It frequently happens that children who have lived through extremely stressful experiences have some difficulty discussing their reactions to those experiences. This is likely to be especially true of younger children. When this proves to be the case, therapists have several options open to them, including art or play therapy, puppets, or even story-telling. A little book about Brave Bart, a cat who has something "very bad, sad, and scary" happen to him, may be just the thing to help younger children open up and learn to discuss, understand, and cope with their own particularly frightening experiences.
Brave Bart is a story for traumatized and grieving children, written by Caroline H. Sheppard, MSW, ACSW, a Trauma and Loss Consultant/Specialist. The story starts with events that happen after the scary experiences Bart lived through. Those events are kept intentionally vague and general, in order to allow each child to discuss his or her own particular experiences. Instead of describing Bart's bad experiences, the story starts with his immediate reactions to them. Bart tells how he thought he was the only one who ever had such bad things happen to him. He tried to keep his feelings to himself. But even though he kept his feelings inside, he started acting differently from the way he had before his bad experience. The story then details typical posttraumatic symptoms, in terms of a cat's life, contrasting his life before and after the traumatic events. Thus, for example "Before the bad...thing happened, I used to love to take a lot of catnaps.... But, after it happened, I had very scary dreams and nightmares."
The story covers a wide range of typical posttraumatic symptoms in the first 19 pages of the 32-page book. At that point the therapist is introduced into the story. The introduction of the therapist is done in an unusual and very effective way, with Bart first seeing her only as a huge scary shadow. The therapist is a big, golden cat whose name is Helping Hannah. She helps Bart begin to learn to identify his symptoms and come to understand how they relate to his scary experience. She then includes him in a group of other trauma survivors where he learns that he is not alone in his feelings.
With the support and guidance of Helping Hannah, Bart learns to develop coping strategies to deal with his reactions to his bad experience. And in the end, Bart learns that he really is a survivor and a very brave Bart.
Brave Bart may be just the thing to help young children come to terms with frightening and upsetting experiences. The illustrations by John Manikoff are colorful and effective. The book comes with a short discussion guide for the therapist on the inside back cover. It also comes with an optional set of felt puppets, one a black Bart and the other a golden Helping Hannah. The discussion guide suggests that the child answer suggested questions about the book through the Brave Bart puppet, while the therapist uses the Helping Hannah puppet. Although optional, the author recommends that Brave Bart be used in conjunction with a trauma specific program for use with children called What Color is Your Hurt?
Brave Bart, the two puppets, as well as information about the What Color is Your Hurt? program can be obtained from the TLC Institute at 900 Cook Road, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236. Their toll-free phone is 877-306-5256, and their fax is 313-885-1861. You can also visit them at the TLC web page.