Supporting our Traumatized Students

I spent part of my Friday with the team of counselors from my school district. We've been watching a video series by Dr. Bruce Perry, which explores the brain science and impact of trauma on children, and offers strategies and approaches to support these learners.

I walked away from the conversation with the same sense I always get when immersed in conversation about a particular population of students.  Learners who are impacted by trauma definitely need us to be sensitive to their individual needs, and to be thoughtful in our approaches for providing them support - but these approaches aren't dramatically different from interventions that other students need.  Dr. Parry isn't advocating for something really out-there or complicated, beyond the support we provide for other kids in our classrooms.  This isn't to say that intensive, clinical support is needed by many children who've experienced trauma.  What I am saying is that the approaches in a classroom setting are the same as approaches which support many of our other kids. It's just that our learners who've been impacted by traumatic experiences will need them more.

Dr. Perry shared some bits of background information that have anchored my thinking.

1.   Our brains are designed to deal with survival first.  

Dr. Perry shares this diagram of brain function.  We work from the brain-stem up.  People who've experienced significant trauma, literally do not develop the neural networks in the other areas of the brain which will help them to reason, problem solve, develop healthy attachments, etc.  Our work with these learners necessarily has to focus on creating safety and acceptance, and recognize that it's not that they won't interact and problem solve the way we would like them to, they really can't.

2.   Our responses are shaped by the templates of earlier experiences in our brains.  

Every bit of learning we do is processed in the context of the learning that came before it.  We expect the stove top to heat up when we turn the dial because we've seen it happen before.  We know we will feel cold without a coat in the winter because we've shivered every time we popped outside poorly dressed in years gone by.  And, if in the past, quiet redirection has immediately escalated to yelling or physical injury at because we didn't quite get off the slide fast enough or asked an innocent question at bed time, we expect adults at school who quietly redirect us or use a stern tone of voice will hurt us too.

It's the same for touch.  If being slapped or shoved has been the norm for someone at home or in the community, their brains will tell them that's what's coming in other environments too.  They may not be shrugging us off because they're trying to get away from us or avoid work, or shoving a peer because they're trying to pick a fight.  For traumatized students, it's very possible these reactions are an autonomous, self-protective response that occurs before they've even processed what's happened.

Not on purpose...but because the template in their brain-stem causes them to react long before other areas of their brain can get involved.  We don't have to wait to process that the stove will burn us.  We react instantaneously to pull our hands away because we just know.

By age 6, we'll have 95% of our adult brain mass and initial neural networks.  That's a lot of patterning that needs changing if there has been significant early trauma, even if the trauma has been over for some time.  What looks innocent or inconsequential to us may elicit strong reactions in our students, because our students' reactions aren't only based on their interactions with us.  They're based on the templates created by the life experiences that have come before.


3.  Trauma responses can look like hyper-arousal, or can be dis-associative.

While harder to deal with in the moment, it's easier for us to "notice" a child who is angry or reactive all the time.  It's more difficult to recognize that the learner who is sitting in his or her seat passively may also be triggered by a traumatic response.  "Checking out" is a coping strategy that helps to numb the feelings of fear and stress.  Additionally, many children who've experienced trauma aren't checked-out at all - they're actually totally checked in- but their focus is not on what we expect.  While teachers and other learners are thinking about the content of a lesson or discussion, a traumatized learner might be intensely focused on the sounds in the hallway, or the movement in a cloakroom, or have "spidey senses" tingling because someone is moving around behind them.  It's not that they're not paying attention.  It's that experience has taught them that it's more important for their radars to be "tuned in" to potential dangers in their environment than it is to a discussion about chapter 4 of a novel..

So what can we do?  Like so many other aspects of learning -  it comes down to relationships.  If we respect our students' early childhood expediences, and we know that the impact of trauma can last for many, many years even after the experiences are well over, and we know that the human brain has an amazing capacity to heal and grow in the right environment....then we will intuitively know that it all comes down to relationships.

As educators, the best thing we can do for traumatized students is care about them. We can begin by assuming that our learners give us the best that they have to offer in the moment, and that focusing on their strengths, on the things we want to see, will help them to build patterns of success, and help to erase the things that hurt.  We can understand that they're not reactive, or not completing assignments, on purpose to hurt us, or because they don't care.  They're not being lazy or combative.  They're simply using the tools they have available to them in order to cope with what they've experienced in the past.

Just like our students, we won't get it right every day.  We're shaped by our experiences the same as they are.  But if we start from a place of caring and understanding, we'll get it right more often. Traumatized learners can come a long way in a short period of time when surrounded by the care and acceptance they need.  And isn't this something that we want for All Our Kids?

Helpful links on Trauma:

Articles on Core Strengths of Supporting Students with Trauma
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/

Article:  Maltreatment and the Developing Child
https://childtrauma.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/McCainLecture_Perry.pdf

            Dr. Bruce Perry - Handout for Caregivers

                                                      https://tinyurl.com/jrfj7s4

                                                      Child Trauma Academy - articles and resources

                                                      http://childtrauma.org/cta-library/