Pediatricians and other pediatric health care professionals can use trauma-informed care as a framework of prevention, detection, and treatment. Pediatricians play an important role in identifying trauma, supporting children with symptoms, preventing further adversity and promoting strong, healthy relationships. 

When a child experiences stress or a potentially traumatic event, it’s important that the child can access their affiliate response, seeking connection and support from a safe, stable, and nurturing caregiver.  This “tend and befriend” response helps calm stress and buffer the effects of adversity. 

If supportive relationships are not available, or those relationships are a source of harm, a child may rely on other stress responses such as fight, flight, or freeze to cope with perceived threats. When these stress responses are activated without sufficient buffering, toxic stress can develop, which can negatively affect the developing brain and body.   

Consistently providing safe, stable, and nurturing relationships helps children rely on the affiliate response, preventing stress from becoming toxic, building resilience, and supporting recovery from trauma.  Pediatricians play an important role in promoting these relationships by helping caregivers strengthen connection with their children, identifying and reducing stressors that make parenting more challenging, and linking families to resources and programs that support responsive caregiving and healthy mental development. 

To learn more about promoting resilience through prevention, watch this session of the Trauma-Informed Care and Resilience Promotion ECHO.   


Resources for Relational Health Promotion

The organizations and resources below can be utilized to promote relational health and the caregiver role in buffering stress, build parenting skills, reduce family stressors, and identify support to help families thrive.  

Inclusion in the list below does not imply endorsement by AAP.  

Early Childhood
  • The Three Rs – Ways to Support Your Child’s Resilience
    • This infographic (available in English and Spanish) provides practical strategies and examples for caregivers to help support their child’s resilience, focusing on reassurance, returning to routine, and regulation.   
    • Related HealthyChildren.org Article – Childhood Trauma: 3 Ways to Help Kids Cope (available in English and Spanish)
  • AAP Early Relational Health: AAP resources related to promoting safe, stable, and nurturing relationships that are critical in the first 5 years of life. 
  • Sesame Workshop: Sesame Workshop provides research-based resources, media, and community programs that help families build resilience, foster emotional well-being, and prevent trauma by supporting children through life’s challenges.
  • Center for the Developing Child: The Center for the Developing Child advances science-based knowledge on early childhood development to inform policies and practices that support healthy development, resilience, and lifelong well-being.
  • Reach Out and Read: Reach Out and Read leverages the well-child visit, using books and shared reading to support caregivers in fostering early literacy and healthy relationships with infants and young children. 
  • Zero to Three: The first three years of life are the most important for lifelong mental health and well-being. Zero to Three support families, professionals and decisionmakers who shape the lives of young children.
Adolescence
In The Community
  • The YMCA: The YMCA creates safe, supportive environments and programs that strengthen connections among children, families, and communities.
  • Boys and Girls Clubs of America: Boys & Girls Clubs of America provide safe, supportive spaces and positive youth–adult relationships that foster belonging, resilience, and healthy development. BGCA is also working to scale trauma-informed practices to clubs across the country.  

Last Updated

04/23/2026

Source

American Academy of Pediatrics