Reflective Entry of “Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing Children, Parenting and the Family Series” and “Udaan” Essay

Updated: Apr 5th, 2019

Trauma can be understood as an excess anxiety that overwhelms an individual’s feeling of safety or integrity. The impact of such experience triggers brain through muscle receptors and voluntary reaction system. The brain, as a result, will biologically work through the negative feedback mechanisms to restore the body to its normal functioning process.

Several hormones are released in response, such as adrenaline, which leads to changes in heartbeats, breathing rates and other involuntary actions causing anger or numbness. Stress is the most identifiable sign of trauma among traumatic individuals. Impact of trauma varies with individual’s age, personal copying mechanism and vulnerability. Trauma is generally divided into psychological and physical (Levine and Kline 6).

Children are the main victims of traumatic cases in the society. This is because children constitute a vulnerable group that only relies on their parents’ assistance. Additionally, they do not have a well-developed copying mechanisms when encountered by traumatizing situations.

They face physical trauma from falls during plays and climbing explorations. Sporting injuries are the main source of trauma caused by bicycles and skating boards accidents. Scenarios, such as drowning and auto cars’ accidents, are also experiences that result in traumatic moments (Levine and Kline 23).

According to Levine and Kline, children who were exposed to surgical and medical conditions at birth show more symptoms of traumatization as compared to those who were born outside hospital facilities. This is because of painful experiences which medicated children undergo at the hospitals (Levine and Kline 25).

Violent activities in the society are sources of psychological traumas that last for a long and take a lot of time before people forget it, especially young children. These can be caused by materials from the media or real life situation.

At times, children face both psychological and physical traumas at the same time. A bitter example of this may be taken from the film Udaan when analyzing the main protagonist Rohan. The seventeen year old boy finds himself in a psychological torture after his expulsion from school. He meets his egoistic father Roy on his return to Jamshedpur.

He is as well shocked to realize he has a step brother Arjun. Life becomes very confusing to Rohan; he finds it hard to cope with his new younger brother and brutalities of his father Roy. The father insists that Rohan should join engineering class to help him manage his factory despite Rohan’s passion in the writing field (Udaan).

In seeking solace, Rohan opts to stealing his father’s car to meet friends in a bar and drink. In the process, Rohan’s trauma turns him wild that he engages his father in a physical fight and exchange of insults. He reflects his life through a poem, Udaan, which opens with “A few, scattered memories,” and continues with “Bare-foot I walk upon them”. This is an interpretation of shattered dreams resulting from his family stresses due to the brutal father. He fulfills this dream when he leaves with Arjunn,

“Truly, I have forgotten,
Where I had removed my shoes,
But, it seems,
That I do not need them now” (Udaan).

Rohan underwent parental abuse that caused him a lot of suffering. According to Levine and Kline, “spousal and child abuse accounts for the majority of physical and emotional violence suffered by youngsters” (28). While hoping to regain his normal life, he experienced more frustration that he considered escape as the only option to end his suffering. Consequently, Rohan chose drinking as a part of his healing process. Consequently, he asked his uncle for advice on what to do before making his final choice to escape.

Works Cited

Levine, Peter A., and Maggie Kline. Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing Children, Parenting and the Family Series, Berkley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2006. Print.

Udaan. Ex. Prod. Sanjay Singh. India: Mahendra J. Shetty. 2010. DVD.

This essay on Reflective Entry of “Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing Children, Parenting and the Family Series” and “Udaan” was written and submitted by your fellow student. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly.