When Schools Miss the Impact of Childhood Trauma
While we often think of trauma as a singular and tragic event, the most common type of trauma people face is chronic and relational. While this is true for children as well, schools often miss the mark when it comes to recognizing trauma and responding to it effectively. Meanwhile, educators and school professionals also have the opportunity to be a protective factor in a child’s development by being a safe and secure place.
What can sometimes get in the way of schools responding to trauma in children the right way is when the child’s behavior becomes the focus of intervention instead of understanding the underlying traumatic stress that the child is experiencing. It’s important for school professionals to understand the widespread prevalence of chronic trauma, what symptoms of trauma look like, and how to mitigate further trauma in schools.
Types of chronic traumatic stress for children vary depending on age, culture, etc. However, common symptoms include the following. Notably, many of these experiences are compounded for children living in poverty due to systematic barriers and oppression families face.
Threat to physical safety or security
Interpersonal physical or sexual abuse by a caregiver or otherwise
Exposure to gun violence
Lack of consistent access to housing or food
Routine exposure to adults who are not safe
Grief and loss
Losing a family member or loved one
Emotional neglect
When a caregiver fails to notice or attend to a child’s emotional needs for affection, attention, support, etc.’
Lack of caregiver interest in child’s emotional world and development
While symptoms vary, many children who experience trauma may share symptoms of irritability, feelings of shame, “shutting down” or disassociating from the present moment, struggling with peer relationships, emotion regulation difficulties, difficulty sleeping, persistent fearful or anxious feelings, developmental regression, excessive risk-taking, and more. It can be difficult to encapsulate the full range of possible symptoms of trauma; however, it’s important to understand that sudden changes in a child’s behavior or struggling with expected developmental milestones may be due to traumatic stress.
While every district and school’s approach (or lack thereof) to being “trauma informed” is different, in many cases school’s seem to acknowledge the existence of trauma, but not necessarily integrate this understanding into the ways they make sense of student behaviors.
Many core symptoms of chronic traumatic stress are things like irritability, emotion regulation issues, difficulty concentrating, relational challenges, agitation and feelings of shame. All of these things can make school really challenging for young children. Students who are struggling are often brought to the attention of specialists to determine how to better support them.
Diagnoses like ADHD, Autism and learning disabilities are all common in schools. While these diagnoses can often be empowering and helpful for students and families, we may also be misunderstanding “ADHD” symptoms for trauma symptoms, for example. Many of the symptoms in each of these areas overlap greatly with symptoms of trauma. As with the ADHD example, difficulty sustaining attention, emotion regulation issues, increased agitation, etc. are all symptoms that can be misinterpreted as so if we aren’t aware and knowledgeable about the impact of trauma.
This extends beyond these diagnoses as well. Many students experiencing trauma may have unexplained behavior challenges, such as fighting with peers, walking out of class, etc. These behaviors all make perfect sense when we understand trauma’s impact on our fight/flight responses. However, behaviors such as these are not often understood in the context of trauma, and can be responded to with punishment, which can further traumatize the student.
Having mental health providers in schools, such as social workers and counselors, is important; however, it can be even more effective to train school personnel on the prevalence and symptoms of trauma as well as protective ways to respond to students suffering from traumatic stress. Children living with trauma are incredibly resilient, and schools should serve as a safe and predictable environment that supports their development and healing.
