When a child experiences trauma or loss, something happens that goes beyond the mind and deep into the body — a surge of raw, unfiltered energy is released. This is not just metaphorical; it’s the real, physiological chaos that trauma and loss generate. Understanding this energy and how it behaves can transform how we respond to grieving or traumatized children — and how we help them heal.
While the trauma response is the body’s way of keeping us alive, grief is how we learn to live with change. Both create energy that moves through our muscles and shapes how we think. Sometimes, those thought patterns can hurt more than help—just like certain muscle tensions can strain the body. Both trauma and grief can affect our relationships in ways we don’t always recognize. But when that energy has nowhere to go—when it’s suppressed, denied, or pushed down—it doesn’t just disappear. It settles into the body, into the organs, and starts to impact our health. And let’s not forget—your brain is an organ too.
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, writes, “The mind is an emergent, self-organizing process that shapes how energy and information move across time.” He explains that a healthy mind regulates that flow toward integration. In children affected by trauma or grief, this integration has yet to happen. What we often witness is “unintegrated information” — energy trapped in the body and expressed through impulsive behaviors, mood swings, and mysterious physical symptoms. Children rarely understand where these feelings come from. Adults tend to label them before discovering more about the child's experience, just focusing on the behavior. Children act out — not because they want to misbehave — but because their bodies are expressing what words cannot. This energy seeks release. Like air in a balloon, it builds until it bursts. If adults don’t help children regulate and integrate this energy, it will manifest as disruptions in behavior, emotional overwhelm, or even unexplained health problems. Want to learn how to support children in regulating and integrating their energy? I go into this deeply in my book—check it out.
Too often, these behaviors are labeled, punished, or pathologized. Children are called “bad,” “hyper,” “attention-seeking,” or are given clinical diagnoses without considering the root energy behind the behavior. But these are not problems to be fixed — they are signs of dysregulation calling for understanding and support. Without guidance, children may adapt to the attention they receive — even if it’s negative — reinforcing unhealthy cycles that persist into adulthood. Our job is not to correct the child, but to assure their safety while helping them learn how to hold their energy, name their feelings, and find meaningful and safe ways to release what’s inside. This begins with presence, unconditional love, and a willingness to sit with them — not above them — in the storm.
Grief, unlike trauma, is the energy of change. It’s what happens when we try to make sense of what’s been lost. Some losses are obvious — a loved one, a home, a pet. Others are invisible: the loss of safety, identity, or the future we imagined. Intangible grief often goes unrecognized, but it affects us just as deeply. It lingers, waiting to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. People often ask, “What’s the worst kind of grief?” But the truth is, the worst is your own — because it's the one you live. Comparison doesn't help; it isolates. Instead, we must validate each child’s experience as uniquely theirs. When grief energy arises, it presents an opportunity. It’s “in-formation” — literally energy carrying information. If we can help children explore it, name it, and move it, we begin the process of transformation. The chaos of trauma becomes the catalyst for finding safety. The raw energy of grief becomes the power to adapt to a new reality.
The body remembers what the mind cannot always explain. Without safety and support, a child lives in a heightened state of fear or anxiety — stuck in the past or worried about the future. But neither exists. What’s real is the present moment. Healing can only happen here. Every time a child expresses difficult energy, they are giving us a doorway into their inner world. If we meet them with presence instead of punishment, curiosity instead of control, we help them become aware of their own process. In doing so, we make integration possible.
Adults can change their relationship to their past by reframing how they see themselves — not by changing what happened, but by changing the story they tell about it. Words, therapy, insight, books, and spiritual practices help adults find meaning and coherence. But children don’t yet have those tools. Their primary language is not speech — it’s play, movement, creativity, and behavior. They are asking the world around them, “Can you help me find who I really am?” The answer must be yes — not with lectures or labels, but with love, patience, and the willingness to understand their energy.
Labeling children by how their energy shows up — “good,” “bad,” “wild,” “quiet” — reduces their entire being to a single moment. Energy is not static; it is always changing. A child is not their behavior. They are not the tantrum, or the silence, or the restlessness. They are potential — in motion, in search of meaning. To truly support a grieving or traumatized child, we must stop reacting to the noise of their behavior and start listening to the energy underneath. That’s where transformation begins — not only for the child but for us as adults, too.
Conclusion: A Call to Love Children need unconditional love — not just to survive, but to evolve. They need adults who can see past their behavior, who can hold space for messy energy, and who can guide that energy into creative, life-affirming paths. Grief and trauma are not the end of the story. They are the raw material from which transformation can emerge. When we honor the energy behind a child’s behavior, we invite healing — not just for them, but for ourselves and for the generations yet to come.