Introduction

This chapter focuses on research on children exposed to other sorts of traumatic experiences in the United States, such as community violence and sexual abuse, the authors point to the important roles that parental knowledge of and response to children’s adverse experiences play in supporting recovery from trauma. It focuses on the need to take to heart Bronfenbrenner’s later and more “mature” social ecological perspective that recognizes not only the larger contexts in which development takes place, but the active role that youth play in shaping and acting on those contexts. Burgeoning theoretical work regarding perpetration-induced trauma and moral injury suggests that participation in victimizing others might contribute to a specific set of posttraumatic reactions that interfere with seeking and accepting support from others, such as shame, self-condemnation, and alienation. Most significantly, social support and acceptance from peers as well as from family and the community more broadly appear to stave off the stigma that contributes to continuing posttraumatic distress.