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Truth For Teachers - A crash course on trauma-informed teaching

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This week on the Truth for Teachers podcast, I'm giving you an overview of and a solid foundation for understanding trauma-informed teaching practices. You'll learn ways that trauma impacts students and what we can do to support kids without carrying the weight of that trauma ourselves.

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All children face disappointment and fears, but some students deal with more serious, often traumatic, hardships at home. The term "trauma" can encompass many situations, explains Lori Sanchez, Ed.D. "In the past, when you talked about a child experiencing trauma, you assumed abuse or neglect," she says. "Now we understand that trauma can mean a lot of things-families dealing with divorce, serious illness, a natural disaster, a military deployment, and more." Of course, you can't undo the painful experiences your students have gone through, but you can make a difference in their learning and their resilience by bringing innovative strategies into your classroom.

To help students deal with stressful situations at home, many schools are using innovative trauma-informed strategies. Here are some of the most effective tools for teachers.

Look beyond the behavior

Research has shown that traumatic experiences alter the brain and can affect children socially, emotionally, behaviorally, and academically. It's a quadruple whammy. Toxic levels of stress and anxiety shape behavior and may make kids appear angry, depressed, checked out, uncooperative, or distracted, says psychologist Jamie Howard, PhD, of the Child Mind Institute in New York City. "When you adopt a trauma-informed perspective, you approach that student's behavior with openness and curiosity," she says.

"Rather than jumping to the conclusion that she's a problem, ask yourself, 'What happened to this child and why is she behaving this way?' " Howard recalls one student she worked with who didn't want to go to the front of the classroom to write on the board. "He seemed defiant, but actually it was scary to him to have his back exposed to the whole room," she says. It turns out he had an unstable home life and was bringing some of his fears and insecurities into the classroom.

Build relationships

You already know how important it is to have good relationships with your students. But for children who have been affected by trauma, strong connections are vital. Rich relationships with teachers help children form the foundations of resilience.

Building bonds is a central component of August Spiegelberg's classroom at Bruce Vento Elementary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where more than 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Spiegelberg regularly invites one or two of his fourth graders to eat lunch with him, using the opportunity to get to know them better. "I ask questions and then set them up to answer what they feel comfortable sharing," he says. He also tries to form relationships with the student's whole family. "But when a parent isn't super responsive, I try even harder to build a relationship with the child. The better we know students, the better we can teach them."

Create a safe environment

You play a critical role in making your students feel welcome in your classroom. "Students have to feel secure and connected, both to adults and to peers, in order to learn," says Susan Cole, director of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative in Boston.

That's the kind of environment seventh-grade teacher Lauren Jansen, EdD, fosters at North Middle School in O'Fallon, Missouri. "I'm keenly aware of how my students interact with each other," she says. "When I see anything negative beginning to happen, like one student picking on another one, I stop it immediately and have a conversation with the child, reminding them why it's not OK. My classroom is a place where students know they can be themselves and won't be made fun of."

It's also key to recognize that any student, regardless of their home life, can grow scared and anxious by a national news story such as a school shooting or a devastating hurricane. To ease children's fears in the wake of a tragedy like this, talk about the news as a group (in an age-appropriate way, of course), and reassure them that they're not in danger.

Meet students where they are

To help a student experiencing trauma feel settled in the classroom, you might need to make special accommodations. When Lori Sanchez, EdD taught sixth grade, she came up with creative solutions for students who were dealing with the aftermath of trauma.

She remembers one student who had been abandoned as a baby. Although the child was living with wonderfully supportive adoptive parents, she would periodically burst into tears in the middle of class, afraid that her parents were going to leave her. Sanchez kept a phone on her desk and allowed the girl to call her parents whenever she got anxious. "Just knowing the phone was there was enough to calm her," she says.

Perhaps you have a student in your class who's cranky and disruptive in the morning because he doesn't have a regular bedtime, or who melts down easily because her parents are fighting. Setting up a "safe space" in your classroom, where a child can take a short break to calm down, de-stress, and even take a short nap if they're tired, can make a world of difference.

Be predictable

Feeling out of control is one of the hallmarks of traumatic experiences, so adhering to a clear, predictable routine in your classroom provides students with a sense of stability. Tammi Mueller, a first-grade teacher at Riceville Community School in Riceville, Iowa, has students who live in foster care, a situation that often involves trauma and disruption. "I try to keep a scheduled classroom to help anchor the kids," she says. "I have a visual schedule at the front of the room, and I keep to a routine as much as possible. If I have to change things, I make sure I tell them."

You can't adopt a trauma-informed approach in your classroom all on your own. It takes teamwork and sharing what you know with colleagues. "Meet with the educators and others in your school and start a study group," advises Susan Cole. Think about strategies for working with a small team and get the support of your principal. The best news is that trauma-sensitive techniques don't just benefit kids who are struggling; they help all your students build resilience, confidence, and well-being.

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Trauma-Informed Strategies to Use in Your Classroom | Resilient Educator

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All children face disappointment and fears, but some students deal with more serious, often traumatic, hardships at home. The term "trauma" can encompass many

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This resource contains ONE PDF of "I WISH MY TEACHER KNEW" printable that can be cut into two 8.5 x 5.5 in. slips.

Designate a location in the classroom where students can voluntarily take one slip to complete and return to you. This will promote communication in the classroom, especially for students who prefer not to share information with you verbally.

Use the information gathered to connect with students personally. This resource will also help you to be informed of crises that students are dealing without outside of school.

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I Wish My Teacher Knew - Middle & High School - Trauma informed classroom

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This resource contains ONE PDF of "I WISH MY TEACHER KNEW" printable that can be cut into two 8.5 x 5.5 in. slips. Designate a location in the classroom where students can voluntarily take one slip to complete and return to you. This will promote communication in the classroom, especially for st...

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This Feelings Check-In and Coping Tools Interactive Choice Board is an easy to use self-regulation calming strategies resource for your classroom or counseling office Calm Down Corner and Take a Break Spot. Designed for trauma sensitive classrooms, this lap board invites students to reflect - and name - how they are feeling and suggests to them 20 (or so) different coping skills and mindfulness exercises they can use to help them feel better, more focused, and ready to learn.

Teachers, school counselors, and school social workers can use this lap board as part of their classroom management and/or social-emotional curriculum or as an individual intervention for students who need additional support with self-regulation. Can act as a stand alone "Calming Corner" or supplement your already existing classroom and/or office Take A Break, Peace Corner, Zen Zone and Calm Down Station. Great as a Check-In and Check-Out resource, too.
Looking for a Digital Version? Check out the Digital Calm Corner What's Included:
✔ Choice between full color, light color and black/white printing options

✔ Bonus ADORABLE "How Are You Feeling?" Posters (in 3 printing options and optimized to print in both 8.5"X11" and 18"X24").

✔ Bonus "I Feel" Checklists
What's Needed to Assemble Choice Board:
✓ Hook and Loop Adhesive Dots

✓ Paper Clips, Binder Clips, and/or Clothespins

✓ File Folder
You May Also Enjoy:
⭐ Trauma Sensitive Classroom Rules, Values & Expectations: Editable Banner Decor

⭐ Our Classroom Calm Corner Toolbox

⭐ Breathing Exercises for Kids: Book & Task Cards for Calm Corner

⭐ Self-Regulation Coping Tools Desk Reference Name Tags

⭐ Conflict Resolution Interactive Lap Book: Interactive Peaceful Problem Solving Choice Board

⭐ Self-Regulation Coping Strategies Spinner Craft

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PORTABLE CALM CORNER: Self-Regulation Coping Skills & Mindfulness Activities

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TRAUMA INFORMED CLASSROOM and MINDFULNESS RESOURCEThis Feelings Check-In and Coping Tools Interactive Choice Board is an easy to use self-regulation calming strategies resource for your classroom or counseling office Calm Down Corner and Take a Break Spot. Designed for trauma sensitive classrooms, ...

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Responding to Trauma in Your Classroom

Bad Behavior or Reacting to Trauma?

Think of a student who challenges you. Have you observed any of these behaviors in that student?

Excessive anger

Unusual startle reactions

Loss of appetite

Extreme fatigue

Physical or verbal aggression

Regular tardiness or absence from class

Perfectionistic, controlling or anxious behavior

Difficulty concentrating

Frequent headaches or stomachaches

Low self-confidence

Irritability

Clinginess

Trouble making friends

Self-harm or suicidal ideation

Hoarding

Risky behaviors (including drug or alcohol abuse or sexual acting out)

Panic attacks

Extreme self-reliance

Running away

Defiance

Alienation from peers

If you've observed even some of these behaviors (or other troubling symptoms), you may have a student who is directly or indirectly experiencing trauma. Trauma can be defined as the reaction to a shocking or painful event or series of negative events. Some traumas require immediate intervention and court-mandated reporting; others go by unmarked. Regardless of whether or not you are aware of the details, there are things you can do to mitigate the effects of trauma for individual students and for all students in your classroom.
Source: Mental Health Connection of Tarrant County
What Causes Trauma?

Trauma affects the ways individuals feel, think and behave. It influences self-perception as well as beliefs about other people and the world.

Though this list is not exhaustive, traumatic experiences can include:

Medical crises

Accidents or injuries (like a house fire or car collision that threatens the student's safety)

Bullying or harassment

Family separation (due to incarceration, deployment, divorce, foster placement or death)

Natural disaster

Abuse (emotional, physical or sexual)

Neglect

Observation of domestic, community or school violence

Substance abuse

Mental illness

Terrorism and war

Instability due to being unhoused

Poverty

Overt discrimination or constant microaggressions

Refugee or undocumented status

More students may suffer trauma-or suffer more trauma-than you can see or know. Trauma is difficult to assess and identify; it's also specific to the individual. An event that may traumatize one person may not traumatize another person. Moreover, the same event may lead to different trauma symptoms in different people.
Source: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Responding to Trauma

Proactively applying trauma-informed classroom strategies benefits all students. Students respond positively when educators get to know their individual circumstances, affirm their identities and cultivate empathy in the classroom. Here are some ideas to consider incorporating in your teaching practice:

Establish social and emotional safety in your classroom.

