General Hospital’s Kate Mansi discusses helping children through trauma like the L.A. wildfires

Kate Mansi, in her off time from playing Kristina on General Hospital, has a new show called Sunday Support Series. In it, she explained that after she and her family had been evacuated during the L.A. wildfires and the news was on her TV almost 24/7, she heard a person named Dr. Lori Baudino, BC-DMT, an expert child psychologist. Baudino’s words touched Mansi, who found them comforting in a time of crisis.

Trauma creates resilience

General Hospital’s Kate Mansi invited Dr. Lori to be on her show, and Mansi explained that everyone had been tense lately because they didn’t expect the wildfires to happen and were caught people off guard. She posted the episode on Instagram, captioning it, “Thank you @drloribaudino expert child psychologist and @edenriegel for talking today about how to parent within the LA wildfires. #sundaysupportseries.”

On the show, Mansi stated, “So actually, here's an opportunity to talk about it. To move about it. To connect with it,” relating that the doctor had explained how the children could learn from what happened and what they experienced in the aftermath of the L.A. wildfires.

The General Hospital actress remarked, “I haven't been able to stop thinking about how you said our children can learn from this experience in such a deep, rich way about not only holding pain and healing from it but also learning beyond their emotional world.” The doctor’s TV appearance also sparked a memory in Mansi: “I remember where I was when 9/11 happened, and we were…my dad picked me up from school, and we watched it.” She asked the doctor to go into detail about “the deep rich learning experience that it [can be]. It can be a scary time and also…an opportunity.”

Dr. Lori then stated, “I remember watching a TV show, and the teenagers in the classroom were having all these emotional dynamics…They were called dramas, but, like, they were dynamics, right?” She noted that the dramas portrayed reflected real life, but the teacher kept on teaching her subject, and “There was no space for the teacher to pause and just be like, what's happening in real life right now, and how can I apply that to [whatever class they were teaching]?”

The doctor explained further that everyone expects children to learn their basic curriculum in school, “However, when real life is happening, you can learn through it…we can bridge it into real life.” She stated that awful events like 9/11, school shootings, and wildfires can be written about everywhere, “And yet children survive through them. And so those that do, get to survive through them, get an opportunity to utilize that in their learning.”

Dr. Lori noted that children are flexible and have remarkable resilience, which is not a genetic trait. Rather, “The actual component that helps you get it is having experiences, being exposed to traumas. Now, we don't want traumas for our children. We don't want to make that happen. But when they happen, they get to learn and build that muscle,” making kids more resilient.

She said that these traumas that children survive through are teachable moments that can connect to most subjects like the economy or geography. So the experience of any given trauma is funneled into a broader spectrum of knowledge.

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