TRAUMA CHANGES THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

• When working with children that are traumatized, recognize that you are working with their nervous system which is not under their conscious control. It interprets cues through the brainstem, far below conscious thought, and may interpret neutral cues as unsafe if they have been associated with trauma, and activate the nervous system accordingly (fight/flight/freeze).

  • • Dysregulation = when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed by a perceived threat, danger, overstimulation, and activates fight/flight/freeze to maintain safety.

    • Regulation = returning to a calm and functioning state, where one is better able to manage emotions and direct their actions intentionally. This is a learned skill- if parents don’t (or are unable to) meet the physical and emotional needs of children through infancy and childhood, they don’t have a template for regulating themselves. This is why explicitly teaching children to regulate is crucial.

• Our nervous systems adapt to the situations we are in. If we are in chaotic, abusive, unpredictable, or terrifying situations, our nervous systems will adapt to protect us. Our response may be adaptive in the situation, but dysfunctional or excessive for day to day life, or many years after the threat has passed.

• The traumatized nervous system can become overwhelmed by challenges that are too large (even if they are doable for other children that age). Breaking things down, smaller tasks, and providing support and encouragement can keep children engaged.

• Our nervous systems become conditioned to respond to threats in the same ways long after the original trauma is over.

• In fight/flight/freeze the lower parts of the brain take over, and our higher order thinking (planning ahead, anticipating consequences, creativity, connection with others). This is why piling on more punishments and rewards will not work with dysregulated children. Regulation (or getting back to calm) should be the priority. Once regulated, children are better able to understand the impact of their actions and the consequences.

  • Calm/Social engagement: this is the calm, relaxed, regulated state. Children respond flexibly to challenges, engage in social connection, think creatively, learn, make connections, and are productive. Children are in this state when their nervous system detects cues of safety. However, this is not the ‘default’- a traumatized child’s nervous system may be almost constantly on high alert even in a safe situation. We need to create spaces and relationships that help facilitate the activation of this system. Predictability, one challenge at time, control, validation, and calm coregulation can help children spend more time here.

  • Fight: The nervous system perceives a threat- whether or not there is actually danger present. Remember the brain makes associations with smells, sounds, types of people, and feelings. Children may be agitated, unable to hold still, argumentative, defiant, violent, scanning for threats, interpret neutral things as threatening, preparing for the worst, or being easily offended.

  • Flight: If the nervous system deems the threat unsafe to ‘fight’, it will turn to flight. Children may be anxious, avoidant, hyperactive, fidgety, procrastinate, ignore an obvious problem, or otherwise move away from the problem or situation.

  • Freeze: This is the oldest nervous system response present in all animals. It represents the last resort of giving up the struggle, when fighting/fleeing has not resolved the problem. Many children learn to dissociate in response to severe inescapable stress and trauma (separating from thoughts, feelings, situations, and memories to manage the emotional difficulty).

HEALING ELEMENTS OF TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE:

When you know the healing elements of trauma care, you can apply them creatively to your classroom and interactions:

• Consistency: often traumatic experiences were unpredictable. Children’s nervous systems are on high alert when they do not know what to expect. Having routines and predictability over time can regulate a child’s nervous system and reduce the hypervigilance.

• Rhythm: Rhythm is a stimulation that is required to develop the brain starting in the womb (mother’s heartbeat, walking, rocking, patting). It is naturally calming and can help further develop the brain if the child missed out on that stimulation when young. Dancing, music, rhythmic games, all allow us to be in sync with each other quite literally- reconnecting us and calming us.

• Co-regulation: humans are social creatures that rely on connection with others to survive. When our nervous systems sense safety in the facial expressions, muscle tone, and tone of voice of others, it can turn off our ‘fight or flight’ response. When our nervous systems sense stress, fear, anger, and distress in others’ demeanor, our systems sense danger and deem it safer to stay in ‘fight or flight’, leaving our higher order thinking offline. A dysregulated adult cannot regulate a dysregulated child. “Put on your own oxygen mask first”.

• Familiarity: When the nervous system encounters the familiar, predictable, and safe, it will gradually recognize the safety, and reorganize to spend more time in calm/social engagement.

• Group connection: Trauma disconnects us, and connection is a crucial part of trauma healing. For thousands of years, tribes, religious groups, and cultures have used group connection to promote healing. For children this can be sports, games, music, dance, play, drama, religious/cultural groups, after school clubs, and any participation in a community.

• Connection to the natural world: Nature is a natural healer. Incorporate sunshine, fresh air, movement in the outdoors, and animals wherever possible.