Social and emotional safety is the cornerstone of positive classroom outcomes. Research shows that students need to feel both physically and emotionally safe to learn. Students experiencing trauma, including bias, bullying and social isolation, are more likely to feel unsafe.
Strategies

Classroom contracts

Explicit anti-bullying or community-building curricula

Timely interventions in conflicts and hurtful exchanges

Teaching and modeling of empathy and active listening skills

Create a behavior-management plan that focuses on positive reinforcement.

Discipline and behavior management are central to classroom culture and often present unique challenges for students responding to traumatic events or experiences. Foster compassion for and among your students. Focus on praising students for appropriate classroom behavior, not on punishment.
Strategies

Implement student-generated agreements and contracts

Adopt "zero indifference" (NOT zero-tolerance) policies

Seek out training in restorative justice techniques

Explore stress-management strategies to diffuse tense situations and help students process feelings in the moment

Give students opportunities to demonstrate their strengths

Increase your self-awareness and trauma competency.

Increase your knowledge about trauma and how it may manifest for your students. Remember, students respond to trauma in different ways, and their responses may be influenced by cultural traditions, religious beliefs or familial relationships. Connect with students and their families to identify resources and services that can inform how best to support students who experience trauma.
Strategies

Seek professional development on working with specific identity groups

Share support resources with other educators

Connect with community organizations

Engage in ongoing self-assessment and reflection on your trauma responsiveness

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Trauma can have significant and lasting effects on students. This PD Café will help you learn how to recognize the signs of trauma, better understand the causes of trauma, and take steps to establish social and emotional safety in your classroom.

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Vol. 77

No. 2

Abstract

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

4. Promote Predictability and Consistency

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

7. Create Islands of Competence

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Small changes in classroom interactions can make a big difference for traumatized students.

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Credit: Shannon Fagan

Abstract

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

4. Promote Predictability and Consistency

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

7. Create Islands of Competence

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma, such as abuse, neglect, natural disaster, or experiencing or witnessing violence. Trauma is possibly the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019). Traumatized students are especially prone to difficulty in self-regulation, negative thinking, being on high alert, difficulty trusting adults, and inappropriate social interactions (Lacoe, 2013; Terrasi & de Galarce, 2017). They often haven't learned to express emotions healthily and instead show their distress through aggression, avoidance, shutting down, or other off-putting behaviors. These actions can feel antagonistic to teachers who don't understand the root cause of the student's behavior, which can lead to misunderstandings, ineffective interventions, and missed learning time.

Neurobiologically, students can't learn if they don't feel safe, known, and cared for within their schools (Aupperle et al., 2012). When teachers are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from traumatic stress and make small changes in the classroom that foster a feeling of safety, it makes a huge difference in their ability to learn. Here are some examples.

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

First, teachers must learn to put students' reactions into context-and not to take them personally. Students with trauma histories can react and behave in seemingly unexpected ways, such as having a sudden outburst during a favorite activity or crying out of the blue one second after laughing. Teachers may be taken by surprise. They say things like, "But he was fine this morning, I didn't see that coming!" or "She normally loves playing the drums in music class. I have no idea where her reaction came from." This uncertainty leaves the teacher in a constant state of hyper-alertness when interacting with the student. This in turn can result in fatigue, as the teacher is guarded and unable to predict what will happen from one moment to another.

One way to understand these reactions is to think of the student as a soda can, and events that may trigger their trauma stress as shaking that can. We can't tell by looking if the can was recently shaken, but if it was, opening the can results in an unexpected explosive, messy reaction. If a student is triggered and experiencing heightened emotion, even a benign direction such as, "Please move over to make room for Jenny" could result in an "explosion" that the teacher never saw coming. By using trauma-sensitive strategies in the classroom, we can help reduce the times our students are "shaken."

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

Traumatized students often behave in ways that may interfere with teaching and learning, which can be frustrating. Teachers are in a position of power, and these students may be overly defensive, anticipating adult criticism, or defiant, as a way to assert control (Jennings, 2018). Yet for traumatized students, the ability to learn and behave appropriately can be person-dependent. When they are with a safe and supportive adult, their behavior reflects that.

Consider this scenario drawn from schools I've worked with: Trevor, a 6th grader whose father overdosed on heroin two years ago and who has witnessed ongoing domestic abuse throughout his childhood, was in Ms. Carlton's class for part of the day and Ms. Finch's class for the other part. Ms. Carlton had a reputation of working well with hard-to-reach kids, and sure enough, Trevor behaved in a stellar way in her class. When he was with Ms. Finch, however, he was sent to the office nearly three times a week for explosive behavior.

The teacher is 50 percent of every interaction with a student: By changing the way we give a direction or respond, we can reduce problematic behavior. Ms. Carlton had taken the time to build a trusting relationship with Trevor and learned to give directions in a way that he would respond well to. Interaction strategies are a type of accommodation that typically go unnamed and unwritten, but they were the reason that Trevor could feel safe and access the curriculum (Minahan & Rappaport, 2012).

If Ms. Carlton had written down the successful strategies she used with Trevor, the list might have started with avoiding authoritative directives such as, "Pick that up." To give Trevor a sense of control, Ms. Carlton always embedded choice in her directions, asking, "Do you want to be in the front of the line or the back of the line?" instead of simply telling him to "line up." This helped prevent a poor reaction (Minahan, 2019).

Ms. Carlton also conveyed respect and transparency by providing the reason behind each direction. Instead of saying, "No backpacks on the floor. I don't want to trip and fall!" Ms. Carlton would say, "Oh dear, I hope I don't fall. I have a bad knee! Could you please move your backpack?" Stating the reason first assured that Trevor knew the context (and necessity) of the demand.

Conversely, Ms. Finch would often go up close to Trevor, tower over him, and say in front of his peers, "Stop tapping your pencil!" This typically ended in a power struggle and Trevor's escalating behavior. Trevor, like many traumatized students, had experienced a loss of control in his life, and power struggles with an authoritative figure were particularly triggering. Ms. Carlton instinctively knew that a more private nonverbal direction could be less confrontational for a student in "fight or flight" mode. She would write, "Please stop tapping" on a piece of paper, put it gently on Trevor's desk without his peers noticing, and then give him space by walking away quickly. When possible, she also gave Trevor extended time to comply with directions to avoid power struggles, asking, for example, "Can you please pick that up before lunch?" rather than, "Pick that up now" (Minahan, 2019). This allowed Trevor time to decompress and respond rationally.

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

At one point in the year, Ms. Carlton told Ms. Finch that building a relationship with Trevor was key to her success with him, and she suggested that Ms. Finch do the same. Unfortunately, saying, "Build a relationship" is too vague and leaves too much up to the teacher's instincts. Instead, Ms. Carlton could have told Ms. Finch that she greeted Trevor every day at the classroom door and asked him about the Avengers or basketball. She could have told Ms. Finch how she used the "two by ten" rule; she talked to him for two minutes a day for 10 days in a row about topics unrelated to academics or behavior. Whenever Ms. Carlton could see she wouldn't have time for this in the 10-day period, she asked the counselor or special education teacher to cover her class for two minutes so she could go for a walk with Trevor. She repeated this trust-building strategy several times throughout the year, especially after he exhibited anger or frustration and after school vacations and long weekends.

Ms. Carlton skillfully used relationship-building and interaction strategies to work with Trevor. Yet the impact could have been greater had she written and shared those strategies with Ms. Finch and the rest of Trevor's team via a shared document, behavior plan, or student success plan (Minahan, 2019). Likewise, if counselors, school nurses, and psychologists write and share such techniques with each classroom teacher, kids like Trevor, when triggered, wouldn't always have to leave class to find a safe adult.

Not knowing what is coming next can put anyone on high alert, especially traumatized students. Providing predictability through visual schedules of the class agenda or school day can help. Ms. Carlton was adamant about previewing any changes to the normal routine ahead of time (saying, "We are going to have indoor recess today because of the snow," or "The DVD player isn't working so we can't watch a science video at the end of class today"). This prepared Trevor and thus elicited a calmer response.

A teacher's behavior can also feel unpredictable to traumatized students. When students are working independently and quietly-doing what they are supposed to be doing-they don't know when they will get the teacher's attention. But when students are doing the wrong thing-like drumming on the desk with a pencil in each hand or swearing-teachers are more predictable and react quickly! Because predictability is comforting to students with anxiety and trauma histories, they may resort to getting the teacher's attention through inappropriate means. Trevor could get Ms. Finch to react immediately by flipping his water bottle noisily, but could go 20 minutes without so much as eye contact from her when he was quietly reading.

To counter this imbalance and create an overall feeling of safety, teachers can use predictable positive attention (Minahan, 2014). During independent work time, if a teacher says to a student "Great work! I'll be back to check on you," the student has no way of predicting how long they need to wait-and from past experience they know that the teacher may forget to return altogether. Using predictable positive attention, however, the teacher can say, "I am going to check on you in 10 minutes," put a timer on the student's desk, and add, "Come tap me on the shoulder when the timer goes off." If the teacher has many students in the class that could benefit from this, she could transfer the strategy to small groups: "I will check on this desk group at X time."

