Sruly has been out of work for six months already and the family finances are in a bad state. Thankfully Rachel has been able to work extra hours to put food on the table. However she’s clearly worse for wear: getting up early and then coming home late to a house that still needs cleaning and kids who are showing signs of mother-deprivation is not working for her. She is irritable exhausted and overwhelmed.

Unfortunately she can’t turn to Sruly for support. As the designated “cause of the problem” Sruly feels guilty enough. He doesn’t want to hear about how hard things are for his wife. He is sleepless with depression and anxiety. While he “knows” that Hashem will take care of everything he cannot move this knowledge down to his chest. Tightened muscles shortness of breath and even occasional palpitations fill the area that should be permeated with the soothing warmth of emunah and bitachon. His poor score on this spiritual test only adds to his feelings of inadequacy and failure. Sruly actually needs support as much as his wife does but he can’t get it either.

So instead of anyone helping anyone husband and wife continue to snap at each other and overreact to minor misunderstandings. Anger and tension escalate as the weeks and months of unemployment go on. Of course when conflict escalates the whole house spirals downward. Husband wife and children suffer trauma. Whether things have reached that point or stopped short of actual verbal or physical violence intense periods of stress take their toll on each member of the family.

Children and Intense Stress

When adults are seriously stressed they cannot always afford the “luxury” of tuning into their children. Of course they will take care of their kids as usual providing the necessities of life and sometimes even the standard “frills.” But it may be provided in a distracted manner by a parent whose mind and heart is elsewhere. For their part children may not appear to notice. Against the background of adult financial struggle marital crisis health crisis family crisis — even death or divorce — the kids seem preoccupied with their own little lives. They play with their friends. They do or don’t do their homework as usual. They fight with their siblings beg for new clothes and toys read their books and in general carry on as usual. Their parents are relieved because they have so much else on their minds that they really don’t have time right now for extra problems with the children.

And yet while all looks normal there is much going on inside children who live with intensely stressed parents. In His kindness Hashem has given children special tools to enable them to survive and even thrive in the midst of chaos pressure and trauma. One primary tool is called “dissociation” — the ability to pack away problematic feelings into a locked chamber of the mind. The rest of the mind is free to go to school study play and live a normal life. The child can laugh and have fun and sleep peacefully at night (unlike his or her parents who may be tossing and turning). In other words the child looks just fine. Ask their mother how they are coping with the divorce the move or the new school and she’ll say “They’re doing great!” And she’ll mean it.

Dealing with Intense Stress

Both adults and children deal so much better with stress when they are supported through it. Children who store away childhood pain often suffer for decades as unconscious material affects their moods their choices and their behaviors. Therapy in adulthood can help but even more helpful is support in childhood when the stress is occurring. Similarly timely support helps adults cope better emotionally behaviorally and physically with current stress. Parents can seek professional counseling for themselves and possibly for their kids as well.

They can also help their kids tremendously by realizing that the child DOES feel upset about an upsetting situation and by simply naming for the children the situation and the appropriate feelings for that situation. This technique can help prevent dissociation or other negative effects of trauma.

For instance “Divorce is hard on all of us. I feel sad sometimes don’t you?” can normalize the child’s experience and help release it. “I know you’ve heard a lot of fighting lately and I bet you don’t like that. It’s scary to listen to I’m sure. Mommy and Tatty are getting help so we won’t fight so much.” Or “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening to your story. I was thinking about Zeidy and how he’s doing in the hospital. Do you think about him sometimes too?”

Just knowing that kids feel the stresses around them is crucial. Don’t be fooled by appearances; help your children process the events that Hashem sends their way and help yourself do the same.