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Causes: Child Trauma can be caused by many things, according to the article more than two thirds of children have reported at least one of the following by the age of 16.

1. Sexual/physical abuse
2. Natural disasters/terrorism
3. Neglect
4. Serious accidents, life-threatening illnesses
5. Community/School violence (including bullying)
etc.

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Fast Facts

At least 1 in 7 children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year, and this is likely an underestimate. In 2019, 1,840 children died of abuse and neglect in the United States.

Each day, more than 1,000 youth are treated in emergency departments for physical assault-related injuries.

In 2019, about 1 in 5 high school students reported being bullied on school property in the last year.

8% of high school students had been in a physical fight on school property one or more times during the 12 months before the survey.

Each day, about 14 youth die from homicide, and more than 1,300 are treated in emergency departments for violence-related injuries.
It's important to recognize the signs of traumatic stress and its short- and long-term impact.
The signs of traumatic stress may be different in each child. Young children may react differently than older children.

Preschool Children

Fear being separated from their parent/caregiver

Cry or scream a lot

Eat poorly or lose weight

Have nightmares

Elementary School Children

Become anxious or fearful

Feel guilt or shame

Have a hard time concentrating

Have difficulty sleeping

Middle and High School Children

Feel depressed or alone

Develop eating disorders or self-harming behaviors

Begin abusing alcohol or drugs

Become involved in risky sexual behavior

The Body's Alarm System

Everyone has an alarm system in their body that is designed to keep them safe from harm. When activated, this tool prepares the body to fight or run away. The alarm can be activated at any perceived sign of trouble and leave kids feeling scared, angry, irritable, or even withdrawn.

Healthy Steps Kids Can Take to Respond to the Alarm

Recognize what activates the alarm and how their body reacts

Decide whether there is real trouble and seek help from a trusted adult

Practice deep breathing and other relaxation methods

Impact of Trauma

The impact of child traumatic stress can last well beyond childhood. In fact, research has shown that child trauma survivors may experience:

Learning problems, including lower grades and more suspensions and expulsions

Increased use of health and mental health services

Increase involvement with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems

Long-term health problems (e.g., diabetes and heart disease)

Trauma is a risk factor for nearly all behavioral health and substance use disorders.
There is hope. Children can and do recover from traumatic events, and you can play an important role in their recovery.
A critical part of children's recovery is having a supportive caregiving system, access to effective treatments, and service systems that are trauma informed.

Get Help Now
SAMHSA Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator The National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Get Help Now Healthcare Toolbox: Basics of Trauma-Informed Care
Not all children experience child traumatic stress after experiencing a traumatic event. With support, many children are able to recover and thrive.

As a caring adult and/or family member, you play an important role.

Remember To:

Assure the child that he or she is safe.

Explain that he or she is not responsible. Children often blame themselves for events that are completely out of their control.

Be patient. Some children will recover quickly while others recover more slowly. Reassure them that they do not need to feel guilty or bad about any feelings or thoughts.

Seek the help of a trained professional. When needed, a mental health professional trained in evidence-based trauma treatment can help children and families cope and move toward recovery. Ask your pediatrician, family physician, school counselor, or clergy member for a referral.

Visit the following websites for more information:

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Recognize the signs of child traumatic stress and the impact that trauma may have on children. The infographic developed by SAMHSA's National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCSTI) provides information on the prevalence and impact of traumatic events on children, and what actions can be taken to support children who experience traumatic events.

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Triggers or Expression of Trauma

Re-experiencing of the event – nightmares, feelings of panic, aggression, emotional shutdown, intrusive thoughts

Avoidance – avoiding engagement, not making eye contact, reluctance to talk or think about the trauma

Negative mood and cognition – blaming others, low self-worth, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, poor memory

Arousal – hypervigilance, being on edge, constant worry

Effects of Trauma

Hindered development of brain areas associated with language and communication

Jeopardised sense of self

Compromised ability to pay attention in class

Reduced memory – difficulty following instructions

Poor organisation skills

Difficulty grasping ’cause and effect’ relationships

Impact on Learning

school setting can feel like a battleground

on high alert, on the lookout for the next threat

classroom’s noise and chaos can trigger defensive coping mechanisms

teachers’ responses to the coping mechanisms strengthen child’s perception that school is unsafe, reinforce a negative self-image

an inability to perceive and process social cues

difficulty understanding and sharing one’s feelings in an adaptive, appropriate way

may externalise their experience by acting out with loud and aggressive behaviour

may internalise by withdrawing from others, becoming emotionally numb, or becoming depressed

result is lost learning opportunities and strained relationships

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Traumatic experiences in childhood can hinder a child's ability to perform well in school. Neurobiological research has found that trauma impacts brain areas associated with cognition, memory, and learning. Trauma jeopardises our brain health, which translates to academic difficulty and problems with school children's behaviour and relationships.

According to the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, over 60 per cent of children involved in the survey had experienced some trauma in the previous year, while others had experienced multiple traumatic events. Children and adolescents cannot often articulate their internal struggle, making it hard for educators to understand their academic issues. Teachers and parents of child trauma survivors may notice any of the following trauma symptoms in affected children:

Re-experiencing of the event - nightmares, feelings of panic, aggression, emotional shutdown, intrusive thoughts

Avoidance - avoiding engagement, not making eye contact, reluctance to talk or think about the trauma

Negative mood and cognition - blaming others, low self-worth, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, poor memory

Arousal - hypervigilance, being on edge, constant worry

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Traumatic events that occur in childhood and have a lasting impact on the person affected are known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In 1995, CDC-Kaiser Permanente led a study on ACEs, which revealed that ACEs were far more prevalent than previously understood and have significant outcomes on our health and well-being both in childhood and adulthood.

One reason why ACEs have such a negative impact on our health is their association with toxic stress. The brain and body are designed to deal with stress in short bursts. Trauma can result in prolonged activation of our stress response system, which ultimately wears away at our physical and mental health. Toxic stress in childhood can jeopardise normal brain development. As such, trauma impacts education due to the structural changes that it creates in the brain and the subsequent issues it causes regarding executive function, emotional regulation, and behavioural health.

The Impact of Trauma on Academic Performance

Reading and writing skills, participation in debate and discussion, and solving mathematical problems are all key elements of education. The development of each of these skills relies on the brain's ability to organise, comprehend, remember, learn, trust, and produce work.

Emotional self-regulation, attention, and positive behaviour are also key elements of education. The ability to regulate one's emotions, sustain attention, and organise one's behaviour adaptively set the stage for healthy brain development and personal growth through education.

Trauma has a significant, lasting impact on the brain, especially when it occurs in childhood. Childhood trauma results in toxic stress, which wears away at our physical and mental health. Child trauma survivors are at risk of hindered brain development, which hurts their ability to engage in a formal learning setting and achieve academic success.

According to neuroscientific researchers, trauma can impact a child's academic health in a myriad of ways, including:

Hindered development of brain areas associated with language and communication

Jeopardised sense of self

Compromised ability to pay attention in class

Reduced memory - difficulty following instructions

Poor organisation skills

Difficulty grasping 'cause and effect' relationships

All of the above are essential for effective information processing. Traumatic stress can also hinder a child's capacity for creative play. While all of the above are important for academic development, play is perhaps the most important tool children use to grow and develop.

The Impact of Trauma on Classroom Behaviour

Traumatic experiences in childhood can influence our behaviour. For many child trauma survivors, the school setting can feel like a battleground. Trauma can make us feel that the world is inherently unsafe. As a result of overwhelm, perhaps through physical or sexual abuse, parental neglect, exposure to violence, or any other types of trauma, survivors are often on high alert, on the lookout for the next threat.

This hyperalertness for danger makes it hard for child trauma survivors to regulate their classroom behaviour. The classroom's noise and chaos can trigger defensive coping mechanisms employed to help a child remain calm and feel somewhat safe.

Unfortunately, these coping mechanisms are often experienced as frustrating and disruptive by teachers and other school authorities. Teachers' responses to the coping mechanisms can ultimately strengthen the child's perception that school is unsafe and may reinforce a negative self-image that could be traced back to the original trauma.

The effects of childhood trauma on classroom behaviour stem from the same place that creates the academic difficulties associated with childhood trauma - an inability to perceive and process social cues and difficulty understanding and sharing one's feelings in an adaptive, appropriate way.

Children who have experienced trauma may externalise their experience by acting out with loud and aggressive behaviour. Alternatively, they may internalise by withdrawing from others, becoming emotionally numb, or becoming depressed. However a child responds to the trauma they have experienced, the result is often lost learning opportunities and strained relationships.

The Impact of Trauma on Childhood Relationships

Traumatic stress creates a deep internal struggle in those affected. Children who have experienced trauma face feelings of low self-worth, distrust, and insecurity in relationships with adults. This is true both inside and outside a school setting.

Trauma preoccupies us with the need for survival. Child trauma survivors are likely to be distrustful of adults based on their traumatic memories. This compromises their ability to engage in the classroom effectively.

Trauma also hinders our social development, which means that many traumatised children may not have developed the same level of social skills as their peers, causing strain in their relationships with their teachers and peers.

The Impact of Trauma on Adult Education

While children who have experienced trauma may struggle in school, adult learners may also struggle with education due to trauma. When we have been traumatised in childhood, and that trauma remains unresolved, the symptoms persist into adulthood.

Adverse childhood experiences have impacted approximately 1 in 3 adult learners. In a classroom setting, adult trauma survivors might easily become frustrated and subject to experiencing their traumatic memories. The classroom can bring up memories of looming authority and hyperalertness from childhood, leading the adult back into a trauma response and making it difficult to engage in learning effectively.

Trauma-Informed Education

Although trauma can have a lasting impact on our education, significant strides have been made to help trauma survivors overcome their academic challenges and get the best education possible. Many trauma survivors have managed to overcome the obstacles to education put in place by their past trauma.

Social and Emotional Learning for Trauma-impacted Learners

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is an approach to education that supports students in acquiring and applying the skills, knowledge, and outlook necessary to regulate their emotions, set and strive towards positive goals, relate to others with empathy, create and maintain positive relationships, and make informed, responsible decisions. SEL programs can help trauma-impacted children and adults achieve an education while also developing their social and emotional competence.
If you have a client, or know of someone who is struggling to heal from psychological trauma, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and out-patient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long-lasting recovery. For information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).

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The Impact of Trauma on Education - Khiron Clinics

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Traumatic experiences in childhood can hinder a child's ability to perform well in school. Neurobiological research has found that trauma impacts brain areas associated with cognition, memory, and learning. Trauma jeopardises our brain health, which translates to academic difficulty and problems with school children's behaviour and relationships.

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Causes of Traumatic Stress for students:
-Physcial, emotional, and/or sexual abuse at home
-Relative or family member commits suicide
-Taken away from parents and put in foster homes
-Family member in jail

Type of Trama: Complex Trauma-students exposure to multiple tramatic events. This can include removal from home, admission to a treatment facility, and multiple placements within a short time.
https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/complex-trauma#:~:text=Complex%20trauma%20describes%20both%20children's,as%20abuse%20or%20profound%20neglect.

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Complex trauma describes both children's exposure to multiple traumatic events-often of an invasive, interpersonal nature-and the wide-ranging, long-term effects of this exposure. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or profound neglect. They usually occur early in life and can disrupt many aspects of the child's development and the formation of a sense of self. Since these events often occur with a caregiver, they interfere with the child's ability to form a secure attachment. Many aspects of a child's healthy physical and mental development rely on this primary source of safety and stability.

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Complex trauma describes both children's exposure to multiple traumatic events-often of an invasive, interpersonal nature-and the wide-ranging, long-term effects of this exposure. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or profound neglect.

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Students are anxious, they will avoid certain things that remind them of traumatic events, cut themselves, and depression are signs of trauma and traumatic stress. Some other signs of traumatic stress in students can include easily started by bells, noises, or physical contact. This can also include students to be overwhelmed easily or are withdrawn.

https://psychcentral.com/ptsd/complex-trauma-a-step-by-step-description-of-how-it-develops

Warning signs that I have seen and watch for are students wearing long sleeve shirts or pants in 100 degree weather, students that jump at loud noises, always looking over their shoulder. Students that rub their hands on their pant legs back and forth the whole class period. Students that bite their nails-This is a consistent sign that I have seen in every student that is anxious because of one thing or another. They will always have short or bleeding nails because they are always biting their nails, cuticles, or picking at them.