Another strategy for providing predictable attention, especially for middle and high school students, is to hand an anxious or traumatized student a sticky note with a time on it as they walk into class each day. The first time, the note will need to be explained: "If you don't understand something in class, please don't worry-I am going to check on you during independent work time at 11:45, and I will answer any questions you have then." Ms. Carlton found this strategy comforting to Trevor. This predictable check-in pairs the negative thoughts the student may have ("I don't know how to do this") with a reassuring thought ("But my teacher will be here in seven minutes!"). The student can better tolerate uncomfortable feelings when they know help and a positive interaction are coming. Telling the student what will happen and when and always following through establishes the teacher as a consistent, reliable adult.

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

Traumatized students often engage in inaccurate thinking, tending to focus on the negative. Common classroom management strategies often only exasperate this tendency. How many of us have seen frequent movement breaks on a student's IEP or student success plan? It is one of the most common accommodations that we offer to students who seem dysregulated. Unfortunately, during these breaks, students can ruminate on negative memories, current stressors, angry thoughts, or worries. If we ask a high school student who is getting angry and becoming agitated to take a walk, he may ruminate the whole time and return just as angry. Sending a 1st grader to a "calming chair" can leave her to perseverate on worrying thoughts. Instead, we need to help them "change the channel." Both Ms. Carlton and Ms. Finch used breaks with Trevor, but in vastly different ways.

When adults can't sleep, we often read a book or watch TV, which distracts us from uncomfortable thoughts so we can fall back asleep. Teachers can use the same principle for kids with trauma and anxiety: Teach students that their brain is like a remote control that they can use to "switch the channel" to help them calm down (Minahan & Rappaport, 2012). These switching activities are called cognitive distractions or thought breaks and are incompatible with negative thinking. A listening center or "find the picture" activity can be helpful to young children. For older students, you might try Mad Libs, trivia, or more abstract strategies such as counting all the green items in the room, saying the alphabet backwards, or thinking of the first 10 lines of a favorite movie. Ms. Carlton taught Trevor to do Star Wars trivia when he was upset, which helped him calm down quickly. Conversely when Ms. Finch had Trevor go for a walk, his negative thinking would escalate, and he would often not return to class.

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

Many traumatized students interpret information through a negativity amplifier. When a teacher says, "Please correct the first problem," the student might hear, "You are stupid." Or a student might report that the teacher screamed at her when the teacher was really using a calm tone, as even neutral facial expressions can be misinterpreted. It is helpful to smile and explicitly say when you are happy with the student, a strategy Ms. Carlton utilized. When giving negative feedback, teachers can use the positive sandwich approach-starting and ending with a positive comment: (1) "I love how you remembered the formula," (2) "You made a small calculation error there," (3) "Great job getting problem #3 correct."

7. Create Islands of Competence

Recognizing areas of strength in students is a powerful way to combat the poor self-concept and negative thinking associated with trauma (Jennings, 2018). To support a more accurate self-concept, teachers can provide what Robert Brooks calls "islands of competence" for students swimming in a sea of inadequacy (2003). When a student thinks negatively, the negative moments during the day tend to weigh more heavily than the positive moments. We need to counter this effect with positive experiences. Educator teams need to ask themselves, "Does the student feel competent during the day?" If the answer is no, contriving an island of competence for the student is in order. Ms. Carlton often asked Trevor to help a younger student or a peer who was struggling in an academic area Trevor was strong in, or had him fix the stapler when it was malfunctioning. She would also point out in a written note to Trevor that he was the first student to finish a math activity. In high school, educators may want to foster students' talents by never letting them drop electives (which might require creativity in scheduling academic support in core classes).

It is important that students experience competence to develop a more accurate self-narrative and to begin to create a positive future picture of themselves. We want them to say, "I really helped that student with her artwork. When I grow up, I could work with kids." Or "I am good at fixing things. I could be a mechanic someday."

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Behavior is communication, and we've looked at how traumatized students often communicate feelings through their behavior. Teachers' behavior is also communication-and it may not be communicating the message we are striving to send. Common teacher practices such as ignoring inappropriate behavior, sending students to the office, or sending younger kids to sit alone at a back table or in the hallway can unintentionally trigger students who have experienced abandonment or neglect. We need to remember that when some of our students were young and cried, no one came. Ignoring them can trigger a trauma response and make them feel the teacher doesn't like them or is even happy that they are upset.

Ms. Finch would ignore Trevor when he was expressing anger, such as by crumpling up a paper, growling, or slinging a book from his desk onto the floor. On the other hand, Ms. Carlton responded to such moments at the beginning of the year by validating Trevor's feelings ("I am sorry you are upset" or "I see that you are angry"). This is a much more empathetic approach, will preserve the relationship, and will avoid triggering a trauma response in the student.

Another practice to be cautious about is using time with a preferred adult as an incentive. For example, a principal might say, "If you get all your homework done this week, you and I will have lunch together!" The problem with this is that if the student doesn't get all their homework done, then the principal withholds their attention and time. This implies the relationship is conditional and can trigger an abandonment trauma response for some students. It is better to use one-to-one time with students in a noncontingent way. This way adults are communicating, "I like you for who you are," not "I like you when you behave the right way."

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Students can't learn unless they feel safe. When it comes to student trauma, there is much that is beyond educators' power, but there is also a great deal they can do to build a supportive and sensitive environment where students feel safe, comfortable, take risks, learn, and even heal.

Reflect & Discuss

➛ As Minahan writes, "Students can't learn if they don't feel safe." What small changes are you willing to try in your classroom to foster a sense of safety among traumatized students?

➛ Think about one of your students who struggles with behavior. How could you help him "switch the channel" when he is upset?

➛ Do you routinely share-and exchange ideas about-what's working with a traumatized student? How could you better improve lines of communication across the whole support team?

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Small changes in classroom interactions can make a big difference for traumatized students.

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Getting Started With Trauma-Informed Practices

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In the wake of a traumatic event, your comfort, support and reassurance can make children feel safe, help them manage their fears, guide them through their grief, and help them recover in a healthy way. This guide was assembled by psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts who specialize in crisis situations. It offers simple tips on what to expect, what to do and what to look out for. If you or your children require assistance from a mental health professional, do not hesitate to ask a doctor or other health care provider for a recommendation.

Tips for Helping Children After the Event

Make your child feel safe. All children, from toddlers to teens, will benefit from your touch-extra cuddling, hugs or just a reassuring pat on the back. It gives them a feeling of security, which is so important in the aftermath of a frightening or disturbing event. For specific information on what to do and say, see the age-by-age-guide.

Act calm. Children look to adults for reassurance after traumatic events have occurred. Do not discuss your anxieties with your children, or when they are around, and be aware of the tone of your voice, as children quickly pick up on anxiety.

Maintain routines as much as possible. Amidst chaos and change, routines reassure children that life will be okay again. Try to have regular mealtimes and bedtimes. If
you are homeless or temporarily relocated, establish new routines. And stick with the same family rules, such as ones about good behavior.

Help children enjoy themselves. Encourage kids to do activities and play with others. The distraction is good for them, and gives them a sense of normalcy.

Share information about what happened. It's always best to learn the details of a traumatic event from a safe, trusted adult. Be brief and honest, and allow children to ask questions. Don't presume kids are worrying about the same things as adults.

Pick good times to talk. Look for natural openings to have a discussion.

Prevent or limit exposure to news coverage. This is especially critical with toddlers and school-age children, as seeing disturbing events recounted on TV or in the newspaper or listening to them on the radio can make them seem to be ongoing. Children who believe bad events are temporary can more quickly recover from them.

Understand that children cope in different ways. Some might want to spend extra time with friends and relatives; some might want to spend more time alone. Let your child know it is normal to experience anger, guilt and sadness, and to express things in different ways-for example, a person may feel sad but not cry.

Listen well. It is important to understand how your child views the situation, and what is confusing or troubling to him or her. Do not lecture-just be understanding. Let kids know it is OK to tell you how they are feeling at any time.

Help children relax with breathing exercises. Breathing becomes shallow when anxiety sets in; deep belly breaths can help children calm down. You can hold a feather or a wad of cotton in front of your child's mouth and ask him to blow at it, exhaling slowly. Or you can say, "Let's breathe in slowly while I count to three, then breathe out while I count to three." Place a stuffed animal or pillow on your child's belly as he lies down and ask him to breathe in and out slowly and watch the stuffed animal or pillow rise and fall.

Acknowledge what your child is feeling. If a child admits to a concern, do not respond, "Oh, don't be worried," because he may feel embarrassed or criticized. Simply confirm what you are hearing: "Yes, I can see that you are worried."

Know that it's okay to answer, "I don't know." What children need most is someone whom they trust to listen to their questions, accept their feelings, and be there for them. Don't worry about knowing exactly the right thing to say - after all, there is no answer that will make everything okay.

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Tips for Helping Kids Recover in a Healthy Way

Realize that questions may persist. Because the aftermath of a disaster may include constantly changing situations, children may have questions on more than on occasion. Let them know you are ready to talk at any time. Children need to digest information on their own timetable and questions might come out of nowhere.

Encourage family discussions about the death of a loved one. When families can talk and feel sad together, it's more likely that kids will share their feelings.

Do not give children too much responsibility. It is very important not to overburden kids with tasks, or give them adult ones, as this can be too stressful for them. Instead, for the near future you should lower expectations for household duties and school demands, although it is good to have them do at least some chores.

Give special help to kids with special needs. These children may require more time, support and guidance than other children. You might need to simplify the language you use, and repeat things very often. You may also need to tailor information to your child's strength; for instance, a child with language disability may better understand information through the use of visual materials or other means of communication you are used to.

Watch for signs of trauma. Within the first month after a disaster it is common for kids to seem mostly okay. After that, the numbness wears off and kids might experience more symptoms - especially children who have witnessed injuries or death, lost immediate family members, experienced previous trauma in their lives or who are not resettled in a new home.

