do we do this video? Well, because there are some differential features. The first and more important one is that the impact only affects the family, its environment remains unchanged, there isn't an acceptance from the environment. This can be a protective factor as the rest of situations in its life remain unchanged, everything is normal and routine. But we could also see this as a risk factor, as the assistance and the options that are activated in case of massive emergencies, in this case aren't activated because as we said the environment remains without acceptance, so the available aid is usually the minimum. So in this case it would be a risk factor. Let's see with more details which could be considered the protective factors and the risk factors in a recovery after a daily emergency. We will enumerate them briefly and then we will talk on them exhaustively and see how each of them can positively or negatively affect. There are four axis in which we can focus when exploring protective and risk factors. The teenager or kids' features and his familiar context on one side, the success' characteristics, the traumatic fact will be different, for better or worse, how this impact moment is managed and finally how will the monitoring after the incident be, the following six months, we have already said in other videos that since a critical incident happens and until we must worry or a disorder appears, some time might pass. Well, so how will this incident's management be after it has happened? It is very important to take into account during all the explanation we will make now, that what we are exposing, what we call risk factors and protective factors are two sides of the same token. The same fact can be considered a protective factor or a risk factor and in most cases we will get both the positive and the negative side of a feature. So let's see the characteristics regarding teenagers and kids, what can we consider protective factors? Well, at a protective factors level, obviously having a healthy-based personality without any pathology will be considered a protective factor. On the other side, as we said they are two sides of the same coin, the fact of having suffered a psychiatric or psychological disorder in the past will be a risk factor in this kind of situations. Also at a familiar relationship level, regarding the bond he has with the reference figures, a healthy bond, a protective bond, a safe bond, will be a protective factor and instead a pathological bond, a vicious bond will be a risk factor. At a capacities level, depending on the kids' and teenagers' ability to solve conflicts, on the tools they have, on the confronting abilities and capacities, on the problems in their life, how have they managed the previous vital stressing events. All this can be a protective factor if the kid or teenager has these capacities, if he has successfully solved previous events, this positive evolution of the kid. Instead, it can be a risk factor if he doesn't have confrontation capacity, tolerance to frustration, if he hasn't been able to properly solve vital previous vital stressing events and he still carries them, this idea of having a bag full of stones which make the path harder and don't allow us to go on properly after a critical incident. About the risk and protective factors that influence on the critical incident's characteristics, we will look mostly at three key points. If the critical incident causes a death, in massive emergencies it is also considered as an incident, as a factor, so we should take it into account in the risk and in the protective factors the fact that there has been a death and whether the deceased is someone close or not. Well, in daily emergencies the fact that there has been a death or not and mostly if this death is from a close relative or from the parents will be considered as a more risky situation than in a situation where there hasn't been a death or if the death is from a distant relative. It also depends on the kind of death that has happened, an unexpected or traumatic death is different or if it's a death in which the corpse can't be recovered, this kind of things make the situation more risky than in situations where this death has been expected, where there has been a goodbye, where we have been able to monitor this, to prepare for this death. It is directly related to the last point on the PowerPoint, which is the process of the chance of being able to previously prepare for the death of a relative. This doesn't mean that preparing makes death hurt less, there's a belief that says when people die due to an illness, a long illness, if they have been hospitalized, it should hurt less, you have had time to get ready, you saw it coming, sadness is somehow less allowed in these cases and it it shouldn't be so intense. As I said this is a widely spread error, the fact that we can get ready for a loved one's death doesn't mean this death should hurt less. It simply means that the process will be a bit easier because we began doing it earlier, but this doesn't mean the amount of pain or the acceptation should be lower. About the factors we must take into account, both risky and protective on the management during the critical incident, we can focus on five basic points. Which activation level did this incident suppose? Was it all a massive agitation moment, did all the family get stressed? Did the kid have an important activation, a moment of stress which took him to having a very important physiological activation? It would be one of the things we should gather. In this case, how did we contain the kid? Could we satisfy him properly, or not? Maybe the comfort we have provided him hasn't been appropriate for him in this situation, we haven't comforted him properly? If there has been a moment in which, because of any factor we couldn't contain the kid totally, so this is a risk factor, something is making the boy or the girl more active than usual and the strategies we usually use aren't