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Trauma expert: 'It can be as difficult to return to biological family as it was to be removed'

Tom Cottrell, who has worked with children suffering from traumatic situations for the last 35 years, said a repeated disruption to a child's life during crucial developing years can affect them for life.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Children who have been shuttled and flown across America, can now be reunited with their families, but according to a local trauma expert -- the damage may already be done.

President Trump signed his executive order on Wednesday to stop the separation of families at the U.S. border. Tom Cottrell, YWCA's Vice President of Counseling Services, said childhood trauma can have lifelong impacts.

Read more: Bethany Christian Services providing foster homes for 81 children due to border crisis

“It happens when we as human beings don’t have the capacity to cope with whatever fear or terror we are facing at the moment and it changes the way we interact with the world,” Cottrell said.

The short term consequences of trauma include things like: acting out angrily, constant crying, regressing in terms of development milestones (i.e. potty training, eating). The long term consequences can include a person's ability to form relationships and show empathy later in life.

"A lot of the skills we develop as older children and adults are all based on that foundation of knowing: I am safe, I am loved and somebody cares about me," Cottrell said. "When that gets disrupted, there's a potential for an entire life of disruption."

Cottrell said it is not so much about the change in environment, but the change to a child's primary caregiver that affects their ability to develop -- especially from ages 1 to 3.

"Even returning to their biological family its still something new and it's not the way it was -- so, that predictability is still disrupted," Cottrell said.

"And that ability to anticipate the future is still disrupted and that person who is supposed to take care of [them] is still disrupted. So, it can be as difficult to return to biological family as it was to be removed from that family."

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Emma Nicolas is a multimedia journalist. Have a news tip or question for Emma? Get in touch by email enicolas@wzzm13.com, Facebook or Twitter.

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