Know when to seek help. Although anxiety and other issues may last for months, seek immediate help from your family doctor or from a mental health professional if they do not abate or your child starts to hear voices, sees things that are not there, becomes paranoid, experiences panic attacks, or has thoughts of wanting to harm himself or other people.

Take care of yourself. You can best help your child when you help yourself. Talk about concerns with friends and relatives; it might be helpful to form a support group. If you belong to a church or community group, keep participating. Try to eat right, drink enough water, stick to exercise routines, and get enough sleep. Physical health protects against emotional vulnerability. To reduce stress, do deep breathing. If you suffer from severe anxiety that interferes with your ability to function, seek help from a doctor or mental health professional and if you don't have access to one, talk with a religious leader. Recognize your need for help and get it. Do it for your child's sake, if for no other reason.

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How to Help Children Ages 0-2

Infants sense your emotions, and react accordingly. If you are calm, your baby will feel secure. If you act anxious and overwhelmed, your baby may react with fussing, have trouble being soothed, eat or sleep irregularly or may act withdrawn.

What you can do:

Try your best to act calm. Even if you are feeling stressed or anxious, talk to your baby in a soothing voice.

Respond consistently to your baby's needs. The developmental task of this age is to trust caregivers so kids can develop a strong, healthy attachment.

Continue nursing if you have been breastfeeding. Although there is a myth that when a mother experiences shock her breast milk turns bad and could cause the baby to be "slow" or have learning disorders, that is not true. It is important to continue nursing your baby to keep her healthy and connected with you. You need to stay healthy to breastfeed, so do your best to eat enough and drink water.

Look into your baby's eyes. Smile at her. Touch her. Research shows that eye contact, touch and simply being in a mother's presence helps keep a baby's emotions balanced.

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How to Help Children Ages 2-5

At this age, although children are making big developmental advances, they still depend on parents to nurture them. As with babies, they typically respond to situations according to
how parents react. If you are calm and confident, your child will feel more secure. If you act anxious or overwhelmed, your child may feel unsafe.

Typical reactions of children ages 2 to 5:

Talking repeatedly about the event or pretending to "play" the event

Tantrums or irritable outbursts

Crying and tearfulness

Increased fearfulness-often of the dark, monsters, or being alone

Increased sensitivity to sounds like thunder, wind, and other loud noises

Disturbances in eating, sleeping and toileting

Believing that the disaster can be undone

Excessive clinging to caregivers and trouble separating

Reverting to early behavior like baby talk, bed-wetting and thumb-sucking

What you can do:

Make your child feel safe. Hold, hug and cuddle your child as much as possible. Tell her you will take care of her when she feels sad or scared. With children who are learning to talk, use simple phrases such as "Mommy's here."

Watch what you say. Little children have big ears and may pick up on your anxiety, misinterpret what they hear, or be frightened unnecessarily by things they do not understand.

Maintain routines as much as possible. No matter what your living situation, do your best to have regular mealtimes and bedtimes. If you are homeless or have been relocated, create new routines. Try to do the things you have always done with your children, such as singing songs or saying prayers before they go to sleep.

Give extra support at bedtime. Children who have been through trauma may become anxious at night. When you put your child to bed, spend more time than usual talking or telling stories. It's okay to make a temporary arrangement for young children to sleep with you, but with the understanding that they will go back to normal sleeping arrangements at a set future date.

Do not expose kids to the news. Young children tend to confuse facts with fears. They may not realize that the images they see on the news aren't happening again and again. They should also not listen to the radio.

Encourage children to share feelings. Try a simple question such as, "How are you feeling today?" Follow any conversations about the recent event with a favorite story or a family activity to help kids feel more safe and calm.

Enable your child to tell the story of what happened. This will help her make sense of the event and cope with her feelings. Play can often be used to help your child frame the story and tell you about the event in her own words.

Draw pictures. Young children often do well expressing emotions with drawing. This is another opportunity to provide explanations and reassurance. To start a discussion, you may comment on what a child has drawn.

If your child acts out it may be a sign she needs extra attention. Help her name how she feels: Scared? Angry? Sad? Let her know it is okay to feel that way, then show her the right way to behave-you can say, "It's okay to be angry, but it is not okay to hit your sister."

Get kids involved in activities. Distraction is a good thing for kids at this age. Play games with them, and arrange for playtime with other kids.

Talk about things that are going well. Even in the most trying times, it's important to identify something positive and express hope for the future to help your child recover. You can say something like, "We still have each other. I am here with you, and I will stay with you." Pointing out the good will help you feel better, too.

How to help kids ages 2 to 5 cope with the death of a loved one:

Speak to them at their level. Use similar experiences to help children understand, such as the death of a pet or changes in flowers in the garden.

Provide simple explanations. For example, "When someone dies, we can't see them anymore but we can still look at them in pictures and remember them."

Reassure your children. They might feel what happened is their fault, somehow; let them know it is not.

Expect repeated questions. That is how young children process information.

Download a PDF version of this guide

How to Help Children Ages 6-11

At this age, children are more able to talk about their thoughts and feelings and can better handle difficulties, but they still look to parents for comfort and guidance. Listening to them demonstrates your commitment. When scary things happen, seeing that parents can still parent may be the most reassuring thing for a frightened child.

Typical reactions of children ages 6 to 11:

Anxiety

Increased aggression, anger and irritability (like bullying or fighting with peers)

Sleep and appetite disturbances

Blaming themselves for the event

Moodiness or crying

Concerns about being taken care of

Fear of future injury or death of loved ones

Denying the event even occurred

Complaints about physical discomfort, such as stomachaches, headaches, and lethargy, which may be due to stress

Repeatedly asking questions

Refusing to discuss the event (more typical among kids ages 9 to 11)

Withdrawal from social interactions

Academic problems: Trouble with memory and concentration at school, refusing to attend

What you can do to help:

Reassure your child that he is safe. Children this age are comforted by facts. Use real words, such as hurricane, earthquake, flood, aftershock. For kids this age, knowledge is empowering and helps relieve anxiety.

Keep things as "normal" as possible. Bedtime and mealtime routines help kids feel safe and secure. If you are homeless or have been relocated, establish different routines and give your child some choice in the matter-for example, let her choose which story to tell at bed- time. This gives a child a sense of control during an uncertain time.

Limit exposure to TV, newspapers and radio. The more bad news school-age kids are exposed to, the more worried they will be. News footage can magnify the trauma of the event, so when a child does watch a news report or listen to the radio, sit with him so you can talk about it afterward. Avoid letting your child see graphic images.

Spend time talking with your child. Let him know that it is okay to ask questions and to express concerns or sadness. One way to encourage conversation is to use family time (such as mealtime) to talk about what is happening in the family as well as in the community. Also ask what his friends have been saying, so you can make sure to correct any misinformation.

Answer questions briefly but honestly. After a child has brought something up, first ask for his ideas so you can understand exactly what the concern is. Usually children ask a question because they are worried about something specific. Give a reassuring answer. If you do not know an answer to a question, it is okay to say, "I don't know." Do not speculate or repeat rumors.

Draw out children who do not talk. Open a discussion by sharing your own feelings-for example, you could say, "This was a very scary thing, and sometimes I wake up in the night because I am thinking about it. How are you feeling?" Doing this helps your child feel he is not alone in his concerns or fears. However, do not give a lot of detail about your own anxieties.

Keep children busy. Daily activities, such as playing with friends or going to school, may have been disrupted. Help kids think of alternative activities and organize playgroups with other parents.

Calm worries about friends' safety. Reassure your children that their friends' parents are taking care of them just as they are being cared for by you.

Talk about community recovery. Let children know that things are being done to keep them safe, or restore electricity and water, and that government and community groups are helping, if applicable.

Encourage kids to lend a hand. This will give them a sense of accomplishment and purpose at a time when they may feel helpless. Younger children can do small tasks for you; older ones can contribute to volunteer projects in the community

Find the hope. Children need to see the future to recover. Kids this age appreciate specifics. For example, in the event of a natural disaster, you could say: "People from all over the country are sending medical supplies, food, and water. They've built new places where people who are hurt will be taken care of, and they will build new homes. It'll be very hard like this only for just a little while."

How to help kids ages 6 to 11 cope with the death of a loved one:

Find out what your child is thinking. Ask questions before you make assumptions about what your child wants to know. For example, you can say, "It made me so upset when grandma died. What about you? It's hard to think about, isn't it?"

Use real words. Avoid euphemisms for death like "He went to a better place." School-age children are easily confused by vague answers. Instead, you can say, "Grandma has died, she is not coming back, and it is okay to feel sad about that."

Be as concrete as possible. Use simple drawings to describe things such as the body and injuries.

Inform your child. Let her know that anger and sadness are typical, and that if she avoids feelings she may feel worse later on.

Prepare your child for anticipated changes in routines or household functions. Talk about what the changes will mean for her.

Reassure your child. Help her understand it is okay, and normal, to have trouble with school, peers, and family during this time.

Encourage meaningful memorializing. Pray together as a family and take your child with you to church to light a candle. Your child might also want to write a letter to the deceased person or draw a picture you can hang up.

Be patient. Kids up to age 11 may think death is reversible, and can have trouble accepting the fact that the person may not return. You might need to say repeatedly, "He died and is not coming back, and I am sad."

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How to Help Children Ages 12-18

Adolescence is already a challenging time for young people, who have so many changes happening in their bodies. They struggle with wanting more independence from parents, and have a tendency to feel nothing can harm them. Traumatic events can make them feel out of control, even if they act as if they are strong. They will also feel bad for people affected by the disaster, and have a strong desire to know why the event occurred.