• Play: Playing is crucial for children (and adults!) recovering from trauma, and may not be included in their home experience. It allows for a carefree, imaginative, safe, and connective experience and helps form the necessary brain connections to heal from trauma. Group play like sports, games, and other activities provides a safe place to shift in and out of fight/flight and safety/connection in predictable and manageable ways, toning the nervous system for future challenges and strengthening its regulating capacity.

WAYS TO REGULATE

• Deep breathing: slow belly breathing and having a longer out-breath than in-breath calms the nervous system and is the most effective. You can use bubbles for young children, blowing out imaginary candles, a little hourglass to time 1 min of breathing.

• Rhythm: rocking, tapping, patting, butterfly tapping (arms crossed across chest patting the collarbone rhythmically).

• Grounding: any form of using the 5 senses to bring attention back to your body and the world around you when in fight or flight. (54321 Exercise: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste)

• Touch: consensual touch, arm around shoulder, rubbing or patting back, holding a hand, or touching an animal.

• Co-regulation: by being regulated ourselves, and providing an accepting, calm, interaction, we are offering a powerful cue of safety to a child’s nervous system.

• Movement: When we are in fight or flight our body releases hormones that prime us to move. Whenever possible, give children who are in fight/flight the opportunity to move when dysregulated. A walk, jumping jacks, recess, P.E., even wall sits while listening in class are options for releasing pent-up energy accompanied with fight/flight in a healthy way. Likewise, a child in freeze can benefit from gentle movement to re-engage them with the world around them.

• A classroom ‘calm corner’: Having a space that children can go to use their regulation/coping skills when dysregulated (in fight/flight/freeze) is an excellent way for them to build coping skills that they can gradually begin to use naturally when they are confronted with stress or challenge. You can stock this corner with anything that may help them calm and re-engage: bubbles for breathing, sensory objects for grounding, comfort objects for calming, etc. To give our children the gift of being able to manage their difficult emotions in a healthy way- whether they’ve experienced trauma or not, is one of the most impactful and applicable things we can pass along to them.

• *Practice before dysregulated: Anything is more difficult when we are dysregulated, especially trying something new! Practicing coping skills before children are dysregulated is crucial, so they come more naturally when they are needed. An easy way to do this (and also provide a predictable routine) is to spin a ‘coping skill wheel’ with 5 or so skills each morning and practicing as a class for 2 minutes. This will provide a familiar toolbox for children when they are confronted with stress or trauma triggers.

CORE BELIEFS AFTER TRAUMA

• Unfamiliarity and unpredictability is perceived as a potential danger by our nervous systems. When our world doesn’t match what we expect and what we are familiar with, we can become uncomfortable.

• For some kids, predictable is chaos, rejection, and not fitting in. Some people say “it seems like this kid is trying to get punished, they are just causing problems to get in trouble”, and on some level they might be. They may be subconsciously looking for evidence that their worldview, which is “the world is chaotic”, is true.

• Kids can often become uncomfortable in calm and loving relationships because it is unfamiliar. They often will act out and cause problems to maintain the predictable punishments, rejection, and broken relationships that they are habituated to.

• To fix this, we need to give the children time to acclimate to unfamiliar patterns. As therapists, teachers, and caregivers, we need to know that these responses are a result of past trauma and to continue giving them patience and consistency

MORE RESOURCES ON TRAUMA-INFORMED EDUCATION:

WEBSITES

• What is Trauma-Informed Education? https://www.edutopia.org/article/understanding-trauma-informed-education

• ACE Score- Teachers need to be aware of their own ACE scores and how that might affect their interactions and responses to their students. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

• More about ACEs: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/17/648710859/childhood-trauma-and-its-lifelong-health-effects-more-prevalent-among-minorities

• How Trauma Rewires DNA: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/545092982

VIDEOS & PODCAST EPISODES

• Ross Green - Helps reframe mindset from "kids do well if they want to" to "kids do well if they can": https://youtu.be/jvzQQDfAL-Q

• When Children Act Out - Dealing With Challenging Behaviors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUcG2-EFkNI&ab_channel=DeveloPlay

• RadioWest podcast with Bessel Van der Kolk, trauma specialist - some discussion of trauma in educational settings: https://radiowest.kuer.org/health-science/2021-06-01/web-extra-how-trauma-lives-in-our-bodies

BOOKS

• Between Teacher and Child by Haim Ginott - gives phrases for what teachers can say in tricky situations with students

• The Body Keeps the Score: https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score

• The Power of Showing Up: https://drdansiegel.com/book/the-power-of-showing-up/

• Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience for Educators

• Reaching the Whole Child by Teaching Whole Class Novels