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Complex trauma has a deep impact on the nervous system. By understanding how it develops, you can better understand how to treat it.

Most of us have a chapter in our lives we'd rather forget. Whether it's a devastating breakup or the death of a loved one, many of us have felt the sting of heartbreak that comes with being a human.

But for those who live with complex trauma, the memories don't just live in the past. They live in the present moment, too.

For a long time, complex trauma wasn't well understood. Now researchers estimate that more than 3% of people meet the criteria for complex trauma, also called complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), in the United States. This is about the same percentage as people with traditional PTSD.

Trauma, the kind you've likely heard of, can develop after a distinct traumatic experience. It occurs when the brain and body are so overwhelmed that they have a hard time easing out of "fight, flight, or freeze" mode and coming back into a relaxed state.

Trauma may refer to a single incident, while complex trauma refers to a series of traumatic events that take place over a long period of time, like months or years.

First introduced in the by Judith Lewis Herman, PhD, complex trauma has a lot in common with the classic symptoms of PTSD, such as:

feeling anxious

having flashbacks

avoiding circumstances that remind you of the traumatic events

In addition, complex trauma can:

distort your sense of self

make it difficult to control your emotions

cause relationships challenges

When you experience a traumatic event, it activates the limbic system in the brain. This "fire alarm" shuts down all nonessential systems (rest, digestion, sleep) and floods your body with stress hormones, like cortisol, so you can prepare for fight, flight, or freeze.

Once the danger passes, your parasympathetic nervous system provides inner calm, otherwise known as your "rest and digest" mode.

At this point, normal cognitive function returns, and you can go back to your day with relatively few side effects, perhaps only feeling a little jittery for a while, or a bit on edge.

But for people who live with complex trauma, this balance doesn't quite return all the way.

The limbic system stays engaged most of the time. It's a coping mechanism to try and stay safe in the face of ongoing adversity. It's an experience of constantly being in survival mode, or on edge.

Over time, it becomes a "new normal" for the brain and body.

In his book, " The Body Keeps the Score," trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, MD, describes how trauma literally becomes trapped in the body and the brain rewires itself. These lasting effects create symptoms of complex trauma.

This bodily state of your nervous system being on "high alert" can affect your thoughts, actions, and relationships.

Some symptoms of complex trauma include:

Somatic (bodily) symptoms, like unexplained headaches or an upset stomach, are also common with complex trauma. Since the body is under chronic stress, it can lower your immune system and lead to a range of chronic health conditions.

Complex trauma can arise in any situation where you feel an ongoing sense of fear, horror, helplessness, or powerlessness over an extended period of time, with the perceived or actual inability to escape.

It usually stems from trauma you experienced in childhood, though it can develop from trauma in adulthood as well.

Some possible causes of complex trauma include:

sexual abuse or incest

ongoing physical or emotional abuse

chronic neglect or abandonment

medical abuse or medical trauma

torture or being held captive

enmeshment or engulfment trauma

parentification (children taking on adult rules)

human trafficking

genocide campaigns

living in a war zone or area of civil unrest

Everyone's story is unique - and so is their trauma. What works for one person may not work for another.

Also, keep in mind that what works at one point in time may not work later on down the line.

The great news is, as more is uncovered about complex trauma, more trauma treatment therapies are emerging as well. The goal of each treatment option is to provide a corrective emotional experience for healing.

Here are some effective therapies for complex trauma:

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In this form of therapy, you explore the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Once you become aware of the connections, you may be able to change your actions.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). With this treatment, you're guided with gentle tapping (or tones) to reprocess traumatic events and form new beliefs around them.

Internal family systems (IFS). With this approach, you learn how to integrate the different parts of your personality into one whole "Self" to reprocess traumatic events in a way that can no longer harm you.

Somatic (body) therapies. Since trauma lives in the limbic area of the brain and not the frontal cortex (the part of the brain that talks in therapy), somatic therapies or body-centered therapies can teach your body that it does not have to be prepared for trauma all the time.

Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). This approach can be effective for people who live with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which has many overlapping symptoms with complex trauma. In this treatment approach, you learn mindfulness, radical self-acceptance, and distress tolerance.

There's also a link between complex trauma and substance use as a way to cope with symptoms. If you'd like to cut back on using drugs or drinking alcohol, support is available.

Look for a local 12-step program, like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA), or SMART Recovery.

Here are some additional resources for support:

Recovery from complex trauma can be a gradual process. But having a range of tools and self-care strategies can make the process a whole lot easier.

It's a good idea to keep a few deep breathing exercises up your sleeve for those tough moments. This is a direct way to let your body know that you're safe. Try these:

4-7-8 breathing: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds.

Box breathing: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds.

Alternate nostril breathing: Place your right thumb over your right nostril. Inhale and exhale eight times through your left nostril. Repeat on the other side.

A consistent mindfulness practice can help too. A 2018 study involving veterans with PTSD found that a regular meditation practice can reduce symptoms of trauma. Yoga has shown similar results, showing that both can be an effective complement to talk therapy.

It might help to access trauma-informed yoga sessions, where the yoga instructor is aware that trauma can be stored in the body, and that some body movements can trigger emotional reactions. They can help you navigate these reactions in a healing way.

Here are some lifestyle adjustments that can make complex trauma more manageable:

do tai chi or dance

journal your feelings

spend time in nature

eat a nutritious, balanced diet

sleep around 8 hours a night

"shake off" tough emotions by literally shaking your arms or your body to release tension

talk through your triggers with loved ones

practice progressive relaxation techniques

exercise five times a week, even if only a few minutes a day

try using the flashback halting protocol to manage flashbacks

Complex trauma may feel like it's taking over your life. Perhaps you feel alone in your experience, wondering if it will ever feel like less of a big deal.

Two thoughts: You're not alone, and it will get better.

One of the best things you can do is to continue to educate yourself about complex trauma. You may be able to find a healing book club or support group in your area.

You can also join one online, like this one through the C-PTSD Foundation.

Here are some books to add to your reading list:

"The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, MD

"Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation" by Janina Fisher, PhD

"Trauma & Recovery" by Judith Lewis Herman, MD

"The Complex PTSD Workbook" by Arielle Schwartz, PhD

"Waking the Tiger" by Peter Levine, PhD

"Trauma and the Body" by Pat Ogden, PhD

"The Body Heals Itself" by Emily Francis

"What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing" by Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Oprah Winfrey

Also, here's a great TED Talk on how childhood trauma affects health over a lifetime.

Finally, know that you will get through this. You've survived 100% of your worst days so far and, just like the other tough times, this will pass too.

You're stronger than you know.

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What Is Complex Trauma? Symptoms, Examples, and How to Heal

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Complex trauma has a deep impact on the nervous system. By understanding how it develops, you can better understand how to treat it. Most of us have a chapter in our lives we'd rather forget. Whether it's a devastating breakup or the death of a loved one, many of us have felt the sting of heartbreak that comes with being a human.

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https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/trauma-informed-teaching

One of the biggest strategies that I have found that works is building a relationship with the student. We talk about our likes and dislikes. I complement them on their outfit or hair or something about them. I make sure that I am predictable to the student. I tell them where we are going and what we are doing. I tell them if there is going to be a loud alarm so they don't get nervous or freak out. I also tell other students you have to ask someone if you can hug them. If I have to touch the students or help them physically, I will tell them I am going to touch your hand or arm before I touch them.

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Every student enters a classroom with a history. Sometimes that history consists of the typical, if not uneventful, ups and downs of childhood. Other times, that history may include tragedy-many students experience sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, homelessness, and violence. Such tragedies can traumatize students, affecting their ability to perform well in school.

Today's education leaders must recognize the prevalence of trauma and its impact on learning. With knowledge about how trauma affects children's development, educators are better positioned to attend to the needs of all students.

How Prevalent Is Trauma Among Students?

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, a 1998 landmark study, transformed people's understanding of just how common trauma is, spawning the development of trauma-informed approaches in disciplines ranging from medical care to education. In the ACE Study, 61% of adults reported having experienced at least one trauma during childhood, and almost 1 in 6 reported experiencing four or more traumas.

Trauma can have devastating consequences in people's lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in addition to increasing children's risk of developing a broad assortment of chronic diseases later in life, toxic traumatic stress can change the development of children's brains and affect their attention levels, decision-making capacities, and learning abilities.

Educators can expect two-thirds of their students to have experienced one or more traumatic events by age 16. How those experiences manifest in student behavior or learning abilities can vary considerably according to age and personality. For example, elementary school students can experience anxiety and fear and struggle to concentrate, while middle school and high school students can experience depression, self-harm, and misuse alcohol or drugs.

A review of research between 1990 and 2015 found the following statistics regarding the prevalence of various traumatic events in school-age children:

13%-17% of girls and 3%-5% of boys had experienced sexual abuse.

69%-71% of students had experienced assault or physical abuse.

70% had witnessed violence.

18% had lost a loved one due to crime or vehicular homicide.

29% had experienced bullying.

22% had experienced disasters.

One consequence of these traumas is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The US Department of Veteran Affairs' National Center for PTSD reports that 3%-15% of girls and 1%-6% of boys who experience trauma develop PTSD. These alarming percentages highlight the importance of trauma-informed teaching strategies to more effectively address the challenges students confront because of past and ongoing traumas.

Trauma's Impact in the Classroom

The harm trauma inflicts on students' lives often carries over into the classroom. Though many children show only some dysfunction as a result of their traumatic experiences, others exhibit significant learning impairments. Trauma-related symptoms can interrupt key areas of a student's education, including relationships, behavior, and academic performance.

Trauma's Impact on Student Relationships

Trauma can make it hard for children to form bonds. For example, students who have experienced neglect or abuse from adults might have difficulty building trust, or they may feel wary of asking for the help they need. However, forming positive relationships with teachers can play an important role in student success.

Students with trauma often need guidance and support in building trusting relationships with teachers and their classmates. Unfortunately, one obstacle to getting the guidance and support they need can be their behavior. When students misbehave, schools often discipline them in ways that isolate them or withdraw support. This approach can further hinder ACE-affected students from bonding with their teachers.

Trauma's Impact on Student Behavior

Traumatic experiences affect students' ability to regulate their emotions. In healthy environments, adults calm and soothe young children, which teaches them to calm and soothe themselves. However, children who have experienced neglect or abuse often do not receive such support and thereby don't learn how to manage their emotions. The inability to manage emotions can lead to outbursts and other behavior problems in the classroom.

Students with traumatic histories may also experience higher levels of fear and anxiety, which can make it difficult for them to control their behavior. Additionally, trauma can skew a child's ability to interpret social cues and express feelings appropriately, which again can lead to disruptive behavior and is often associated with academic difficulties.

Rather than responding with frustration and harsh punishment, educators can coach students to calm themselves and adjust their responses. By helping students de-escalate their feelings of emotional overload, teachers can direct them to healthier responses and improve their chances of engaging in learning.

Trauma's Impact on Students' Academic Performance

Trauma can plague students with intrusive thoughts that distract them from absorbing information in lessons, paying attention in class, or studying. The disruptive behavior students with traumatic histories often display interrupts instruction and leads to more suspensions and expulsions, further reducing their instructional time. Compared with their peers, students with these troubled backgrounds tend to have:

Lower grade-point averages

Higher high-school dropout rates

Poorer employment rates

Trauma can also affect children's executive functions, limiting their comprehension, memory, organization, and engagement. With reduced capacities in those areas, students can struggle with reading, writing, math, and classroom discussions. Trauma can also delay and thwart their development of language skills and hamper their ability to synthesize information or see cause-and-effect relationships. Such problems make success in school particularly challenging.

Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies

As students with trauma often experience feelings of anxiety and lack of control, classroom environments that help reduce stress and guide students toward open, trusted relationships can mitigate the problems that stem from traumatic histories. Trauma-informed teaching strategies foster predictability. They build a sense of stability for students, help cultivate self-worth, and give students opportunities to better regulate their emotions and improve their focus.

Relationship Building

Trauma-informed teaching creates a space for students to build trust and recognizes that content may need to come after the forging of relationships. Trusted relationships often begin with getting to know one another personally. Activities that encourage students to share elements of who they are, such as their favorite songs and interests, help establish a foundation for relationships. For example, community circle conversations can guide students through discussions in which they share their ideas, express their concerns, and connect with peers and teachers.