Typical reactions of children ages 12 to 18:

Avoidance of feelings

Constant rumination about the disaster

Distancing themselves from friends and family

Anger or resentment

Depression, and perhaps expression of suicidal thoughts

Panic and anxiety, including worrying about the future

Mood swings and irritability

Changes in appetite and/or sleep habits

Academic issues, such as trouble with memory and concentration, and/or refusing to attend school

Participation in risky or illegal behavior, like drinking alcohol

What you can do:

Make your teen feel safe again. Adolescents do not like to show vulnerability; they may try to act as if they are doing fine even though they are not. While they may resist hugs, your touch can help them feel secure. You can say something like, "I know you're grown now, but I just need to give you a hug."

Help teens feel helpful. Give them small tasks and responsibilities in the household, then praise them for what they have done and how they have handled themselves.
Do not overburden teens with too many responsibilities, especially adult-like ones, as that will add to their anxiety.

Open the door for discussion. It's very typical for teens to say they don't want to talk. Try to start a conversation while you are doing an activity together, so that the conversation does not feel too intense or confrontational.

Consider peer groups. Some teenagers may feel more comfortable talking in groups with their peers, so consider organizing one. Also encourage conversation with other trusted adults, like a relative or teacher.

Limit exposure to TV, newspapers and radio. While teens can better handle the news than younger kids, those who are unable to detach themselves from TV or the radio may be trying to deal with anxiety in unhealthy ways. In any case, talk with your teen about the things she has seen or heard.

Help your teen take action. Kids this age will want to help the community. Find appropriate volunteer opportunities.

Be aware of substance abuse. Teens are particularly at risk for turning to alcohol or drugs to numb their anxiety. If your teen has been behaving secretively or is seemingly drunk or high, get in touch with a doctor. And talk to your teen in a kind way. For example, "People often drink or use drugs after a disaster to calm themselves or forget, but it can also cause more problems. Some other things you can do are take a walk, talk to me or your friends about how you feel, or write about your hopes for a better future."

How to help kids ages 12 to 18 cope with the death of a loved one:

Be patient. Teens may have a fear of expressing emotions about death. Encourage them to talk by saying something like, "I know it is horrible that grandma has died. Experts say it's good to share our feelings. How are you doing?"

Be very open. Discuss the ways you feel the death may be influencing her behavior.

Be flexible. It is okay, at this time, to have a little more flexibility with rules and academic and behavioral expectations.

Memorialize meaningfully. Pray together at home, let your teen light a candle at church, and include her in memorial ceremonies. She might also appreciate doing a private family tribute at home.

Download a PDF version of this guide

What Teachers Can Do to Help Students

Resume routine as much as possible. Children tend to function better when they know what to expect. Returning to a school routine will help students feel that the troubling events have not taken control over every aspect of their daily lives. Maintain expectations of students. It doesn't need to be 100%, but needing to do some home- work and simple classroom tasks is very helpful.

Be aware of signs that a child may need extra help. Students who are unable to function due to feelings of intense sadness, fear or anger should be referred to a mental health professional. Children may have distress that is manifested as physical ailments, such as head- aches, stomachaches, or extreme fatigue.

Help kids understand more about what happened. For example, you can mention the various kinds of help coming in, and provide positive coping ideas.

Consider a memorial. Memorials are often helpful to commemorate people and things that were lost. School memorials should be kept brief and appropriate to the needs and age range of the general school community. Children under four may not have the attention span to join in. A known caregiver, friend, or relative should be the child's companion during funeral or memorial activities.

Reassure children that school officials are making sure they are safe. Children's fears abate when they know that trusted adults are doing what they can to take care of them.

Stay in touch with parents. Tell them about the school's programs and activities so they can be prepared for discussions that may continue at home. Encourage parents to limit their children's exposure to news reports.

Take care of yourself. You may be so busy helping your students that you neglect yourself. Find ways for you and your colleagues to support one another.

Download a PDF version of this guide

Signs of Trauma in Children and Adolescents

Constantly replaying the event in their minds

Nightmares

Beliefs that the world is generally unsafe

Irritability, anger and moodiness

Poor concentration

Appetite or sleep issues

Behavior problems

Nervousness about people getting too close

Jumpiness from loud noises

Regression to earlier behavior in young children, such as: clinging, bed-wetting or thumb-sucking

Difficulty sleeping

Detachment or withdrawal from others

Use of alcohol or drugs in teens

Functional impairment: Inability to go to school, learn, play with friends, etc.

This guide was last reviewed or updated on April 8, 2022.

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Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event

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Lo sentimos, la página que usted busca no se ha podido encontrar. Puede intentar su búsqueda de nuevo o visitar la lista de temas populares. In the wake of a traumatic event, your comfort, support and reassurance can make children feel safe, help them manage their fears, guide them through their grief, and help them recover in a healthy way.

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Why Writing Prompts

Writing is an outlet for me. You too?

Some people journal privately, some people journal on a blog for everyone to read (me).

Over the course of my blog I have found myself at times wanting badly to write, feeling the words brimming under the surface, but unable to find the motivational spark to begin.

I've never used a guided journal before, instead when I found myself unfocused in my private journal I created my own journaling prompts. Then I thought, maybe I could use the same concept for writing here and I did a 14 day writing challenge of self-reflection with predetermined prompts to write from.

It helped me a lot. As I read back over those two weeks of posts I see such diversity in topic, yet continuity of context as I told my story through the motivation of the different prompts.

That challenge ended last week and over the last few days I have battled some writer's block. Time for another list of prompts.

7 Writing Prompts for Processing Trauma

Write about a negative cognition you hold that you know is not true, and talk about why it isn't.

Write about your safe space (e.g. how you created it, what it means to you, what it represents).

List 5 positive impacts the pandemic has had on your life or your community

Write about your take on forgiveness

Write a letter to yourself (older, younger, or current - you decide)

What does happiness mean to you?

Write about a trauma response you are working on and the cost vs. benefit of it on your life.

The 1-Week Challenge

I know I am not the only one who benefits from writing prompts.

Now that you have your prompts (and I have mine) - we've got seven days of content just waiting to spill out of us whether to a personal blog, or private journal.

I hope these prompts help you dive deep and learn a few things about yourself.

Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

As you write, if you share it on your site, I would love to see you tag it back to this post so that we can all share and heal together.

For more blog content visit my post index, for more poetry visit my poetry collection page.

If you feel so inclined, please donate. I provide all of my writing for free because it is so necessary for us to connect - but your financial support is very appreciated and it helps allow me to continue focusing on this while still supporting my family.

Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed this post don't forget to click like, and follow my blog.

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7 Writing Prompts for Processing Trauma - Surviving Childhood Trauma

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Writing is an outlet for me. You too? Some people journal privately, some people journal on a blog for everyone to read (me). Over the course of my blog I have found myself at times wanting badly to write, feeling the words brimming under the surface, but unable to find the motivational spark to begin.

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Grief. Loss. A shattered story. Writing can help us get through challenges and troubling times.

In my work with cancer and hospital patients, I found that certain qualities surface in successful writing about an illness or injury.

This kind of writing does the following:

It Accepts Our Story and Makes Sense of It

Kenzaburo Oe wrote to unravel his confusion and despair after the birth of his disabled son. He wrote and rewrote about his life with Hikari. In his memoir, Oe explained: "In the act of fictionalizing those events in the form of a novel, I was finally able to synthesize them, to make some kind of sense out of a senseless situation." And in making sense of his shattered story, in coming to peace with it, Oe had made his story manageable.

A story is, after all, a mirror of our psychological growth. We are peering into who we are and grounding ourselves as our story evolves. This is why Abigail Thomas wrote about her husband being hit by a car and ending up with a brain that no longer worked. It is why I wrote out my cancer journey. To understand it. To make sense of it. And when I opened up, I found others felt compelled to share their stories with me - and it helped.

It Explores Honest Feelings

Many well-known writers explore their honest feelings and painful experiences as they search to find themselves. Author Elizabeth Gilbert seemed to have all the hallmarks of success, with a husband, a country home, and a successful writing career - but she was miserable. After her divorce, she faced a crushing depression, and it was then she began her search for herself by writing Eat, Pray, Love.

While most of us will never have a publisher, like Elizabeth Gilbert's, who will give us an advance to undertake a journey across the world and write a book, many readers were mesmerized by this honest search for self.

In Rome, Gilbert delights in culinary experiences; on her visit to an ashram outside Mumbai, she emulates the yogis and struggles to quiet her mind; and in Bali, she seeks balance but finds love. While her search seems far from over, her words resonate because they seem to be drilling down in an honest quest to find the truth. Her truth. And that is what we hope our words will give to us.

Kenzaburo Oe was on the same search. He was only 10 when the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ironically, it was the birth of his son that compelled him to research and study this tragedy. In 1963 he attended a conference in Hiroshima centered on the opposition to hydrogen bombs. "I recall...the intense feeling that the problem of my child could end up suffocating me if I couldn't get out into a larger arena, see things from a broader perspective," he explained.

While in Hiroshima, Oe visited the Atomic Bomb Hospital. There he listened to the director, Dr. Shigeto, who explained that he had just taken up a post as assistant director and was on his way to the hospital when the bomb exploded, killing 80,000 people and instantly wiping out 90% of the city.

He described facing the countless dead, the disfigured and burned bodies in this hospital. In his gentle manner Shigeto explained that all he could do was move forward, trying his best to treat each victim. One at a time.

While listening to how the doctor handled the unbearable incident, Oe felt "profoundly consoled and encouraged." The author realized that with this piece of truth he, too, could survive his son's disabilities - one day at a time.

It Uses Words to Heal

While it is important to share our stories, the way we write and talk about our illness matters, too. Remember, we control how we understand our illnesses. And the words we use to interpret an illness impact how we face it.