working, so we need to change this way of managing this activation in this concrete moment. It is also very important whether the kid has been able to be with his parents or not during the incident and the posterior moments. The fact of taking kids away from their reference figure during the impact is a risk factor. We would recommend that, apart from telling the kid the truth, and telling it correctly, we shouldn't deny him any information and let him take part in all the rituals and all the events taken related to the incident as long as he wants to, it is also important that we don't tear him apart from the situation of the critical nucleus, when there's a death in the family, of a grandparent maybe, and we leave the kids with the neighbors or with a relative that isn't that affected. If the paternal grandfather died we leave him with the maternal uncles, right? This is something very extended and this would be what we might consider the right way to do this, right? because we prevent the kid from suffering. We usually try, especially if we have little kids, avoiding them as much pain as we can, we don't want them to pass through it. But this death will affect him anyway and the more time he can spend with his parents and the more he participates, the better he will evolve and the more integrated he will feel. Otherwise relative neglecting feelings might appear, such as, they're taking me away from that, maybe this will make him think he has no right to feel sad or he doesn't have any right to be linked to something that is really affecting him. It is important taking these small details into account. What can we deduce from all this? That kids' needs in these situations are usually basic and they are usually the ones we adults also have, as they need to be taken into account, they need to have the feeling that they aren't neglected. Usually it is important giving them something to do, when we are older the fact that someone tells us to take care of something makes us work, even though we might be a bit in stand-by, we are moving because we must, in example, share out water, right? The same happens with kids, if we give them something to do, we give them a control feeling, even if it's on a small task. And this helps them passing through this critical moment slowly, calmly and, therefore, better. As we have said it is also very important that if they want to, they can take part in any kind of goodbye rituals, either funeral parlors, funerals or any kind of act done to say goodbye to the deceased person. We must give him the option to choose, avoid tearing him apart because we think he's a kid, that he won't realize, that it will hurt him. Well, let him decide, this person, this kid, will grow up, and he will carry this death during all his life. Even if we tear him apart, there will be a moment in which he'll wonder why he couldn't say goodbye. Finally at the beginning of this video we said that monitoring is also very important, right? A monitoring which might last up to six months, before seeing how everything evolved, having a global view on the process. Which things are basic to make a good monitoring on this critical incident's evolution? If it finally gets solved or not, if we need external help or how could we manage this effectively or not. First, it is basic that parents have some guidelines. In example, taking this psychological first aid course and knowing how to deal with, how to manage critical incidents in daily life. Guiding them, if you have a relative who is passing through this, being able to give them basic information which might be useful for them. It is also important letting kids some space to play and make questions. As their reference persons we are there for anything they need. Usually they ask stupid questions, or things we might not think of in that moment, because everyone has its own thoughts and sometimes in an emergency we think "Where will I be staying tonight?" Well, then maybe they ask you: "So I won't be able to play until all this is over?" Well, everyone has its own concerns and we shouldn't judge them because in a crisis the brain uses its own strategies to keep working, so giving him this chance, letting him play, letting him paint and express his emotions the way he needs, so we must give them totally freedom at an expression and relief level, a bit of emotion leaking out. It is also important, both for kids and adults, as you have already seen in other videos, going back to the routine as soon as possible. Going back to the routine with all its effects, not only going to school and making homework but also recovering the limits and rules that existed before the critical incident. Not being too much relaxed because someone died in the family. There will obviously be some days of adaptation and maybe some rule will be flexible but the sooner the routine is back in all sense, the better and more it will favor the kid's recovery, and in this case also of the rest of the family. It is also very important that in a good management of a critical incident we know when to ask for help. In this case and as we said in other videos, if after four weeks, after a month there are still strong and clear symptoms of an abnormal activation, experiencing back the incident or recurrent nightmares or concentration problems or any of the symptoms we have already seen in previous videos, we should resort to an expert. Sometimes simply so that they give us guidelines on how to manage the incident better and see how it evolves, to let it give us some support in the evolution. It is very important, we were saying that, protective factors, a healthy kid which hasn't had any psychiatric or psychological precedent will keep being a healthy kid. As we already said in the adults part, a critical incident is a breakdown, a moment of decisions in our life, but it's a moment after which we won't be the same, although we will still being healthy persons and we will have obtained something from this experience.