Teachers can also cultivate trust and build rapport with increased one-on-one interaction. This creates a chance for them to have conversations with students related and unrelated to school. In this way, teachers can help give students a sense of belonging and support.

Restorative Approaches to Discipline

All too often schools mete out punishment for bad behavior without helping students reflect on or adjust their actions. Restorative approaches shift the discipline focus to be positive and supportive rather than punitive. Students with traumatic backgrounds need this kind of support to heal and restore their faith in fairness. They also often need opportunities to rebuild positive relationships with authority figures, and restorative discipline does just that.

Restorative discipline can take many shapes. For example, for younger students, teachers can create "fairness committees." These committees, made up of students and teachers, let students explain themselves when they've done something wrong. Then, instead of doling out a punishment, the committee helps students make amends.

To complement restorative discipline, educators can implement other important restorative strategies, such as meditation, counseling, and team-building exercises. These activities augment students' abilities to reflect on their behaviors, self-regulate, and build trust.

Opportunities to Build Self-Efficacy

Students with traumatic histories often have low self-esteem. They can also feel uncertain about their environments and unable to control them. Giving these students regular opportunities to cultivate self-efficacy, or a belief in themselves and their abilities to meet the challenges in front of them, can prove to be healing.

Trauma-informed teaching should give students responsibility and opportunities to achieve. Both responsibility and achievement help students feel in charge of themselves and promote feelings of self-worth and competence. Several techniques can improve students' chances of success while encouraging accountability.

For example, schools can encourage classroom policies that allow students to submit work for early feedback before receiving final grades or revise their work until they earn a desired score. These policies give students multiple chances to show what they've learned, improve their grades, and ultimately build an image of themselves as capable learners. These policies also reduce stress because they let students see a path to reaching competency.

Learn How to Put Trauma-Informed Teaching Into Action

Educators can create safe learning environments for students with trauma by implementing thoughtful programs that make use of trauma-informed teaching strategies. Explore how American University's School of Education prepares educators to use creative approaches to reach all students through its online degree programs.

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Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies | American University

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Every student enters a classroom with a history. Sometimes that history consists of the typical, if not uneventful, ups and downs of childhood. Other times, that history may include tragedy-many students experience sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, homelessness, and violence. Such tragedies can traumatize students, affecting their ability to perform well in school.

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Different Types of Trauma & Symptoms of Trauma

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Different Types of Trauma & Symptoms of Trauma

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The article lists potenial traumatic events that students might experience and includes some eye-opening statistic related to trauma, and signs of traumatic stress to look out for.

Signs of traumatic stress may be different in each child. Young children may react differently than older children:

Preschool Children:
- Fear being seperated from their parent/caregiver.
- Cry or scream a lot.
- Eat poorly or lose weight.
- Have nightmares.

Elementary School Children:
- Become anxious or fearful.
- Feel guilt or shame.
- Have a hard time concentrating
- Have difficulty sleeping

Middle and High School:
- Feel depressed or alone.
- Develop eating disorders or self-harming behaviors.
- Begin abusing alcohol or drugs.
- Become involved in risky sexual behavior.

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Fast Facts

At least 1 in 7 children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year, and this is likely an underestimate. In 2019, 1,840 children died of abuse and neglect in the United States.

Each day, more than 1,000 youth are treated in emergency departments for physical assault-related injuries.

In 2019, about 1 in 5 high school students reported being bullied on school property in the last year.

8% of high school students had been in a physical fight on school property one or more times during the 12 months before the survey.

Each day, about 14 youth die from homicide, and more than 1,300 are treated in emergency departments for violence-related injuries.
It's important to recognize the signs of traumatic stress and its short- and long-term impact.
The signs of traumatic stress may be different in each child. Young children may react differently than older children.

Preschool Children

Fear being separated from their parent/caregiver

Cry or scream a lot

Eat poorly or lose weight

Have nightmares

Elementary School Children

Become anxious or fearful

Feel guilt or shame

Have a hard time concentrating

Have difficulty sleeping

Middle and High School Children

Feel depressed or alone

Develop eating disorders or self-harming behaviors

Begin abusing alcohol or drugs

Become involved in risky sexual behavior

The Body's Alarm System

Everyone has an alarm system in their body that is designed to keep them safe from harm. When activated, this tool prepares the body to fight or run away. The alarm can be activated at any perceived sign of trouble and leave kids feeling scared, angry, irritable, or even withdrawn.

Healthy Steps Kids Can Take to Respond to the Alarm

Recognize what activates the alarm and how their body reacts

Decide whether there is real trouble and seek help from a trusted adult

Practice deep breathing and other relaxation methods

Impact of Trauma

The impact of child traumatic stress can last well beyond childhood. In fact, research has shown that child trauma survivors may experience:

Learning problems, including lower grades and more suspensions and expulsions

Increased use of health and mental health services

Increase involvement with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems

Long-term health problems (e.g., diabetes and heart disease)

Trauma is a risk factor for nearly all behavioral health and substance use disorders.
There is hope. Children can and do recover from traumatic events, and you can play an important role in their recovery.
A critical part of children's recovery is having a supportive caregiving system, access to effective treatments, and service systems that are trauma informed.

Get Help Now
SAMHSA Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator The National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Get Help Now Healthcare Toolbox: Basics of Trauma-Informed Care
Not all children experience child traumatic stress after experiencing a traumatic event. With support, many children are able to recover and thrive.

As a caring adult and/or family member, you play an important role.

Remember To:

Assure the child that he or she is safe.

Explain that he or she is not responsible. Children often blame themselves for events that are completely out of their control.

Be patient. Some children will recover quickly while others recover more slowly. Reassure them that they do not need to feel guilty or bad about any feelings or thoughts.

Seek the help of a trained professional. When needed, a mental health professional trained in evidence-based trauma treatment can help children and families cope and move toward recovery. Ask your pediatrician, family physician, school counselor, or clergy member for a referral.

Visit the following websites for more information:

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Recognize the signs of child traumatic stress and the impact that trauma may have on children. The infographic developed by SAMHSA's National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCSTI) provides information on the prevalence and impact of traumatic events on children, and what actions can be taken to support children who experience traumatic events.

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Strategies To Respond To Trauma As An Educator. 

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Strategies To Respond To Trauma As An Educator. 

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During my time as a teacher so far, I've had limited experience dealing with students suffering from trauma so I found this article really benefical and practical.

I would recommend checking out the article's preventative strategies, "in the moment" strategies, and "after the moment" strategies along with tips about what NOT to do when a student is in a crisis. It helped give me a better understanding of how to deal with a student if they are sufferring from trauma in my class, and what actions I could do to help and what things I should avoid doing.

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This article focuses on how covid-19 raised awareness on the importance of trauma-informed teaching.  Covid-19 was a unique trauma, as everyone on the planet experienced it simultaneously but in very different ways.  Covid-19 also increased incidents of acute trauma and for some, chronic trauma as well.  The article also mentions the systemic traumas of racial injustice that occurred in the US at the same time as covid-19, and how the culmination of all of these events has led many educators to see that trauma-informed teaching is invaluable.

Some of the techniques suggested that can be applied to all types of trauma are:
-Breathing exercises
-thoughtfully designed classrooms (lighting, quiet spaces, etc.)
-allowing students choice
-reducing harsh punishments and striving for understanding
-using safe and predictable routines in the classroom

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In recent years, a growing number of schools of education have begun focusing on trauma-informed teaching practices to help educators holistically address negative academic and social outcomes for students. Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread racial injustice, and a host of other major stressors for U.S. youth, these concepts have become more popular, and important, than ever.

"When the pandemic came, people really became concerned and interested in new traumas that were [affecting] students," explains Regina Rahimi, EdD, a professor of education at Georgia Southern University. "Not only were students isolated, but if they were in an abusive household or they lived in a community where violence was prevalent, these things all became more pervasive in their lives, so that trauma was just further exacerbated."

By applying trauma-sensitive principles to the classroom, teachers can help young people overcome the negative educational outcomes of growing up in these kinds of situations. This approach emphasizes understanding the ways that such environments can affect student behavior and promotes classroom practices that can mitigate trauma's impact on socioemotional development.

While trauma-informed care has long been a core of other professions, experts say it is only now beginning to truly gain traction in education. Prior to the pandemic, Rahimi and her GSU colleagues surveyed 800 educators across Georgia and found that teachers "are generally aware of trauma amongst their students, but their typical response is to refer them to the counselor," according to a January 2020 press release. Rahimi and her team developed a yearly online conference, the Trauma-Informed Education Symposium (TIES), to empower teachers to better serve struggling students.

Rahimi says the goal of TIES, which is currently in its third year, is not to "turn teachers into counselors or mental health clinicians" but to provide the skills necessary to prevent re-traumatization. Participants learn about techniques for creating safe, predictable classroom environments, incorporating socioemotional skills and positive coping mechanisms into lesson plans, de-escalating unruly student behavior, and more.

Rusty Earl, a former K-12 educator who currently serves as a video producer for the Kansas State University (K-State) College of Education, says that students who are pursuing a career in teaching should understand that they do not need to be experts to make a difference with powerful, trauma-informed techniques. He recently directed a K-State documentary, Becoming Trauma Responsive, that highlights how educators in the Midwest have adapted to student needs during the pandemic by using basic trauma-sensitive approaches.

"Being calm and in the right presence of mind does so much more to help students than knowing some magical words or having all of the brain science down," Earl says. Multiple experts who were interviewed for the film emphasized that simply providing a classroom environment where students know they are safe and have a teacher whom they can trust can make a significant difference.

In addition to the film, K-State plans to roll out new trauma-informed coursework for education majors in fall 2022, according to Earl.

Other schools are increasing their trainings as well. Some universities have multidisciplinary trauma-informed learning centers or offer graduate certificates specializing in this area. Ithaca College in New York recently hosted a trauma-informed workshop to help current and future teachers learn practical methods to "promote health and wellness, engage learners, and provide safe spaces for learners to succeed, and increase [their] own wellness," according to the school's website. At North Carolina State University, researchers are conducting an interdisciplinary project titled Trauma Informed Practice Support in Schools and Communities that brings educators and social workers together to discuss best practices.

"A lot of times, when difficult topics come up, it's natural to want to just quickly divert from that conversation, but that can be really difficult for children," Angela Wiseman, an associate professor of literacy education who is leading the project, explained in a press release. "If they're sharing their feelings and coming to you for that, and you're not sure how to acknowledge it, it can cause them to re-experience those feelings."

Such lessons may be especially valuable for teachers of underrepresented students. Young people of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are especially vulnerable to trauma due to racial stress and economic hardship that can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, and sleep disturbances, according to the Family-Informed Trauma Treatment Center and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. The University of Michigan's 2021 Trauma-Informed Programs and Practices for Schools notes that "racism, prejudice, and the mistreatment of people of color and other marginalized identities" compound the effects of other traumas. Furthermore, "[i]mplicit biases and stereotypes about children of color and others with marginalized identities can lead to actions that are harmful, and they strain relationships that children with trauma histories need to heal."

As far as implementing trauma-sensitive approaches, Rahimi says, different schools, departments, and organizations first need to have a commitment and adopt universal practices such as making classrooms as stress-free as possible.

"The pandemic certainly brought forward that we do have mental health and socioemotional needs in our communities and in our schools and in any work environment," she says. "The big thing is not to retraumatize people by putting them in stressful, demeaning environments." ●

Mariah Stewart is a senior staff writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity.

This article was published in our April 2022 issue.

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Trauma-Informed Education Becomes Popular Response to Stress of COVID-19, Racial Strife, and More | INSIGHT Into Diversity

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In recent years, a growing number of schools of education have begun focusing on trauma-informed teaching practices to help educators holistically address negative academic and social outcomes for students. Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread racial injustice, and a host of other major stressors for U.S.

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https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/classroom-stress-relievers/

This resource provides a list of activities to do in the classroom to help relieve stress.  This can be especially useful for students suffering trauma.  These exercises focus on gross motor movement and mindfulness, which are both excellent techniques for healing from trauma.  These strategies could be used for students suffering from acute trauma, complex trauma, chronic trauma, or system-induced trauma.

Some of my favorites include:

-Writing down schedule changes on whiteboards (this is useful for students who need routine to feel safe)
-Playing nature sounds in the classroom during break times to help students feel calm and safe
-Taking breaks to color mindful patterns like mandalas

The article also includes ways for teachers to destress and deal with their own traumas, such as recognizing successes and taking breaks.