Jen viewed her stage four breast cancer as a challenge to be met - not as a death sentence. "In a support group I met a woman who repeatedly said, ' When I die' as if the moment were imminent," said Jen. "She also talked about ' my terminal disease.' This bothered me."

Often people take their illnesses - mental and physical - and elevate them to unnecessary heights. A problem evolves when the drama is dressed up, perhaps as a trauma, and the stories get stuck on replay. Most of us hate to hear stories that end up as a rerun without an end.

Andrew is a friend I know from teaching. A few months ago, his daughter, Mia, suddenly lost her sight in one eye. Whenever we met friends for social gatherings, Andrew shared poor Mia's saga. First, he carefully detailed how Mia had a genetic disorder, which he described in WebMD detail.

The eye muscle had suddenly slipped, which is what had left her blind in that one eye. In coming weeks, the story escalated, and Andrew feared Mia would lose her job as a nurse at the hospital. He shared stories of Mia losing her balance, falling down, causing a car wreck because she could not see well.

A visit to the doctor confirmed that Mia might be blind in that eye forever. The family consulted a specialist, who predicted that as a genetic condition this disease was destined to strike the other eye, eventually leaving Mia completely blind. Andrew was terrified.

Then, a brief respite - a miracle surgeon had been found. Surgery could be done. In the coming weeks Andrew was diagnosed with hearing problems, and a new set of illness stories surfaced. One day I turned to him and asked, "But how is Mia? You haven't mentioned her lately."

Andrew shrugged. "She's fine. The surgery worked." She regained her sight, which was something to celebrate - something Andrew had overlooked because he was trapped in his latest illness story.

We cannot deny an illness. We have to address and work to solve the problems it presents us. But the more we talk about and dramatize it, the more we impress a mind-set of illness on our brain. We can become too obsessed and create unhealthy thought patterns. Sadly, Andrew lives with them.

Jen, however, does not. "Unless a doctor tells me this darn disease is everywhere, then I am not going to view my illness as the end. I am going to keep living - to the fullest," said Jen. When she learned of her cancer recurrence, I was worried about her and texted to see how she was. "Oh, I went to NYC to see friends." Her Facebook page showed her in Central Park, where she was rolling in the grass, laughing with her pals.

It Embraces the Positive

Healing, of course, is not the same as being physically cured from a disease. Nonetheless, we can choose to heal our emotional, mental, and spiritual selves [even] when faced with a terminal illness. A positive attitude shows up as an important key here.

Although Jen has returned to chemo, neither of us knows what this means. We cannot be sure if she will survive her cancer. But she is well versed in her odds, and she understands that life is a precious, tentative gift for all of us. She has scaled back on work, spends more time with her son, Quinn, and insists that her husband keep on schedule with his archaeological research in Kenya.

Jen marches forward bravely, keeping her illness at bay as she reintroduces chemo into her routine. She does not deny her illness. She talks about it, and she writes about it - [and] she makes every effort to find the upward path on the slippery slope she faces.

Writing that heals:

* accepts our story and makes sense of it

* explores honest feelings

* uses words to heal

* embraces a positive outlook

Rewriting and Re-Creating Ourselves

There are five stages to writing and healing. These stages can lead to story transformation. Here they are:

1. Experiencing pain and grief.Grief is the process that helps us adjust to a major life change or a loss - a death, a lost love, an accident, an illness, a rape, or any other setback. There is no set order for what transpires, but initially we might want to ignore or deny what happened because this helps us endure the shock.

Later we can experience various emotions such as anger, frustration, and sadness. Sometimes sadness can be so overwhelming, it turns into depression. Often we ruminate or keep replaying what happened in our brains. In the initial throes of a traumatic event, it appears best to embrace silence and avoid writing.

2. Breaking the silence. In this stage we are willing to share our shattered story with others, perhaps with a friend, a counselor, or in our writing. This process may center on simply pouring out painful emotions. Often the release of a painful story can prove quite significant if it has been buried deep inside for a long time. If we can find our voice and free up our broken story, we can begin to work with it.

3. Accepting and piecing together a shattered story.At this stage we reach acceptance of a painful experience. We acknowledge the event or circumstance, as well as the sadness and pain associated with it. With acceptance we begin to move our emotions into a logical framework. Writing can be profoundly helpful here. It allows us to begin making sense of what happened. We can explore various perspectives and gain some insights by distancing ourselves from the pain. Ruminations may continue during this stage.

4. Finding meaning or making sense of a story. In this stage of a setback, we are able to stand outside the experience and see the complete picture. This objectivity allows for a breakthrough of understanding, a complete story, and a feeling of closure. We can reframe a painful experience once we can make sense of it, and writing is a powerful tool in this process. When we gain an understanding of difficult experiences - why they happen and how they will fit into our lives - often the pain and ruminations subside. The incident becomes integrated into our life stories as a finished chapter, allowing us to move forward.

5. Rewriting our story and moving forward.Without the emotional struggles caused by the traumatic incident, we can recover the energy needed to rewrite our stories and move ahead with our lives in fulfilling and creative ways. This often leads to personal story transformation through redefining or reinventing the ways we view ourselves.

We often put our renewed energy toward creating something (designing a new room or writing a book) or becoming politically active (advocating for cancer funding or working for gun control). Frequently we focus on helping others face or avoid a similar trauma, while allowing us to create something good and meaningful from the pain we have endured.

Writing Prompts

If you have begun to establish your writing practice, get comfortable, select a prompt from the list below, and begin writing. Give it your best.

* Writing Prompt: A Positive Change

Choose a person who has changed you in a positive way. You can also choose an experience that has changed your life. Describe this person or experience. Tell the story. Discuss how and why your attitude changed.

* Writing Prompt: Finding an Ending

Is there an experience inside your head that won't seem to go away? What is it? Why does it haunt you? Does this story need an ending? Explore your story.

* Writing Prompt: A Letter

If you are struggling, write a letter to a loved one. Decide what you need to tell her or him. Then simply put your pen to paper and let your message and your stories come. Write for as long as you need to. Come back to this if you need to. When you reread this letter at a later time, decide if you should send it, destroy it, lock it away, or publish it.

* Writing Prompt: Dialogues

When you are faced with an illness, disease, or injury, you need to reach an understanding of what has happened. You can begin by having a conversation with your body. A dialogue is a script that bounces back and forth between you and another person, pet, thing - or, in this case, your body.

By talking you allow your inner voice or wisdom to help you understand your illness, disease, or injury. Don't judge or criticize what you write. View this as a search that might reveal some important insights.

It might start like this:

Self: Body, why are you so exhausted?

Body: You saw the test results.

Self: I did, and I didn't like them. I am afraid of my disease.

Body: I think we need to make some changes.

Self: What are you thinking? Maybe diet?

Play out your conversation with yourself to find answers that will help you get a handle on your situation.

Writing Prompt: Exploring Your Truths

Choose one of these prompts, and free-write for five minutes. If the topic takes off, stay with it until you reach a point of completion. If the writing seems stuck, choose another prompt. Revise it if needed:

* I have never talked about this...

* The hardest lie I ever told was...

* The way it really was...

* It is dangerous to...

* This story is hidden in a box in the back of my mind. It begins...

Writing Prompt: Words That Heal

Choose a word associated with healing: hope, resilience, courage, endurance, patience, fortitude, tenacity, heroism, optimism, confidence, or strength. (Choose a word not on the list if you think if fits.) Write a brief character description of one person you know who mirrors this word in the way she lives. Now choose a word that you want to embrace more fully in your life. Start with a statement like this:

* I want to be more hopeful...

* I want to be more patient...

* I want to be more...

Then write a brief character sketch looking into your future. Create a portrait of you as someone who is hopeful or patient or ______.

Writing Prompt: Downside-Upside

Make a list of all the difficult aspects of facing an illness, injury, or any difficult situation. Write first about what brings you down, what you hate, what isn't fair - the downside. Then scribble it out or draw x 's through it or rip it up.

Now write about what you have learned, what you value, what you can build on from this experience. Draw a frame or stars around your upside. Write how you can live your upside more fully. Then go out and live it.
About the Author:
Sandra Marinella, MEd, is a writing teacher and author of The Story You Need to Tell and has taught thousands of students and fellow educators and presented hundreds of workshops to veterans, educators and cancer patients. She lives near Phoenix, Ariz.

Excerpted from the book The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss. Copyright © 2017 by Sandra Marinella. Printed with permission from New World Library - www.newworldlibrary.com.

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Write to Heal From Trauma, Loss & Illness: 7 Prompts to Explore Now

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In my work with cancer and hospital patients, I found that certain qualities surface in successful writing about an illness or injury. This kind of writing does the following: Kenzaburo Oe wrote to unravel his confusion and despair after the birth of his disabled son. He wrote and rewrote about his life with Hikari.

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The How and Why of Trauma-Informed Teaching

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The How and Why of Trauma-Informed Teaching

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Working with trauma-affected students is a difficult balancing act.

We acknowledge the harmful impacts of the past, and hold out hope for a future of healing. We create a safe environment for students to share their lives, yet maintain professional boundaries. We provide our caring and our help to others, but have to pay attention to our own well-being, too. We work in our classrooms but depend on the support of our community.

These were the clear takeaways for teachers who participated in Edutopia's recent Twitter chat on the topic of trauma and social and emotional learning (SEL). Two parallel ideas emerged in the back and forth. First, as teachers we need to focus on the individual student and the strong, one-to-one relationships that support our trauma-affected kids. And second, creating these bonds requires a broader cultural adjustment and reprioritization, where the whole community works together to cultivate a space in which students, educators, and staff members thrive.

What about classrooms without a lot of trauma? It's risky to assume that our students haven't experienced trauma-according to a seminal study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood trauma is far more pervasive than previously believed and is often invisible. And chat participants asserted that trauma-informed and SEL practices benefit all children, building critical skills like self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and an openness to teamwork and cooperation. Adopt a "universal approach," suggested the nonprofit Zero to Three, and "assume all children are trauma-affected and need social and emotional learning instruction and support."

