My child glanced back at me, and then reached over and grabbed your hand and kissed it. You smiled down at her and I could read your mind. “What a sweet and loving child”. I also knew exactly how wrong this whole situation was, because my child was looking up at you and reaching for your fingers to SURVIVE.
My child does not rely or trust relationships around her.
Starting a new school year in a new town, has given me the job of teaching those who work with my children exactly what early childhood trauma can do to the developing brain. In children, prolonged periods of stress or trauma cause internal reactions that change the body and brain. They are literally wiring to survive, and even when the trauma and stress are gone, they continue to respond and react as if the trauma is still present. The younger the brain, the more susceptible to trauma.
Trauma in the lives of young children is not always understood. Within the classroom we often see children respond in ways that can mimic other problems, including ADHD/ADD and other behavior disorders. You might see:
- Trouble forming relationships with teachers or peers
- Poor self-regulation
- Negative thinking
- Hypervigilance
- Executive function issues
These problems stem from a brain that has learned to survive in life or death situations. And what must be understood, is that a child whose brain is constantly scanning the environment for danger is not learning or trusting. The hard part within your classroom is that danger lies in any new or novel concept that is introduced. This is why transitions and changes in routine are so hard for my children. Their brain is sounding the alarm that the worst thing that ever happened, is about to happen again.
When the brain is threatened, it gets really bad at making choices that don’t include survival. So if a bear were to run into your classroom, my kid could probably survive. The problem occurs when you introduce a transition or a new concept, my kid is still looking for the bear. In these moments you are going to see a child with poor self-regulation and behavior problems.
The natural inclination as a teacher, will be to correct and/or punish this behavior. We tend to use rewards and consequences within the classroom setting. Unfortunately, my brain does not care if you give me a sticker or put me in timeout; because a bear in the classroom trumps anything. Predictability is how I know I will be safe. I don’t have a regulatory system that can handle the stress that comes from unpredictability. I need to know what’s coming. When I can’t predict what is going to happen, I will start looking for the bear. This is unconscious, my brain has been hijacked by stress.
My kids from hard places have a diagnosis. It’s the one label that my children need understood and recognized, because it is how they survive. It is called Complex Trauma. Here’s the reality; if you are a teacher or you work in any capacity with children, then you are working with children with this same diagnosis.
My children have rules about relationships that are built on terror, neglect and abandonment. They have memories that are small reminders of how dangerous this world can be. Even if they cannot remember or verbally process what happened, their bodies have stored these memories. The world is not a safe place where needs are met and adults cannot be trusted.
My child has stopped trusting and believing in others.
Infants and children are wired to need adults in order to survive. Children who have experienced trauma, have been hurt by the very people who were meant to keep them safe. This can lead to negative thinking and shame. A child from a hard place, often has a negative narrative. Traumatized kids also tend to develop what Dr. Howard (childmind.org) calls a “hostile attribution bias” — the idea that everyone is out to get them. “So if a teacher says, ‘Sit down in your seat,” they hear it as, ‘SIT DOWN IN YOUR SEAT!’” she explains. “They hear it as exaggerated and angry and unfair. So they’ll act out really quickly with irritability.” As a teacher, you feel like your tone and words are neutral, they actually hear them as negative. The greater the overreaction to your neutral, the deeper they live within fear and shame.
Children from hard places need tiny successes and to hear that mistakes are stepping stones to learning. They need to be met at their developmental level. You might have an 8th grader who has the cognitive skills of a first grader and an attention span of a preschooler. Adjust your expectations and meet them at their lowest level. You would not expect a preschooler to sit still for an hour and complete a lengthy assignment. Allow for movement and give the child work that is at their cognitive and emotional level.
A child’s greatest need is relationship. They need to know that you care, in spite of their scary behaviors and feelings. But here is the hardest part; this means that you need to be a behavior detective and ask the ‘why’ behind the behavior. Behind every scary behavior is an unmet need and this will answer the ‘why’.
- The student who angrily pushed all the papers off their desk and yelled, “I hate you, f#@k off”, did not do that because he is a bad kid. A behavior detective may have learned that he has been in foster care for 18 months and is on his fourth foster home.
- The child whom you just met that reached up and kissed your hand did not do that because they are so loving. A behavior detective understands that she did this because her brain was wired to survive in an orphanage by being charming and cute.
- The kid who is constantly talking, fidgeting and unable to complete seatwork, is not always ADHD. A behavior detective has learned that he is being raised by his grandparents and he is often put in charge of his younger siblings.
What is happening in these behavior moments is a brain searching for a bear in what the brain deems an unsafe situation. You can show your student safety through predictability, routine and tiny successes; not through rewards and consequences.
You should never punish a child for a behavior born of survival. You are literally punishing an adaptation to extreme stress.
“Caring adults act as resources that keep track of a child’s moods, their beliefs, their qualities. Safe and reliable relationships are the backup discs for children and young people when their own memory storage units have failed.” (Australian Childhood Foundation)
At the end of your classroom day, you will send my child home. My hope is that with each passing day, they learn to thrive at school, not just survive. I hope that they will find safety and security in your classroom.
Here’s how you can help keep the bear out of your room –
- Teach to the emotional age, not the chronological age. Meet the student where they are at in that moment in time.
- Consider all extreme behavior within the context of survival to better understand ‘why he keeps doing that?’
- Repetition and routine is important because with every positive experience the impact on the brain grows.
- Traumatized children expect the worst and focus on the negative. If you understand this, you will be better prepared for it.
- Childhood neglect is the most damaging trauma. The child must not have basic needs threatened in any way or survival will be all they think about.
- At the point the child was abused, the brain was focused on survival not learning. The development the child missed due to abuse will need extra attention.
- Traumatized children will often score lower on IQ tests than their true ability. Retest when their environment is helping them heal and watch the scores go up.
- The goal in healing trauma is when the child becomes agitated to help them learn skills to reduce the agitation. This repeated cycle is what most helps the child.
- Promote play with traumatized children. Play is very healing to the brain and the emotions.
- Don’t give up hope! The human brain is capable of healing in ways we do not yet understand. It may be a long road to healing and the child may not get there while still in your classroom, but every situation makes a difference. (excerpts from Traumatic Experience and the Brain, A Handbook for Understanding and Treating Those Traumatized as Children.)