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Innovative teachers like you keep students engaged and excited, but you know kids learn best when they're not tense. Deal with stress in the classroom by trying these easy mood-boosters on a daily basis.

Get them moving!

Sitting still is hard for all of us. These mood-boosting activities and brain breaks will give students instant energy.

Scissor hands: Students stand and scissor their arms across their chest four to five times, then touch their nose with their right hand and touch the opposite ear with their left hand, then switch.

Super stretch: Students stand up and stretch their arms and body to the ceiling, then to the side, then to the floor, twisting both ways.

Yoga pose: Lead the kids in hero pose, lion's pose, mountain pose, tree pose, warrior pose, and end with three deep breaths in upward salute. (Google "kids' yoga" for ideas!)

Laugh in: Start with "ho-ho-ho-ho" together. Then "he-hehe-he." And then "ha-ha-ha." Pretend to laugh. In no time the whole class will really be laughing.

Dance party: Turn on some fast music. Dance your hearts out for two minutes. Turn on some slow music and stretch a bit and calm down for 30 seconds.

App it up: Try Breathe Bubble in the Calm app (free in the iTunes store). Don't have access to apps? Ask students to breathe in for five seconds, hold three seconds, breathe out five seconds, and repeat for one minute. Prompt them to sit up straight on the inhale and hold, then exhale and relax their shoulders.

Four stay-calm class routines

Write out scheduling changes on a whiteboard: Knowing what to expect helps students focus.

Take class outside: Foam mats from a home improvement store are easy to stow, soft to sit and work on, and sturdy and waterproof. No reason not to learn in the fresh air.

Build in rewards for getting work done: Made it through reading groups with no interruptions? Give five minutes of free time at the end of the period.

Bring nature in: Project a rain forest on a large screen and play rain forest sounds. One minute is all you need for a quick field trip in their minds. Tip: @nationalparkservice has stunning images on Instagram.

Brain breaks: activities that bring on the calm

Create a class relax board: Have students look through travel magazines or on travel websites to find pictures of places that they dream of going or that make them feel peaceful. Make a class collage that can be posted prominently. Model looking at the collage yourself so students get in the same habit.

Be classical: Students working on a quiet task? Put on some classical music while they work. Productivity will rise and stress will go down.

Color (even older students will love it!): Mandalas, patterns, or any printed-out design has been shown to calm students.

Have a daily check-in: Let students hold up fingers to show how their day is going. One, not so great to five, fabulous. (And keep an eye out for the ones and twos. Check in with students to see if you can give them a little extra support that period or day.)

Take five, teachers!

You need a break, too. Sneak some Zen into your day with these stress-busting hacks.

Imagine this: First thing each day, close your eyes and imagine your day going well. Trace the letters C-A-L-M on your palm several times.

Find your happy place: Do you love the beach? The forest? Post a photo of your favorite outdoor spot somewhere in your classroom. Channel calm by focusing on the picture and taking three deep breaths - in for seven counts, out for 11 counts.

Sip smarter: Forget coffee and soda! Buy a pretty insulated water bottle, keep it on your desk, and take mini H2O breaks. A cold sip can work wonders on stress levels.

Think in threes: When you're overwhelmed with tasks, prioritize: What three things must get done today, or during this period? Once you check those off your list, then add three more.

Celebrate success: At the end of the week, grab a Post-it and write down one thing you felt went well, the name of a student you made progress with, and something that made you laugh. Put it on Monday's lesson plan. Every few weeks, flip through your plan book to see all your successes.

Schedule like a boss: Try stress-free scheduling of parent volunteers. Sites like SignUpGenius let parents sign on when it works with their schedule.

De-stress tips for families

Teachers, make copies of this list and send it home with students for parents to read.
Psst! Parents - helping kids deal with stress is a family affair. Sneak in these stress-relief strategies at home and you'll help your kids be happier (and learn better) at school.

Serve a protein-rich breakfast: Protein helps children concentrate and keeps blood sugar even. Good picks: peanut butter on toast, eggs, yogurt, milk, or cheese.

Build in hang time: Sit on the front steps with your child for five minutes after school. Ask him once about his day, but don't expect to get a reply or give advice. Just listen, and follow his lead.

Hug or high-five: Leave it at the door. Have a place for kids to write down things that were hard that day. Stuff them in a jar. Empty the jar each day. Talk about how each day is a new start.

Build homework routines: Help your child break down her tasks and weeks with a planner or family calendar. Plan together so evenings are full, but not frenzied.

Go for tech-free meals: Put phones in a basket at dinner (you too, Mom and Dad!). Make family meals a sacred time for conversation.

Keep kids off screens before bedtime: To ensure calm, restful sleep, make sure your child turns off all electronics one to two hours before bed. The blue light from computers, TVs, and phones interferes with the brain hormone that induces sleep.

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Tags: Engaging Activities, Mid-Career Teacher, New Teacher, Physical Education and Health, Teacher Self-Care, Veteran Teacher, Work-Life Balance

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Quick Ways to Deal With Stress in the Classroom If You're a Teacher | Resilient Educator

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Innovative teachers like you keep students engaged and excited, but you know kids learn best when they're not tense. Deal with stress in the classroom by trying these easy mood-boosters on a daily basis. Sitting still is hard for all of us. These mood-boosting activities and brain breaks will give students instant energy.

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The speaker talks about the acute trauma of her young sister passing away at the age of 9.  She talks about a teacher who was very important to her at the time.  Her art teacher intentionally made a secure relationship with her and helped her process the traumatic event.  She gave the speaker a safe, peaceful space to heal from the trauma.
She also speaks about a time she got a terrible grade after a traumatic event with her mother being ill in the hospital.

She refers to her trauma as an invisible backpack that she carried with her everywhere, and how important it was for teachers to recognize the trauma and offer sympathy and grace.

Her experience when her sister died was much more positive than when her mother died.  The teacher who helped her when her sister died gave her second chances when her grades suffered, while when her mother died, her teacher made her feel humiliated and shamed.  The speaker credits the first teacher with helping her develop grit and learning to process traumatic events.

This video demonstrates the importance of teachers being mindful of their students, and how they can either have an extremely positive or extremely negative impact.

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Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | TEDxFieldstoneDriveED

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This websites provides a good summary of trauma-informed teaching. I found the list of ‘Signs of Trauma in schools’ a useful check list for what trauma reactions might look like. They include sudden loss in executive functions like organization, , outbursts in behavior, and falling behind in school work. The ‘How to use trauma-informed teaching’ is a good reminder of the importance of building positive relationships with students, and modeling the behavior you would like students to progress towards. Most importantly it points out trauma-informed teaching happens in a community. Teachers need to bring in parents/guardians where possible and all other school resources such as school counselors and health professionals to achieve the best results.

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At a glance

Trauma-informed teaching considers how trauma impacts learning and behavior.

Trauma can slow down or completely stop our ability to learn.

Kids experiencing trauma are more likely to fall behind in class or get in trouble for behavior issues.

Imagine you're being chased by a tiger. Your heart races as you feel a surge of adrenaline preparing your body to fight, flight, or freeze. Now imagine that right after escaping the tiger, you have to learn how to multiply fractions. You would likely find this task near impossible, even if you usually find math easy.

Trauma-informed teaching starts with an understanding of how trauma can impact learning and behavior. With this approach, educators think about what student behavior may be telling them. And they reflect on their teaching practices to find ways to better support students who may be experiencing trauma.

Trauma can slow down or completely stop our ability to learn. When our bodies sense a threat, energy rushes toward brain regions specialized in averting danger. This is essential for keeping us alive. But it also means that energy shifts away from the brain regions that help us learn.

When students are experiencing trauma, they might be more distracted or take longer to complete tasks. They may be more irritable or jumpy. And they're more likely to fall behind in class or get in trouble for behavior issues.

Dive deeper

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Learn what trauma is and how it impacts learning. Find out how trauma-informed teaching practices can help kids.

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Trauma type: disaster

Symptoms
- disengaged from lessons
- change in usual behavior patterns
- noticeable change in attitude towards learning
- avoiding class
- anxiety over news

This caused stress in different ways. In Shanghai, there were two, three month lock downs and numerous small lockdowns. The last long lock down had many families locked into apartments, food shortages, daily testing and constant talk on the internet and news. In China this included vision of people committing suicide.

Responses during virtual lessons.
1. On particularly stressful days, abandoning planned lessons to discuss the how students are feeling, there main causes of stress, and what we can do about it. We discussed trying to have positive thoughts, the importance of exercise and breathing to relax.
2. Daily check ins at the start of the day to gauge how the class is feeling. The teacher sharing how they are feeling to normalize good and bad days.
3. Opening meeting early and closing meeting late to allow students time to socialize.

Response during in school lessons.
In China, students are still facing short lock downs due to COVID-19 cases.
For students locked down, we encourage them to join lessons on-line. During the day teachers can set up meetings in break times for students to talk with friends.
The teachers provide abbreviated activities for students to do at home. One cause of stress is the fear of falling behind, for both students and their parents.

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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To limit the spread of a public health outbreak, individuals will be encouraged to keep their distance from others and avoid interacting if there are any signs of illness.

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Symptoms:
- bruising to body
- difficulty focusing at school
- change in normal behavior patterns
- unwilling to talk about feelings
- becoming more withdrawn/wants to be left alone
- fighting at school

This PDF lists the signs to look for in regard to exposure to violence. It lists what it look for in different age groups.
Every year I seem to get a least one child coming in with a bruised face.
The strategy suggested is to build a stable, caring relationship with the students. It should provide an emotionally safe place for students to speak and be listened to without judgement.

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These are 10 different causes of post traumatic stress. Neglect is one that stood out to me because I had a student last year who was neglected by her family and it severely impacted her life at school. Her grandparents had passed away and her parents made her board at school despite living in the same city. They also paid teachers to look after her on holidays rather than spending them with her. This lead to her needing counseling and the school administration had to get involved to help resolve the issue in addition to helping the students cope with it.

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Signs and symptoms of neglect can include things such as excessive crying, poor hygiene, attention seeking behaviors, and the inability to relate to children of the same age.

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Child abuse and neglect are common. At least 1 in 7 children experienced abuse or neglect in the last year, according to the CDC. Every year, Child Abuse Prevention Month is observed in April to raise awareness and honor the important role that everyone can play in strengthening families and supporting children. Protecting children from abuse and neglect is a community responsibility. Most adults want to help but may be unsure about how to get involved. Remember to follow the three Rs - Recognize, Respond and Refer.

Recognize the Warning Signs

Signs of child abuse or neglect include:

Unexplained injuries, such as bruises

Extreme behaviors, such as excessive crying, truancy or running away

Poor hygiene and unsuitable clothing

Excessive fear of parent(s), caregiver(s) or going home

Depression or excessive crying

Poor peer relationships or inability to relate to children of the same age

Sudden change in behavior

Constant hunger, tiredness or lack of energy

Attention-seeking behaviors

For a more in-depth reference tool, please click here.

Respond Appropriately

It is important to respond appropriately to a disclosure or suspicion of abuse. Try to keep your words and body language as calm and neutral as possible. Children may feel confused, scared, sad or angry. Be supportive and non-judgmental. You can let them know that you may need to talk to someone whose job it is to keep them safe.

Don't wait to make a call. In case of an emergency, or if a child indicates that they are afraid to return home, you should call local law enforcement immediately, or 911.

Refer to Community Resources

Contact your local child protective services agency to make a report. This is determined by the county in which the child resides or in which the abuse or neglect is occurring or has occurred. If an incident has happened within the last 96 hours (4 days), an immediate medical assessment may be necessary. For a directory of child protective services agencies, click here.

You should try to include the following information, although it is not required:

The name and address of the child you suspect is being abused or neglected

The age of the child

The name and address of the parent(s) or guardian

The name of the person you suspect is abusing or neglecting the child and the address, if available

The reason you suspect the child is being abused or neglected

Any other information that may be helpful to the investigation

The Center for Family Safety and Healing fully addresses all aspects of family violence, including child abuse and neglect, teen dating abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse. If you'd like to learn more about services or make an appointment, please call 614-722-8200.

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Recognizing Signs of Child Abuse and Neglect

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Child abuse and neglect are common. At least 1 in 7 children experienced abuse or neglect in the last year, according to the CDC. Every year, Child Abuse Prevention Month is observed in April to raise awareness and honor the important role that everyone can play in strengthening families and supporting children.

