Recently, a 2-year-old girl from the United Kingdom went viral on TikTok for doing something extraordinary: She rescued her father during a diabetic emergency. In the video, her dad is slumped and unresponsive. She tries to rouse him, then runs for his glucose tablets. She stays calm. She’s focused. She saves his life.

And then came the comments.

“This poor baby’s going to be traumatized for life.”

“No child should ever have to go through this.”

“Where was the other parent?”

The flood of responses revealed something striking—not just about how we view trauma, but about how we misunderstand children’s capacity for resilience.

Let’s talk about what this moment really means for that child—and for posttraumatic parents watching through the lens of their own childhood fear.

We often treat trauma like a photograph: an image burned into memory that we carry forever. But trauma isn’t the event—it’s the internal experience. It’s not what happened that defines trauma. It’s what happened inside us during and after it, and the sense we make of what happened.

Did she feel utterly alone?

Did she believe she was helpless, unseen, or unsafe?

Did she not have support afterward to make meaning?

If the answer to those questions is no, then the event might not leave trauma behind; it might leave resilience. If the parents continue to build on this experience as something to be proud of, it can........

© Psychology Today