An emerging body of research backs that stance. A 2017 metastudy of over 97,000 K-12 students, for example, found that SEL practices boost academic success, decrease disruptive behavior, and reduce emotional distress in the long term.

So how do we balance the individual focus with a community commitment to trauma-informed SEL? Luckily, our Twitter chat participants had some great advice to share.

Know Your Students

To support students who have experienced trauma, start by flipping the traditional classroom paradigm: Relationships have to come before content, insisted dozens of educators.

It's a simple enough rule, but it runs against the grain and needs to be constantly reinforced: "If you're not addressing the trauma, and the students are distracted, checked out, and falling increasingly behind, even the best curriculum won't matter," explained Wendy Clark, reflecting on the order of events that drive real learning. If that point wasn't a settled matter by the end of the thread, Bill Waychunas cut straight to the heart of the issue by inverting the original proposition entirely: "Better question," he wrote, turning Edutopia's opening salvo around: "How do you teach academics WITHOUT having SEL embedded throughout your teaching and classroom?"

Excellent question. Wish we'd thought of it.

Still, if teachers agreed that one-to-one relationships were the critical building blocks of good SEL-and good trauma-informed practice-how can that effort be scaled to 20 or 30 unique students, each of whom experiences trauma differently? The good news is that it's not all on the individual teacher; system-wide supports are required to distribute the work and create a broader culture of belonging and mutual support (more on that below). Within that context, though, all educators need to row in the same direction: The trick, according to Mathew Portell, principal of the trauma-informed school Fall-Hamilton Elementary in Nashville, is to never lose sight of the individual student: "Trauma affects children in so many different ways. Some kids are reactive while others are reserved. It is key to know the students' stories in order to know how to support them."

With so much pain in the classroom, educators should be mindful that traumatic life experiences can sometimes emerge as behaviors that we might otherwise label as challenging. "Trauma can manifest in so many behaviors! Hypervigilance can masquerade as hyperactivity," offered Sarah MacLaughlin, recasting a child's nervous disposition as a possible response to a difficult home environment. "Fear can look like aggression: flight, freeze, or fight."

And it's not just very young children whose behavior may mask an underlying challenge. Math teacher Kareem Farah sees a connection between anger and trauma in his high school kids: "Students in poverty have been conditioned to suppress their pain. It often manifests as anger. It is critical to recognize that frustrated students are often those that have experienced the highest levels of trauma and need the most loving attention."

The Whole School Model

So relationship-building in the classroom is essential-the one-to-one with students is indispensable-but the impact of the work is amplified and reinforced only when it occurs within the broader contexts of the school and community.

Many teachers in the chat highlighted the need for a consistent, team-based approach. As Carmen Zeisler put it, "Being trauma-informed is not a checklist, but a mindset change. It is critical that everyone in the building is working towards being trauma-informed." Other educators agreed, adding that administration and school board support is needed to sustain these changes.

Teachers recommended ways to develop staff buy-in: Sarah Giddings shared that colleagues at her school meet in small groups to stay accountable to one another, and that extends to support staff like computer technicians. Lindsey Mattingly's school, Valor Collegiate in Nashville, engages all staff in restorative circles so teachers get firsthand experience of the social and emotional skills required of students in that model-with powerful results: "When teachers fully understand trauma and its manifestations, the mindset will shift from one more thing to do to THE thing we must do."

Understandably, there's bound to be pushback. Acknowledging that there is sometimes skepticism about broad, new programs is helpful-teachers and administrators won't all jump onboard enthusiastically. Several educators recommended connecting trauma-informed practices to the existing compassion and empathy among teachers: "You show them what they are already doing. Then they realize they are already partly there," says English teacher Alison Killy. And Joe LaCasse agreed that the foundations of trauma-informed practices were already embedded in many classrooms, and it was really a matter of emphasis: "Deep down, all teachers care about kids. So, this really gets at the core of being a teacher. It's not just something 'extra.'"

What About Me?

Well exactly. What about you?

The teaching profession is intellectually and emotionally challenging. Many educators in the chat recognized that the social and emotional work has to start with themselves. Educators who see the value of a practice in their own lives are more likely to be passionate advocates, and the learning ecosystem is only truly healthy when all members of the community are thriving. In other words, helping teachers feel emotionally grounded and supported is helping students, too. "Don't forget that teachers have SEL needs! Concentrate on teacher well-being and empower them to address their own needs," suggested the organization Move This World. In a school culture that focuses on wellness for all, teachers can practice and then model positive social and emotional skills for their students more authentically.

Social and emotional support for teachers also helps buffer the effects of secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma-when teachers experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder because of the stress of bearing witness to others' trauma. Supportive peer connections are an important part of that prevention: "Don't let teachers with struggling students feel alone," recommended Rosa Derricott. "It should be a school-wide approach where everyone's supporting each other."

In the end, of course, we can't rely on our schools alone to address systemic issues of poverty, violence, or drug addiction. The net of responsibility must be cast more widely. "A trauma-informed approach to social emotional learning requires partnership between counselors, teachers, parents, and other trusted adults to help guide students through short and long-term challenge," suggested the chat participant Mom of All Capes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but perhaps it was user Belinda Talonia who said it all most succinctly: "SEL belongs to all of us."

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The How and Why of Trauma-Informed Teaching

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In an extraordinary Twitter chat, educators discuss building trauma-informed social and emotional learning environments.

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Vol. 77

No. 2

Abstract

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

4. Promote Predictability and Consistency

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

7. Create Islands of Competence

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Small changes in classroom interactions can make a big difference for traumatized students.

Credit: Shannon Fagan

Abstract

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

4. Promote Predictability and Consistency

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

7. Create Islands of Competence

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma, such as abuse, neglect, natural disaster, or experiencing or witnessing violence. Trauma is possibly the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019). Traumatized students are especially prone to difficulty in self-regulation, negative thinking, being on high alert, difficulty trusting adults, and inappropriate social interactions (Lacoe, 2013; Terrasi & de Galarce, 2017). They often haven't learned to express emotions healthily and instead show their distress through aggression, avoidance, shutting down, or other off-putting behaviors. These actions can feel antagonistic to teachers who don't understand the root cause of the student's behavior, which can lead to misunderstandings, ineffective interventions, and missed learning time.

Neurobiologically, students can't learn if they don't feel safe, known, and cared for within their schools (Aupperle et al., 2012). When teachers are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from traumatic stress and make small changes in the classroom that foster a feeling of safety, it makes a huge difference in their ability to learn. Here are some examples.

1. Expect Unexpected Responses

First, teachers must learn to put students' reactions into context-and not to take them personally. Students with trauma histories can react and behave in seemingly unexpected ways, such as having a sudden outburst during a favorite activity or crying out of the blue one second after laughing. Teachers may be taken by surprise. They say things like, "But he was fine this morning, I didn't see that coming!" or "She normally loves playing the drums in music class. I have no idea where her reaction came from." This uncertainty leaves the teacher in a constant state of hyper-alertness when interacting with the student. This in turn can result in fatigue, as the teacher is guarded and unable to predict what will happen from one moment to another.

One way to understand these reactions is to think of the student as a soda can, and events that may trigger their trauma stress as shaking that can. We can't tell by looking if the can was recently shaken, but if it was, opening the can results in an unexpected explosive, messy reaction. If a student is triggered and experiencing heightened emotion, even a benign direction such as, "Please move over to make room for Jenny" could result in an "explosion" that the teacher never saw coming. By using trauma-sensitive strategies in the classroom, we can help reduce the times our students are "shaken."

2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions

Traumatized students often behave in ways that may interfere with teaching and learning, which can be frustrating. Teachers are in a position of power, and these students may be overly defensive, anticipating adult criticism, or defiant, as a way to assert control (Jennings, 2018). Yet for traumatized students, the ability to learn and behave appropriately can be person-dependent. When they are with a safe and supportive adult, their behavior reflects that.

Consider this scenario drawn from schools I've worked with: Trevor, a 6th grader whose father overdosed on heroin two years ago and who has witnessed ongoing domestic abuse throughout his childhood, was in Ms. Carlton's class for part of the day and Ms. Finch's class for the other part. Ms. Carlton had a reputation of working well with hard-to-reach kids, and sure enough, Trevor behaved in a stellar way in her class. When he was with Ms. Finch, however, he was sent to the office nearly three times a week for explosive behavior.

The teacher is 50 percent of every interaction with a student: By changing the way we give a direction or respond, we can reduce problematic behavior. Ms. Carlton had taken the time to build a trusting relationship with Trevor and learned to give directions in a way that he would respond well to. Interaction strategies are a type of accommodation that typically go unnamed and unwritten, but they were the reason that Trevor could feel safe and access the curriculum (Minahan & Rappaport, 2012).

If Ms. Carlton had written down the successful strategies she used with Trevor, the list might have started with avoiding authoritative directives such as, "Pick that up." To give Trevor a sense of control, Ms. Carlton always embedded choice in her directions, asking, "Do you want to be in the front of the line or the back of the line?" instead of simply telling him to "line up." This helped prevent a poor reaction (Minahan, 2019).

Ms. Carlton also conveyed respect and transparency by providing the reason behind each direction. Instead of saying, "No backpacks on the floor. I don't want to trip and fall!" Ms. Carlton would say, "Oh dear, I hope I don't fall. I have a bad knee! Could you please move your backpack?" Stating the reason first assured that Trevor knew the context (and necessity) of the demand.