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Strategies to Address Students Experiencing Trauma

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Strategies to Address Students Experiencing Trauma

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Students can't learn effectively if they feel unsafe or uncomfortable in their learning environment. A teacher should strive to make students feel safe in order to mitigate the symptoms of trauma and encourage students to open up and begin learning. This is easier said than done, but there are some useful strategies that can be used. Some useful strategies include:
-Give supportive feedback to reduce negative thinking
-Make a habit of redirecting a student's negative thinking to more positive thinking
-Promote predictability and routine
-Build a closer relationship with the student that is meaningful to them
-Expect the unexpected

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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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Trauma: adverse childhood experience
Symptoms:
- falling school achievement
- less self confidence, change in hygiene
- poor behavior in classroom
- loss of executive functions like organization

This is becoming more common where I teach. I had a student a few years ago whose parent’s got divorced. Her father moved to another city. She tried to remain positive, however as time went on she would come to school unwashed. She could not organize her belongings and had less motivation to learn.
As with most trauma, the suggested assistance is building a trusting relationship with the student, being consistent and being available to listen. We did this. We also let her parents know what we were seeing in the classroom, let them know of the availability of the school counselor.
She struggled for quite some time in my year and the year after. Only now, 3 years on, am I starting to see her consistently showing a more positive outlook.

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Almost one in two marriages in Australia end in divorce. It's estimated that in Australia, one in five children under the age of 18 have a parent living elsewhere. This represents around one million Australian children.

For many children, their parents' separation and divorce is a stressful time. Children have different experiences and reactions and bring these into their classrooms. Children's social and emotional well-being, and learning can be affected for many years. At this time, it may be difficult for parents to provide the support their children need as they deal with their own stress.

Read more: How will my divorce affect my kids?

Teachers and schools can help children make positive adjustments. Teachers see these children the most each day apart from their parents. They're in an ideal position to provide support when needed. But they may not know how to help in these situations. Our study provides some helpful strategies that have proven to be successful for teachers.

Negative impacts of divorce

Much is known about the short-term and long-term effects of separation and divorce on children's social and emotional well-being and learning. But there is little known about these children's experiences at school. There is even less known about how their teachers work with them.

Related studies have shown having a support network that includes children's teachers can promote resilience.

Another study found children talked to their teacher so their teachers were aware of their situation. Teachers could then offer support if needed.

Other studies showed children felt secure when the daycare and school environment was friendly, structured and predictable. While these studies provide some awareness, little is known about teachers and their interactions with these children to promote well-being and learning. This provided the motivation for our study.

Our study

Grounded theory research design was applied in this study. Grounded theory is a useful methodology to use when little is known about the topic. It explores the perspective of participants - this could be through interview, focus groups, journalling or observation, although many researchers rely on interviews.

Read more: How to tell your child you're getting divorced

In our study, teachers from multiple government schools in regional Victoria were interviewed. During the interviews, teachers talked about their experiences with children in their class whose parents were separated or divorced.

Useful strategies for teachers

Our study showed teachers were firstly concerned with children's social and emotional well-being. They believed when children felt safe and secure they could learn. Importantly, the support teachers in our study provided varied depending on the different needs of children and their families, as it should.

Useful and effective actions teachers in our study took included:

developing an understanding of children's reactions to their parents and divorce by reflecting on their observations and conversations with children

developing an understanding of the type and effect of parents' stress

having private conversations with children, asking if they are OK, being a good listener, letting children talk, and providing reassurance

arranging one-on-one time with a teacher aide to provide emotional support or to help them settle into the day

being available for children and parents to speak to

creating a safe, friendly environment where children feel free to talk

developing friendships with children and families so they can feel safe and secure to talk to them

communicating with parents about how their child is going emotionally, socially and academically at school

referring children to the student welfare coordinator when necessary for additional support

talking about catastrophic scales to help children put their problems into perspective on a scale from zero to ten where zero is no problem and ten is the worst problem ever

being consistent with school routines, rules and expectations

making sure the child is included in supportive friendship groups, both in the classroom and playground

making activities and communication inclusive - for example, not always saying "tell mum" but instead saying "tell the person who packs your lunch" or "does your homework with you"

having flexible expectations with the child's school work

arranging tutoring for the child with the teacher, other parents, peers, and teacher aides

getting financial support through the school welfare budget or community organisations for resources, food and to help pay for school excursions and camps

providing encouragement for children to make good decisions and to manage their own behaviour.

Read more: How to co-parent after divorce

Teachers can buffer the stress of divorce or separation and help children adjust to their changed family arrangement. The strategies for teachers identified in this study can help teachers support children and families through these unsettled times.

The actions teachers take are important in increasing the bonding between children, families and teachers. Teachers must consider the uniqueness of children and their family situation as they promote resilience and coping skills, encourage a realistic and positive outlook, and decide which of these strategies to use.

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How teachers can help support children during their parents' divorce

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Almost one in two marriages in Australia end in divorce. It's estimated that in Australia, one in five children under the age of 18 have a parent living elsewhere. This represents around one million Australian children. For many children, their parents' separation and divorce is a stressful time.

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https://youtu.be/y8XaYdQfV3A

This video is made for youth and offering hope to those facing all types of trauma.

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Never Give Up: A Complex Trauma Film by Youth for Youth

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What brings on PTSD in children?
An experience that causes PTSD could be:

The child experienced something.

Something that occurred to a family member of the child

What the child observed

Following one of these stressful incidents, a kid or teen may develop PTSD:

Unfavorable incidents, such vehicle or railway wrecks

invasive medical practices, particularly in children under the age of six

Beast bites

Natural catastrophes like floods and earthquakes

catastrophes produced artificially, like bombings

violent acts against an individual, such as robbery, rape, torture, or kidnapping

Violent abuse

Sexual abuse

Sexual assault

Abuse of emotions or bullying

Neglect

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What is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children?

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health problem. It can affect people of all ages. A child with PTSD keeps having scary thoughts and memories of a past event. He or she finds the event terrifying, either physically or emotionally.

The symptoms of PTSD may start soon after a stressful event. Or they may not happen for 6 months or longer. Some children with PTSD have long-term effects. They may feel emotionally numb for a very long time. PTSD in children often becomes a long-term (chronic) problem.

PTSD may be accompanied by:

What causes PTSD in a child?

A traumatic event that triggers PTSD may be:

A child or teen may suffer from PTSD after one of these traumatic events:

Which children are at risk for PTSD?

A child's risk for PTSD is often affected by:

What are the symptoms of PTSD in a child?

Children and teens with PTSD feel a lot of emotional and physical distress when exposed to situations that remind them of the traumatic event. Some may relive the trauma over and over again. They may have nightmares and disturbing memories during the day. They may also:

How is PTSD diagnosed in a child?

Not every child or teen who goes through a trauma gets PTSD. PTSD is diagnosed only if symptoms keep happening for more than 1 month and are negatively affecting the child's life and how he or she functions. For those with PTSD, symptoms most often start within 3 months after the traumatic event. But they can also start months or years later.

A child psychiatrist or mental health expert can diagnose PTSD. He or she will do a mental health evaluation.

How is PTSD treated in a child?

Treatment will depend on your child's symptoms, age, and general health. It will also depend on how severe the condition is.

PTSD can be treated. Early diagnosis and treatment is very important. It can ease symptoms and enhance your child's normal development. It can also improve your child's quality of life.

Treatment may include:

Recovery from PTSD varies. Some children recover within 6 months. Others have symptoms that last much longer. Recovery depends on the child's inner strengths, coping skills, and ability to bounce back. It is also affected by the level of family support. Parents play a vital role in treatment.

How can I help prevent PTSD in my child?

These measures may help prevent PTSD in children:

How can I help my child live with PTSD?

As a parent, you play a key role in your child's treatment. Here are things you can do to help:

When should I call my child's healthcare provider?

Call your healthcare provider right away if your child:

Feels extreme depression, fear, anxiety, or anger toward him or herself or others

Feels out of control

Hears voices that others don't hear

Sees things that others don't see

Can't sleep or eat for 3 days in a row

Shows behavior that concerns friends, family, or teachers, and others express concern about this behavior and ask you to get help

PTSD increases risk for other mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking.

Call 911 if your child has suicidal thoughts, a suicide plan, and the means to carry out the plan.

Key points about posttraumatic stress disorder in children

PTSD is a mental health problem. A child with PTSD has constant, scary thoughts and memories of a past event.

A traumatic event, such as a car crash, natural disaster, or physical abuse, can cause PTSD.

Children with PTSD may relive the trauma over and over again. They may have nightmares or flashbacks.

PTSD is diagnosed only if symptoms keep occurring for more than 1 month and are negatively affecting the child's life.

A child with PTSD may need therapy and medicine. They are at higher risk for other mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts

Call 911 if your child has suicidal thoughts, a suicide plan, and the means to carry out the plan.

Next steps

Tips to help you get the most from a visit to your child's healthcare provider:

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post traumatic stress disorder characteristic

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post traumatic stress disorder diagnosis

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post traumatic stress disorder treatment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
default - Stanford Medicine Children's Health

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Stanford Medicine Children's Health Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health problem. A child with PTSD has constant, scary thoughts and memories of a past event. He or she finds the event terrifying, either physically or emotionally.

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Symptoms and Strategies for PTSD in Children and Teens

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Symptoms and Strategies for PTSD in Children and Teens

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Symptoms and Strategies for PTSD in Children and Teens

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System-Induced Trauma: Separation caused by being removed from home, living in foster care, sibling separation, or moving from place to place in a short amount of time.

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https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/trauma-informed-teaching-strategies

This resource list some practices to help students with various types of trauma in the classroom.  Some of their suggestions I found useful include:

-Expecting difficult behavior and handling it with grace and forgiveness. Students experiencing trauma can be triggered by seemingly small events, and teachers must learn to accept that for some time behaviors may not be what is usually expected.
-Be mindful of relationships and interactions.  Teachers should be mindful of their words with students experiencing trauma, as directions that may not be problematic to other students could be triggering for a student with trauma in their history.
-Create predictable routines to help students feel safe.  Many students with trauma often feel unsafe and unstable.  Having a safe, predictable environment at school will help them heal and also be able to learn.
-Teach students how to use cognitive distractions to avoid negative thoughts.  Adults (hopefully!) eventually learn to manage their thoughts to avoid ruminating on negative experiences.  Helping students with trauma learn this skill is crucial for them to be able to focus and learn in school.  This can be done through movement breaks, reading breaks, or coloring breaks.

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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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Trauma and its expression in the music classroom

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Trauma and its expression in the music classroom

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This article focuses on exploring some of the common causes of Trauma and how we as educators can Develop a safe and supportive environment, get to know our students, reframe student behaviour, and use music as an effective communication device to allow its expression, confront it, and offer a holistic approach/intervention.

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Trauma-Informed Practices in the Music Classroom - NAfME

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These five trauma-informed practices that can be easily implemented in music classrooms will help music educators support affected students.

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A video that explores the causalities, the neuroscience and the ways in which trauma-induced behaviour in the classroom can be seen from a different angle - autonomic nervous system.

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Trauma-informed Care for Music Education Classrooms

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Responding To A Death Of A Family Member

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Responding To A Death Of A Family Member

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Some guidelines to follow as a teacher if one of your students is suffering after losing a family member include:

1. Acknowledge the loss.
2. Give kids time to talk.
3. Encourage questions.
4. Address safety concerns.
5. Return to routine.
6. Memorialize the loss.
7. Teach and remodel resilence.

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The Teacher’s Role When Tragedy Strikes - Child Mind Institute

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What is a teacher’s role in dealing with tragedy? Child Mind Institute offers tips for helping children in the classroom when tragedy strikes.

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Symptoms include:
-being sick 2 times more often than the average child
-repeating a grade (2 times more likely)
-depression
-anxiety
-by 8 years old, 1 in 3 children develop a mental disorder
Response strategies:
-give a lot of choice to the student
-model positive social behavior
- having clear boundaries
-create a safe environment

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This is a great video that talks about how a school focuses on students who have had a major trauma in their life and shows ways to help them deal with the "big feelings." This includes things such as having a calm down box with sensory items and also letting children have big feelings without punishing them

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Giving traumatized kids a head start in healing

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Trauma referring to a single event such as sexual abuse, threats, or natural disasters. It can affect the autonomic nervous system affecting interactions and behavior in a chronic way. Fighting, accidents and sudden grief can be causes for acute trauma.

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There are many different types of trauma, and each type is characterised by general and specific symptoms. The main types of trauma are:

This blog will explore acute trauma, more commonly known as Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), along with its primary causes and common symptoms.

What is Acute Trauma? (Acute Stress Disorder)

Acute trauma refers to trauma that has occurred due to a single event. The event itself was so overwhelming that our autonomic nervous system - the branch of the nervous system responsible for survival - became stuck in its threat response. The overwhelming threat, which could have been anything from an instance of sexual abuse to a natural disaster, elicited a threat response in the body. This is supposed to happen. Our autonomic nervous system has worked to respond to threats effectively for thousands of years.

However, for some this threat response is dysfunctional and maladaptive. When faced with a threat, it is normal for the ANS to kick into high gear and mobilise for action, or shut us down to prevent a psychological collapse. Once the threat has passed and we are no longer in danger, the ANS should return to normal. This is the case for many, but for some, the ANS remains in high activation and persistently informs the brain and the body that the threat is still present.

What causes Acute Stress Disorder?

Acute Stress Disorder occurs when a person directly experiences or witnesses a traumatic event. For an event to be traumatic, it usually involves the reality or perception that one's life in danger.

Examples of traumatic events that can lead to ASD include:

Combat

Terrorist attacks

Sudden grief (death of a loved one)

Physical or sexual assault or abuse

Motor accidents

Natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, fires)

Being diagnosed with a life-threatening condition

Risk Factors for Acute Stress Disorder

ASD can affect some more than others. There are certain risk factors to take into account when assessing a person's likelihood of developing ASD. These include:

Availability of resources post-event (food, water, shelter, social support)

Proximity to the event

Similarity to the survivor (if the person was a witness)

Stressors over the previous six months

History of mental illness

Even the healthiest of us can become traumatised, but how that trauma develops and persists varies depending on the above factors. Regarding six-month stressors; when we are frequently stressed, tired, even exhausted, our ability to handle stress diminishes. Stress takes a significant toll on the mind and body, and the longer we are exposed to it, the less resilience we will have in the face of traumatic events.

One's history of mental illness also plays a role in the onset and severity of ASD and its potential to develop into PTSD. This does not just refer to more extreme examples of mental illness either, such as schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. More common mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, or substance abuse make it harder for a person to cope with any trauma that occurs in their life, increases the severity of ASD symptoms, and thus increase the likelihood that PTSD will occur.

How is Acute Stress Disorder Diagnosed?

A person may be eligible for a diagnosis if they have experienced the symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder for at least three days. It is not possible to self-diagnose, as an unbiased, objective perspective is needed. A professional healthcare practitioner will assess the person's symptoms, and if they meet the diagnostic criteria for Acute Stress Disorder (as outlined below), then a diagnosis can be made.

Diagnostic criteria for ASD, according to the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition, include:

1. Exposure to death or threatened with death, serious injury or sexual violation

2. Experiencing at least 9-14 associated symptoms, categorised under: intrusion, negative mood, dissociation, avoidance, and arousal

3. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms must last at least three days)

4. Significant distress (daily life is impacted by the severity of distress)

5. Symptoms are not due to other causes (pre-existing health condition, substance abuse)

Symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder

ASD usually shows up within four weeks after the traumatic event. If unresolved, ASD can develop into PTSD. The symptoms of acute ASD are many, and some may be less noticeable than others from an outsider perspective.

The symptoms of ASD include:

Severe anxiety

Panic

Confusion

Dissociation (numbing, detachment, lack of emotional responsiveness)

Re-experiencing the event (intrusive memories, dreams)

Avoidance (discussion about the event, triggers, loved ones)

Hypervigilance (resulting in insomnia or other sleep problems, poor concentration)

Explosive behaviour (outbursts of anger, high irritability)

Neglect of personal hygiene and grooming

Reduced work or school performance

Substance abuse

Suicidal thoughts

Grief

The Importance of Treatment

The symptoms and effects of acute trauma can be extremely difficult and challenging. It can be hard for an acute trauma survivor to move on from their experience, despite a desire to do so. Due to the related difficulties, some survivors turn to substance use for self-medication.

Alcohol, cannabis, and benzodiazepines are often used to alleviate feelings of stress and overwhelm. However, self-medication is a dangerous path as the relief provided by substances is only temporary. Whatever distress or discomfort has led the person to substance use will return when the effects of those substances inevitably wear off.

What are the goals of treatment for Acute Stress Disorder?

Treatment for ASD is available and typically involves psychotherapy in the form of trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TFCBT). Unlike treatment for PTSD, medication is not usually recommended as a first-line treatment for ASD. If medication is prescribed, it is done so in minimal dosage and for a short course.

Psychotherapeutic treatment for ASD is geared towards:

Reducing the severity of symptoms

Reducing the risk of the client developing PTSD

Restoring a sense of safety and trust in the client

If medication is prescribed, it is used for:

Reduction of the physical symptoms of ASD

Short-term anxiety relief

Acute Stress Disorder is Treatable

Suffering from Acute Stress Disorder can be extremely difficult and challenging, but healing is possible. With professional treatment, the causes of ASD can be addressed and clients can be assessed for any underlying mental health conditions which may be exacerbating their symptoms.

Get in touch
If you have a client, or know of someone who is struggling to heal from psychological trauma, including ASD, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and out-patient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long-lasting recovery. For information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours). Sources
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2014. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 57.) Chapter 3, Understanding the Impact of Trauma. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/

Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US). Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US); 2014. (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 57.) Chapter 3, Understanding the Impact of Trauma. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), American Psychiatric Association, Arlington 2013

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In this blog, we explore acute trauma, more commonly known as Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), along with its primary causes and common symptoms.

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Medical trauma struck a chord with me as a students mother in the KG i work at has recently suffered a brain hemorrhage and it has had a big impact on the student and we are currently helping him come through the clear trauma he is suffering as a result.

Pediatric medical traumatic stress refers to a set of psychological and physiological responses of children and their families to pain, injury, serious illness, medical procedures, and invasive or frightening treatment experiences. Medical trauma may occur as a response to a single or multiple medical events

There are three main types of traumatic stress reactions:

Re-experiencing.

Avoidance.

Hyper-arousal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRmPXIe5VE

The youtube video explains what trauma is and then focuses primarily on how young learners respond physically and mentally to suffering from medical trauma. The example plays out 2 7 year old children going to hospital and shows how both can react differently with one serious case where they stayed in hospital and one mild case where the child was sent home the same day. The video highlights that each child will likely respond to your cues as a teacher or parent so if you treat it as a scary, intimidating event this will be mirrored by the child. Keeping a supportive attitude and approach is key to dealing with medical trauma positively.

The following strategies could be used to support students in the classroom who are suffering from trauma and minimize the effects of the list above;

1. Inform the school counsellor

2. Be consistent in everything you do, communicated a clear planned schedule to the affected child at the beginning of each day.

3. Make transitions as easy and as predictable as possible.

4. Providing support to the child by just being there to listen to them as their teacher and an adult they can trust

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/8-ways-support-students-who-experience-trauma

I would certainly adopt these ideas in my classroom. Consistency in routines and transitions is crucially important to provide the affected student with a structured, safe environment they feel comfortable in with a predictable, well communicated schedule throughout the day.

I found some handy tips on the follow website to make classrooms more trauma sensitive, they provide Trauma-Informed Design Tips for the classroom.

1. To help create a warmer environment in the classroom add dimmer switches and small lamps around the room to improve the lighting in the room

2. Add some plants to the room and natural images to help bring a sense of calm and tranquility.

3. Add a safe or sheltered area to the room where students can go for a time out or calm down break if things get too much for them.

https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/trauma-informed-design-in-the-classroom

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Children's responses to medical trauma are often more related to their subjective experience of the medical event rather than its objective severity.

The following resources on Medical Trauma were developed by the NCTSN.

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Pediatric medical traumatic stress refers to a set of psychological and physiological responses of children and their families to single or multiple medical events.

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Way to support students of child abuse:
Have expectations
Have structure
Encourage a sense of identity (tell them when you see a positive trait they have)
Build their self esteem
Build a community for them to feel they belong to
Social emotional learning
Consistency

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Our varied roles as therapist, educator, school psychologist, school bus driver, student, and administrator have provided us with the experience and education on which this article is based. This is a new field, an area in which all of us are searching for facts, understanding, and ways to help those who have been and continue to be abused. The combined perspectives we share from personal, professional, and academic experiences have added to our knowledge in ways that have been valuable to us as people who care a great deal about children.

Probably no adult is more trusted by children who have been abused than a beloved and caring teacher. Teachers have an opportunity afforded few adults to identify abused children and to start a process that will restore safety in the child's world. However, many teachers have not been adequately prepared to deal with the complex social issues that have so strongly affected abused children. We want to give teachers a knowledge base about child abuse, describe possible interventions, and communicate an understanding of the emotional issues involved.

Survivors' Voices

Before I started kindergarten, I knew that I could not believe what people said. My father would say, "I know you like this," as he touched me in sexual ways that I did not like or that caused great physical pain. My early years were a real struggle. Because I could not trust what I heard, it was hard to learn sound-letter associations, memorize isolated facts, or learn anything I had heard and not seen.

The messages I received from my perpetrators were intended to prevent my telling what they were doing to me. To keep the horrible secret I learned to be silent, and the silence became my prison. I felt that I was the only child who had ever experienced such bad things. I thought I was so bad that I should separate myself from everyone. It was lonely.

Since I felt I could not talk, I did all kinds of quiet acting out in the hope that someone would notice that something was terribly wrong in my life. My behaviors were either ignored or I was told to behave, to be a good girl. During 3rd and 4th grade, I repeatedly sawed on or cut my wrist with a little knife. I wore bizarre clothing, laughed excessively, and withdrew from others.

Today I am a school psychologist. I have overcome the academic hurdles, but I continue to experience some of the emotional pain of abuse.

The messages about my abuse were also intended to keep me quiet, to protect my perpetrators. I was quiet and shy, but I would also do daring things with little regard for my physical safety. They called me "accident prone." I was told I was crazy and that if I ever told, "someone" would take me away and I would never see anyone in my family again ... or I would be killed. These were terrifying threats to me.

I was a very good student, usually at the top of my class. Looking back now, I was afraid to be anything but perfect. I was afraid of what would happen at home. School became a safe haven, and I worked hard to keep it that way by staying silent about my abuse. I remember more than once trying to get teachers to take me home with them.

I am currently a school bus driver and enjoy daily contact with children in a less-structured environment. When I see symptoms of child abuse, I report what I hear and observe. I would always rather err on the side of the child. I would rather make the report than to ignore what I know.

In 1987, when I was asked to facilitate groups for survivors of abuse at a University Counseling Center, I knew little about the incidence or results of abuse. The frequency of women who had been abused as children was much greater than we had thought. We soon had 4 groups and more than 50 names on a waiting list. I learned about the tremendous cost of keeping the family secret. I learned of the emotional pain that can result from feeling different. As an educator I was appalled at my previous lack of awareness of the consequences of abuse. I vowed to somehow assist in giving a voice to those survivors who can teach us what it was to live with abuse and how to help today's children.

The Incidence of Child Abuse

Although the statistics are overwhelming, professionals in the mental health field generally accept that the incidence of child abuse is much greater than that reported.

In 1979, Geiser advised that 200,000 children were sexually abused each year with victims as young as two months. "Nightline's" Forrest Sawyer (1989) stated that 2 million cases of child abuse are reported in the United States every year. In its newsletter, the National Organization for Victims' Assistance (1989) indicated that 2.2 million children are reported physically or sexually abused each year. Many cases are closed after a cursory investigation; many cases remain unreported.

35 percent of all reported child sex abuse cases in 1988 were of girls under 6.

Dr. Michael Durfee of the Los Angeles Department of Health Services reported in 1984 that more sexual abuse was reported on 2-year-olds than any other age group; 3- and 4-year-olds were next.

More than 2 million cases of child abuse were reported in 1986, compared with 669,000 in 1976.

More than 1,200 children die each year through child abuse and neglect.

Parents who were abused as children were six times more likely to abuse their own children.

5 to 20 percent of psychiatric outpatients were women who had experienced incest.

4 out of 10 mothers of children who died of physical abuse were incest victims.

One-half to three-fourths of adult male sexual offenders had been sexually abused.