Conversely, Ms. Finch would often go up close to Trevor, tower over him, and say in front of his peers, "Stop tapping your pencil!" This typically ended in a power struggle and Trevor's escalating behavior. Trevor, like many traumatized students, had experienced a loss of control in his life, and power struggles with an authoritative figure were particularly triggering. Ms. Carlton instinctively knew that a more private nonverbal direction could be less confrontational for a student in "fight or flight" mode. She would write, "Please stop tapping" on a piece of paper, put it gently on Trevor's desk without his peers noticing, and then give him space by walking away quickly. When possible, she also gave Trevor extended time to comply with directions to avoid power struggles, asking, for example, "Can you please pick that up before lunch?" rather than, "Pick that up now" (Minahan, 2019). This allowed Trevor time to decompress and respond rationally.

3. Be Specific About Relationship Building

At one point in the year, Ms. Carlton told Ms. Finch that building a relationship with Trevor was key to her success with him, and she suggested that Ms. Finch do the same. Unfortunately, saying, "Build a relationship" is too vague and leaves too much up to the teacher's instincts. Instead, Ms. Carlton could have told Ms. Finch that she greeted Trevor every day at the classroom door and asked him about the Avengers or basketball. She could have told Ms. Finch how she used the "two by ten" rule; she talked to him for two minutes a day for 10 days in a row about topics unrelated to academics or behavior. Whenever Ms. Carlton could see she wouldn't have time for this in the 10-day period, she asked the counselor or special education teacher to cover her class for two minutes so she could go for a walk with Trevor. She repeated this trust-building strategy several times throughout the year, especially after he exhibited anger or frustration and after school vacations and long weekends.

Ms. Carlton skillfully used relationship-building and interaction strategies to work with Trevor. Yet the impact could have been greater had she written and shared those strategies with Ms. Finch and the rest of Trevor's team via a shared document, behavior plan, or student success plan (Minahan, 2019). Likewise, if counselors, school nurses, and psychologists write and share such techniques with each classroom teacher, kids like Trevor, when triggered, wouldn't always have to leave class to find a safe adult.

Not knowing what is coming next can put anyone on high alert, especially traumatized students. Providing predictability through visual schedules of the class agenda or school day can help. Ms. Carlton was adamant about previewing any changes to the normal routine ahead of time (saying, "We are going to have indoor recess today because of the snow," or "The DVD player isn't working so we can't watch a science video at the end of class today"). This prepared Trevor and thus elicited a calmer response.

A teacher's behavior can also feel unpredictable to traumatized students. When students are working independently and quietly-doing what they are supposed to be doing-they don't know when they will get the teacher's attention. But when students are doing the wrong thing-like drumming on the desk with a pencil in each hand or swearing-teachers are more predictable and react quickly! Because predictability is comforting to students with anxiety and trauma histories, they may resort to getting the teacher's attention through inappropriate means. Trevor could get Ms. Finch to react immediately by flipping his water bottle noisily, but could go 20 minutes without so much as eye contact from her when he was quietly reading.

To counter this imbalance and create an overall feeling of safety, teachers can use predictable positive attention (Minahan, 2014). During independent work time, if a teacher says to a student "Great work! I'll be back to check on you," the student has no way of predicting how long they need to wait-and from past experience they know that the teacher may forget to return altogether. Using predictable positive attention, however, the teacher can say, "I am going to check on you in 10 minutes," put a timer on the student's desk, and add, "Come tap me on the shoulder when the timer goes off." If the teacher has many students in the class that could benefit from this, she could transfer the strategy to small groups: "I will check on this desk group at X time."

Another strategy for providing predictable attention, especially for middle and high school students, is to hand an anxious or traumatized student a sticky note with a time on it as they walk into class each day. The first time, the note will need to be explained: "If you don't understand something in class, please don't worry-I am going to check on you during independent work time at 11:45, and I will answer any questions you have then." Ms. Carlton found this strategy comforting to Trevor. This predictable check-in pairs the negative thoughts the student may have ("I don't know how to do this") with a reassuring thought ("But my teacher will be here in seven minutes!"). The student can better tolerate uncomfortable feelings when they know help and a positive interaction are coming. Telling the student what will happen and when and always following through establishes the teacher as a consistent, reliable adult.

5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel"

Traumatized students often engage in inaccurate thinking, tending to focus on the negative. Common classroom management strategies often only exasperate this tendency. How many of us have seen frequent movement breaks on a student's IEP or student success plan? It is one of the most common accommodations that we offer to students who seem dysregulated. Unfortunately, during these breaks, students can ruminate on negative memories, current stressors, angry thoughts, or worries. If we ask a high school student who is getting angry and becoming agitated to take a walk, he may ruminate the whole time and return just as angry. Sending a 1st grader to a "calming chair" can leave her to perseverate on worrying thoughts. Instead, we need to help them "change the channel." Both Ms. Carlton and Ms. Finch used breaks with Trevor, but in vastly different ways.

When adults can't sleep, we often read a book or watch TV, which distracts us from uncomfortable thoughts so we can fall back asleep. Teachers can use the same principle for kids with trauma and anxiety: Teach students that their brain is like a remote control that they can use to "switch the channel" to help them calm down (Minahan & Rappaport, 2012). These switching activities are called cognitive distractions or thought breaks and are incompatible with negative thinking. A listening center or "find the picture" activity can be helpful to young children. For older students, you might try Mad Libs, trivia, or more abstract strategies such as counting all the green items in the room, saying the alphabet backwards, or thinking of the first 10 lines of a favorite movie. Ms. Carlton taught Trevor to do Star Wars trivia when he was upset, which helped him calm down quickly. Conversely when Ms. Finch had Trevor go for a walk, his negative thinking would escalate, and he would often not return to class.

6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking

Many traumatized students interpret information through a negativity amplifier. When a teacher says, "Please correct the first problem," the student might hear, "You are stupid." Or a student might report that the teacher screamed at her when the teacher was really using a calm tone, as even neutral facial expressions can be misinterpreted. It is helpful to smile and explicitly say when you are happy with the student, a strategy Ms. Carlton utilized. When giving negative feedback, teachers can use the positive sandwich approach-starting and ending with a positive comment: (1) "I love how you remembered the formula," (2) "You made a small calculation error there," (3) "Great job getting problem #3 correct."

7. Create Islands of Competence

Recognizing areas of strength in students is a powerful way to combat the poor self-concept and negative thinking associated with trauma (Jennings, 2018). To support a more accurate self-concept, teachers can provide what Robert Brooks calls "islands of competence" for students swimming in a sea of inadequacy (2003). When a student thinks negatively, the negative moments during the day tend to weigh more heavily than the positive moments. We need to counter this effect with positive experiences. Educator teams need to ask themselves, "Does the student feel competent during the day?" If the answer is no, contriving an island of competence for the student is in order. Ms. Carlton often asked Trevor to help a younger student or a peer who was struggling in an academic area Trevor was strong in, or had him fix the stapler when it was malfunctioning. She would also point out in a written note to Trevor that he was the first student to finish a math activity. In high school, educators may want to foster students' talents by never letting them drop electives (which might require creativity in scheduling academic support in core classes).

It is important that students experience competence to develop a more accurate self-narrative and to begin to create a positive future picture of themselves. We want them to say, "I really helped that student with her artwork. When I grow up, I could work with kids." Or "I am good at fixing things. I could be a mechanic someday."

8. Limit Exclusionary Practices

Behavior is communication, and we've looked at how traumatized students often communicate feelings through their behavior. Teachers' behavior is also communication-and it may not be communicating the message we are striving to send. Common teacher practices such as ignoring inappropriate behavior, sending students to the office, or sending younger kids to sit alone at a back table or in the hallway can unintentionally trigger students who have experienced abandonment or neglect. We need to remember that when some of our students were young and cried, no one came. Ignoring them can trigger a trauma response and make them feel the teacher doesn't like them or is even happy that they are upset.

Ms. Finch would ignore Trevor when he was expressing anger, such as by crumpling up a paper, growling, or slinging a book from his desk onto the floor. On the other hand, Ms. Carlton responded to such moments at the beginning of the year by validating Trevor's feelings ("I am sorry you are upset" or "I see that you are angry"). This is a much more empathetic approach, will preserve the relationship, and will avoid triggering a trauma response in the student.

Another practice to be cautious about is using time with a preferred adult as an incentive. For example, a principal might say, "If you get all your homework done this week, you and I will have lunch together!" The problem with this is that if the student doesn't get all their homework done, then the principal withholds their attention and time. This implies the relationship is conditional and can trigger an abandonment trauma response for some students. It is better to use one-to-one time with students in a noncontingent way. This way adults are communicating, "I like you for who you are," not "I like you when you behave the right way."

Fostering a Feeling of Safety

Students can't learn unless they feel safe. When it comes to student trauma, there is much that is beyond educators' power, but there is also a great deal they can do to build a supportive and sensitive environment where students feel safe, comfortable, take risks, learn, and even heal.

Reflect & Discuss

➛ As Minahan writes, "Students can't learn if they don't feel safe." What small changes are you willing to try in your classroom to foster a sense of safety among traumatized students?

➛ Think about one of your students who struggles with behavior. How could you help him "switch the channel" when he is upset?

➛ Do you routinely share-and exchange ideas about-what's working with a traumatized student? How could you better improve lines of communication across the whole support team?

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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Vol. 77 No. 2 Abstract 1. Expect Unexpected Responses 2. Employ Thoughtful Interactions 3. Be Specific About Relationship Building 4. Promote Predictability and Consistency 5. Teach Strategies to "Change the Channel" 6. Give Supportive Feedback to Reduce Negative Thinking 7. Create Islands of Competence 8.

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AboutKidsHealth - The Hospital for Sick Children

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You are not your thoughts | AboutKidsHealth at The Hospital for Sick Children

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Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | TEDxFieldstoneDriveED