Sexual abuse was one of three reasons children ran away from home.

In a questionnaire sent to 1,800 college students, one-third indicated that they had been sexually abused.

Research on child abuse is a fairly recent development. Only in the last two decades has the subject appeared in professional journals. It is urgent that all personnel in public schools become educated and make every effort to break the continuing cycle of abuse.

Types of Abuse

Covert sexual abuse is more difficult to recognize. Since this type of abuse does not include physical contact, the perpetrator may rationalize the behavior as innocent. Examples may include voyeurism, asking the child to watch inappropriate sexual behaviors, invading the child's privacy, and/or behaving in a seductive manner toward the child.

Most adults who have not been abused would rather not accept the reality of the number of children who have been abused. Many prefer to think of physical injury, terrorizing, and psychological torture as atrocities that only happen to hostages imprisoned in foreign countries. They do not want to accept that these abominations occur to nearly 2.7 million children in this country ("Study Finds ..." 1992). Figure 1 lists physical and behavioral indicators of these four types of abuse.

Figure 1

Supporting Victims of Child Abuse - table

Adapted in part from: D. D. Broadhurst, M. Edmunds, and R. A. MacDicken. (1979). Early Childhood Programs and the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. The User Manual Series. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

A Safe Classroom Environment

There is no escape for children caught in a world where silence often seems the only way to survive. And there is no escape from confronting the issues for those who work with children. Teachers who educate themselves about abuse will find many opportunities to support children who have neither the experience nor the maturity to unravel the turmoil they face.

Although the academic environment is structured for learning, the ability to learn is dependent on a child's arriving at school with basic needs met. Children who have been abused have had the basic requirements for healthy development withheld and violated. Getting physiological needs met, as well as those for safety, belonging, trust, and love, maximizes the child's development as a learner. The classroom teacher has the opportunity to provide an environment where the child can begin to succeed and recognize that he or she is capable and valued.

The most important ingredient in a safe classroom is the teacher's attitude toward students. The most crucial belief a teacher must have is that the child is not to blame. There is nothing that a child can do to prevent or stop the abuse. The discrepancy between the power of a child and that of an adult is too great. However, it is important to remember that these children are strong. They have developed coping mechanisms that have helped them to survive traumatic experiences. An accepting, caring attitude by the teacher will allow the child to trust enough to make the first steps toward developing a saner life.

Each of us needs a personal space into which others do not intrude without permission (Blume 1990). Victimized children have not learned that it is okay to say no, nor do they know how it feels to have personal and physical space honored. The teacher should help an abused child to set healthy boundaries and to know that he or she will be respected. Before the child can believe in his or her ability to set personal boundaries, he or she may need to be taught to trust personal judgments, feelings, and perceptions (Blume 1990).

Part of establishing healthy boundaries is understanding that confidentiality within the school is honored by staff and students. If a student confides in classmates and teachers, the information must be handled with great care in order to protect the vulnerability of the child. At times, the disclosure of information about the abuse may be unintentional. Some of the ways the secret may accidentally be disclosed are observations by the teacher or others, physical injuries or conditions discovered in a doctor's examination, and/or inappropriate sexual behaviors by the child (Sgroi et al. 1982).

To offer support, the teacher must, first, be approachable. If an abused child begins to tell what is happening, positive body language will encourage the child to continue. The teacher must also watch for cues about how to respond. The child may either want to be comforted physically or may not want to be touched. At this point, it is more important to actively listen than to comment or ask questions. Listening to those who will talk is important; however, some students will be unable to share verbally what is happening. In these instances, the teacher must be observant. The indicators listed in Figure 1 may help teachers in attempting to decide if abuse should be suspected.

Drawings, too, may provide clues to students who have been sexually abused. Hillman and Solek-Tefft (1988) list five themes to ask a child about if they are drawn repeatedly: stark sexual images, phallic symbols, general symbols (broken hearts, rain, black skies), self-image distortions, and general confusion (p. 107).

Girls and boys who have been abused attempt both to keep the secret of what is happening and to control the emotional turmoil they feel inside. As a result, the child may act out, or he or she may become the epitome of the "good" child. Both of these behaviors may disguise the problem. A child who behaves as a perfect student may be seen as having no problems, while acting out may cover the real issues, making the child appear to be the problem. Teachers should listen to their gut response to a child, particularly if that feeling is based on a suspicion that something is wrong.

Occasionally a child will spontaneously disclose an episode of abuse. Although a teacher may doubt the story, it is vitally important to believe the child (Besharov 1990). The child is taking a significant step in trusting the teacher enough to tell what is happening. To betray that trust would repeat the betrayal experienced when an adult abused the child and failed to serve as a protector. Even though the explanation may be fragmented, teachers should listen supportively and ask open-ended questions to fill in gaps. Sometimes after telling the secret, the child may recant the story due to fear, threats, or acceleration of the abuse (Sgroi et al. 1982). Most experts agree that children do not have the ability or knowledge to make up complex lies, especially lies related to adult sexual behavior (Besharov 1990, Conerly 1986, Crewdson 1988).

How to Support an Abused Child

Although teachers are not responsible for investigation of child abuse, they are legally obligated to report suspected abuse. When abuse is suspected, the teacher can compare the child's behaviors with those of other students at the same developmental level, review the child's past and present behaviors, and refer to indicators such as those listed in Figure 1. To report any suspicions, the teacher should contact the school district child abuse team or the Department of Social Services. The appropriate agencies will assess the situation and decide how to keep the child safe.

Working with children who have suffered abuse is a skill that every teacher possesses. Given a few guidelines and accurate information, the teacher's natural concern and caring for students will promote the process of healing. Teachers have the opportunity to give an abused child the hope of a childhood, the joy of play, and the sense of being cared for by others. Those are gifts that cannot be measured in any monetary or quantitative way.

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Classroom teachers have a unique opportunity to identify abused children and to start the healing process that will restore safety to their lives.

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Brain degeneration caused by repeated head trauma, such as concussions caused by sports. It's hard to be diagnosed early and researchers still do not fully understand causes and the frequency in the population. Also, frequent abuse sexually/physically. Symptoms include difficulty thinking, memory loss, and problems with planning, organization denial, avoidant behavior, rationalisation. Behavioral changes occur such as aggressive behavior and being impulsive. Depression can be the repercussions as well as emotional instability, suicidal thoughts/behavior, etc.

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'Trauma' is a broad term, but generally falls under the following three categories:

Acute (or 'simple' trauma)

Chronic trauma

Complex trauma

This blog will examine the second category - chronic trauma. It will explore what happens to the body on a physical level when chronic trauma occurs, and some of its most common causes and symptoms.

The term 'chronic trauma' is sometimes interchanged with 'complex trauma'. Both conditions share similarities. Both are types of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and require professional treatment for a person to heal. Chronic trauma refers to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, while complex trauma refers to a more severe form of PTSD, known as Complex PTSD, or C-PTSD.

Trauma and the Nervous System

When we experience a threatening event (i.e. something that puts our life in danger, either real or perceived), our nervous system reacts by entering survival mode. Signals originating in the amygdala, a small structure in the brain, tell our muscles to get ready for mobilisation (fight or flight). If the threat cannot be fought or ran from, as is the case for a child experiencing abuse in the home, the nervous system utilises its third threat response - freeze. This involves an emotional and psychological shut down to prevent the psyche from becoming too overwhelmed. Though freeze has a survival function, it is maladaptive when it persists. For survivors of chronic trauma, the nervous system remains frozen in its threat response, making even safe environments and people seem threatening.

Causes of Chronic Trauma

Chronic trauma refers to trauma that has occurred following a series of events (unlike acute trauma, which refers to trauma following a single event). These events have happened multiple times, and include experiences such as:

Prolonged child abuse

Prolonged exposure to war and combat

Repeated sexual abuse

Direct experience of or exposure to ongoing domestic violence

Exposure to repeated natural disasters

Survivors of chronic trauma usually require extended treatment, as the pain and symptoms that result can be severe and protracted.

Symptoms of Chronic Trauma

The symptoms of PTSD can sometimes take years to come to the surface, unlike acute trauma, symptoms of which show up in a matter of weeks.

Chronic trauma often causes those experiencing it to engage in maladaptive coping behaviours. The symptoms themselves can be a significant source of distress and can be so overwhelming that the person feels compelled to take some kind action against them. Common actions observed in chronic trauma survivors include:

Denial

Avoidant behaviours, such as social withdrawal or substance abuse

Rationalisation

The symptoms of chronic trauma are intense and disruptive to normal daily functioning. In combination with maladaptive behaviours, survivors are likely to experience:

Anxiety

Depression

Sadness

Confusion

Anger, rage, violent outbursts

Over-reactions to normal events

Impaired or distorted memories

Low self-worth

Fatigue

Sleep problems

Distorted perception of one's environment (believing one is under threat when they are safe, misreading of others' facial expressions)

Nightmares, flashbacks

The above symptoms can be self-perpetuating, meaning that when a person experiences them, the very experience causes the symptoms to intensify. To cope and restore some sense of normality without professional treatment, survivors of chronic trauma are likely to engage in unhealthy and destructive behaviours, such as:

High-risk behaviour (unprotected sex with multiple partners, reckless driving)

Sexual avoidance

Violence

Unhealthy relationships

Substance abuse

Treatment for Chronic Trauma

Chronic trauma significantly impacts a person's quality of life, affecting everything from work and school performance, to interpersonal relationships, to general motivation, and interest in life. Not only does it wear away at a person's physical and psychological well-being, it also increases the risk of further physical and psychological damage as a result of destructive coping behaviours. Substance abuse is common among chronic trauma survivors and can lead to serious financial and legal issues, strained relationships, and even death.

To overcome chronic trauma, professional treatment is required. The good news is that treatment is available, and can help clients restore their lives back to health and normality.

Typical treatment options for chronic trauma include:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)

Somatic Experiencing

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TFCBT)

Medication

As mentioned earlier, trauma impacts the nervous system's ability to regulate itself, which makes exploration of the trauma narrative and the ability to tolerate the associated distress difficult. EMDR and Somatic Experiencing help clients by improving regulation of the nervous system and better preparing clients to explore their trauma narrative.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and medication help clients recover from chronic trauma by reducing trauma symptoms and strengthening the client's ability to tolerate distress.

The Importance of Support Networks in Recovery from Trauma

An important aspect of recovery from chronic trauma is the availability and accessibility of a strong support network. Trauma can make a person extremely isolated, where it seems that nobody quite understands the difficulties and challenges associated with the condition. To reduce this sense of loneliness and prevent unhealthy isolation, survivors of chronic trauma are often encouraged to engage in social support groups with others who have been through similar experiences. Support networks offer clients a chance to feel heard, validated, and deeply understood. This sense of acceptance and connection can make a huge difference to therapeutic outcomes, and reduce the risk that a person will engage in maladaptive behaviours such as substance abuse.

Get in touch
If you have a client, or know of someone who is struggling to heal from psychological trauma, including Chronic Trauma, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and out-patient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long-lasting recovery. For information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours) Sources

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'Trauma' is a broad term, but generally falls under the following three categories: Acute (or 'simple' trauma) Chronic trauma Complex trauma This blog will examine the second category - chronic trauma. It will explore what happens to the body on a physical level when chronic trauma occurs, and some of its most common causes and symptoms. The term 'chronic trauma' is sometimes interchanged with 'complex trauma'.

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What it is:
a one time trauma like a car accident or natural disaster.

Acute trauma symptoms: (ages 6-12)
-sleep problems
-eating problems
-moody, agression
-Regression like thumb sucking
-disorganized

Excellent resource to understand strategies to help students who have been under traumatic stress.
-an adult needs to be invested in the student and be around to help them
-school community involvement- after  school, clubs, etc
- have high achievement expectations for the student
- positive peer relationships (ability to model from them)
- create a safe space, it can be a reading corner in the room or a counselors room, etc.
- structure, make it clear to the student what the schedule will be (routines are important)
-relaxation techniques like meditating

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This article speaks about trauma as a whole and how it's easy to misdiagnose a student suffering from trauma as having a psychological disorder if the symptoms aren't properly noticed. If a student has symptoms which include difficulty forming social bonds, displaying self-control, difficulties with executive functioning, overly negative thinking and expression, and displays a state of hyper-vigilance, that student may be the product of trauma.

To help address the needs of a child suffering from trauma, one way to avoid negative attention seeking is to provide positive attention on a regular basis. Another is to identify those symptoms of trauma to help with referring the student to a professional for diagnosis, as it's easy to initially assume a student has ADHD.

https://childmind.org/article/how-trauma-affects-kids-school/

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How Trauma Affects Kids in School - Child Mind Institute

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Learn how trauma from ongoing neglect, abuse, homelessness or violence causes children to have problems with learning and behavior. How to help these kids.

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As a grade 2 teacher, it worries me sometimes to think about students who may deal with violence or abuse at home themselves or vicariously. I have seen students with bruises on their faces and arms and I currently have at least one student whose parents admit, openly, that they beat their son when his grades aren't good or his behavior is bad. This article covers complex trauma (it describes that term as being one which covers three main types: "sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence") and strategies for dealing with students who show signs of it.

1. Rhythmic movement: pairing rhythmic movement with an activity like studying or talking with a student can help them feel calmer and more self-aware.

2. Positive relationship: building a positive relationship with students is essential for their success in the classroom not just academically but also emotionally.

3. Positive physical space: the classroom should be an "open, relaxing, warm environment." It should encourage familiarity and comfort to help ease students because of the time and effort spent every weekday in school.

4. Positive priming: priming in the classroom is a technique whereby different (short) activities or steps help build overall positive (and calm) emotions as a whole class. Examples include actual activities (thumb war is listed as one such) or even just a transition like silent "follow the leader."

5. Character strengths: helping students to identify their character strengths can help inform classwide activities and help facilitate their school to help develop those with various extracurricular activities.

6. Building resilience: finding ways to teach students that they can be strong and recover will help build a more positive mindset.

These strategies obviously don't provide direct forms of therapy, but they are designed to create a positive environment at school to help students affected by complex trauma to grow and develop into healthier people who can find ways to live, work, and interact with other people in positive ways.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/five_ways_to_support_students_affected_by_trauma

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For some students, school is not just a place of learning and growth but also a refuge from abuse.

Data suggest that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. have been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent.

These types of stressors, known as complex trauma, have the added wound of being perpetrated by a person with whom the child or teen has an ongoing relationship. The very people who are supposed to support and protect are those who wound and abuse. This leads to continuing states of grief, loss, abandonment, and neglect as well as persistent anxiety, fear, and depression-all at a time when the brain is in crucial stages of development.

For some young people, school is the only place in their lives where they know they are safe and can form trusted, enduring relationships. It is, therefore, a cruel irony that many students who are affected by trauma also have trouble engaging at school. They may attend school with the best of intentions, hoping to form friendships, feel connected to their teachers, and succeed at the day's tasks. Yet they can find themselves defiant, demanding, and disengaged -unable to learn and confused about why they can't relate and bond with others.

What do the latest scientific findings from the fields of traumatology, neuroscience, and positive education tell us about how to best help students who are affected by trauma? Below, we highlight some of the new practices that teachers can use to not only help students heal but also help them grow.

Healing and repair

The new field of "trauma-informed learning" has made great strides in helping teachers to better understand the developmental, emotional, and social challenges that students who are impacted by trauma face at school. While teachers are not mental health professionals, trauma-informed learning trains teachers in therapeutic approaches that can be woven into the classroom to redress the delayed development, underdeveloped neural pathways, and over-regulated nervous systems that students experience as a result of trauma.

For example, teachers can directly teach students about their body's own stress activation response and help them find techniques to regulate their heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Teaching through rhythm-for example, learning about math to the beat of a drum, reading an English text while riding an exercise bike, or having a disciplinary conversation while walking around the school yard together-is now an accepted classroom technique that assists trauma-affected students to regulate their nervous system through rhythmic movement.

Feeling calmer in class has the knock-on effects of helping students get along better with others, think more clearly, and stay on task. These approaches nurture students' stamina and persistence, allowing them to better deal with frustration, which benefits their social behavior in class and their capacity to take on greater academic challenges. This is indeed a hopeful approach.

Growth and strength

Trauma-informed education has helped teachers to evolve from the question of "What is wrong with this student?" to "What has this student been through?" In the field of positive psychology, we add a further question: "What does this student need to reach their potential?" This allows teachers to extend the focus from what is wrong, to what is needed, to what is possible. Building the mental health and academic capacities of students affected by trauma requires more than repairing psychological disorder and developmental delays-it requires the dual mantra of healing and growth. Of repairing and rising up.

Research by Corey Keyes shows us that healing and growth can be simultaneous processes. We don't always need to wait until something is fixed before we work on building our strengths. Indeed, growing the psychological strengths of a student affected by trauma can be a core part of healing their psychological struggles.

Working with students who are affected by trauma requires schools to assist in providing individual counseling services, safety and crisis planning, behavior plans, self-care plans to address triggers, and case management. Most of these services are not provided by the classroom teacher, yet the teacher is the person who spends the most time with trauma-affected students. A key way in which positive psychology adds to the trauma-informed strategies above is by empowering teachers in the classroom to help their students on a daily basis.

Here are five teaching techniques that you can use in your class, knowing that these approaches also assist your mainstream students.

1. Positive relationships. Trauma-affected students have more relationship challenges to navigate than most. These students can be dealing with harmful relationships at home and then come to school to manage relationships not only with their teachers but also with social workers, police officers, and clinicians-all while living out their daily lives.

It is critical that we help these students feel safe and trusting where possible, so they learn to develop social intelligence and seek out positive bonds with others. Teachers may be the only people who help these students learn what a healthy, supportive relationship feels like. Building relational trust involves simple teaching practices such as smiling, sharing parts of your life with your students, getting to know your students as individuals, and using yourself as a role model of a reliable and regulated adult.

2. Positive physical space. The physical layout and look of your classroom can be used to build positive emotions. Putting up positive visuals and quotes can inspire creative thinking and teamwork in your students. Increased natural light or soft lighting can enhance an open, warm, and relaxing environment.

Consider how the furniture and seating is arranged in your class. Is it helping students to feel safe and connected? You could also bring plants into the room or create a mindfulness corner, a dedicated space that students can visit when they need to regulate their stress response. The corner can include a bean bag, mindful coloring books, squeeze toys, noise-cancelling headphones, and more.

3. Positive priming. Following the research of Barbara Frederickson, you can use simple priming techniques to foster positive emotions such as contentment, pride, awe, and wonder in class.

Brain breaks are one helpful technique. The teachers who work with us have found that brain breaks are most effective when students reflect on the type of energy they need at that moment for learning: Escalating brain breaks build positive energy and emotions such as joy, happiness, and wonder (e.g., clapping games, thumb wars, laughter yoga, racing around the desk), while de-escalating brain breaks build calm emotions such as contentment and serenity, which help a student to feel safe and focused (e.g., silently tracing the movements of a partner, triangle breathing, playing music or repeating mantras, and body movements such as shoulder shrugging or pumping your toes inside your shoes).

You can also use positive primers to boost positive emotion when students first enter the classroom (such as by greeting them with the healthy touch of a handshake or a high five), during transitions (by turning transition routines into a silent game such as "follow the leader"), or during independent work breaks (by having students deliberately savor their accomplishment and share with a peer).

According to Fredrickson's theory, helping your students build up their bank account of positive emotions over time changes their brain to help them learn more effectively, form better relationships, and become more resilient. Next time you are planning a lesson, think about how you can use positive primers throughout the learning experience.

4. Using character strengths. Teaching strengths in schools has been shown to increase achievement and well-being. All students, especially trauma-affected students, need opportunities to identify, recognize, practice, and use their character strengths, which include qualities like kindness, humor, creativity, and bravery.

Ways to help students learn about their own strengths and the strengths of others include strengths surveys (if their literacy skills allow), strengths cards, and strengths spotting exercises-like identifying strengths in their heroes or playing a secret agent game where they are invited to "spy" on a fellow student to identify the strengths of that student. To teach about particular strengths, you could focus on stories in English and Humanities curriculums where characters or historical figures displayed those strengths. Strengths can also be developed through performing arts, sports, and other co-curricula.

5. Building resilience. Sadly, you cannot always impact the life of a student outside of school, but you can teach resilience strategies that help a student affected by trauma to gain a better understanding of their situation and to counteract the negative messages of shame they often internalize.

Students can practice resilience skills through role plays that help them to act out skills such as setting boundaries and verbalizing their feelings, all while in the safety of a classroom. Literature, poetry, and song lyrics can help students identify examples of resilient thinking-for example, Ariana Grande's song "No Tears Left to Cry" following the London terrorist attack at her concert. Analyzing the ways in which media figures, sports heroes, and other high-profile people explain their successes and failures showcases the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Teachers can also use moments in the learning process when students feel frustration or self-doubt to coach them on how to dispute their pessimism and automatic negative thinking ( "I can't do this"; "I'm dumb") to make room for optimism and constructive thinking ( "Maybe I'm tired and I need a break"; "I solved the problem last week and I can do it again"; "It takes me a little longer than others, but I've come a long way"). Learning resilience skills can provide an internal psychological buffer for students when they are outside of school, as well as providing empowering experiences at school.

Every teacher wants to positively impact the lives of their students. For students who are affected by trauma, the teacher plays an even more vital role. The introduction of positive psychology into the classroom has huge potential to change the trajectories of the lives of many of these young people by moving beyond repair to also inspire growth.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma

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Teachers can help students recognize their strengths and build resilience.

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ELL/Immigrant Students Living with Trauma

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ELL/Immigrant Students Living with Trauma

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Immigrant students in the US for whom English is not their first language have particularly high rates of traumatic experiences, ranging from homelessness, drug use at home, domestic violence, and fear of arrest and deportation. These kinds of experiences and fears can lead to an impact on their social and academic life at school. They may display symptoms of social withdrawal, ignoring class rules, avoiding eye contact, and moving around when other students are expected to be seated.

This article suggests taking a "strength-based approach" to addressing trauma in EL students by helping to identify their strengths, teach them to notice their own, and then build on those strengths to find ways to integrate them into the classroom and find ways to help them develop their own interests and means to succeed emotionally and academically.

https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-strengths-based-approach-els-supporting-students-living-trauma-violence-and-chronic

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Using a strengths-based approach allows educators to draw upon students' internal strengths and capacities, and it can be a particularly powerful practice for English learners who have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress. In this article adapted from Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress (ASCD, 2017), ELL experts Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Álvarez-Ortiz, and Judie Haynes offer some concrete strategies for shifting to a strengths-based approach in the classroom, as well as numerous student examples.

Overview

Who are the nation's students experiencing trauma, violence and chronic stress?

One in every two of the total student population in the U.S. come to our schools having experienced or still experiencing some type of trauma, violence, or chronic stress - many of them at a very young age. This startling statistic presents a challenge to all of us as educators - especially since the available professional literature focuses almost solely on the therapeutic aspects for providing counseling supports and services to students who have experienced one or more of the following:

Physical, sexual, or verbal abuse;

Physical and emotional neglect;

A parents who is an alcoholic (or addicted to other drugs);

Witnessing a mother who experiences abuse;

A family member in jail;

Loss of a parent due to death or abandonment, including abandonment by parental divorce; or

Mental illness or a depressed suicidal person in the home

Source: (Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, 2011/2012).
What make these realities particularly relevant are the distinct circumstances of many English learners who experience violence, trauma, and chronic stress. Consider the following:

In 2015, U.S. Department of State reported that 69,930 refugees were admitted to the United States, with the largest groups coming from African, South Asian, Asian, and Latin American countries.

4.1 million children born in the United States have at least one parent who is undocumented (American Psychological Association, 2016).

Many of the nation's children of undocumented immigrants experience high levels of chronic stress from fear of deportation, living in extreme poverty, and being isolated from peers (Yoshikawa, 2011).

60 percent of English learners' families had incomes that were 185 percent below poverty level (Grantmakers in Education Report, April 2013).

In addition, very little professional literature has been written about teaching this particular population and doing so from a strengths-based perspective.

Why use a strengths-based approach?

The absence of any formal training in this area, understandably, has led many educators to feel quite unprepared to teach and work with the epic numbers of students, including English learners, who experience trauma, violence and chronic stress. Further, many teachers believe that some students' experiences are so extreme that there is little hope for them, despite all of their efforts and good intentions. This perception often puts limits and restrictions on them in terms of how they teach and interact with students as well as how they work with families. In a real sense, it has almost forced many teachers to look at students and their families as "broken" instead of as individuals who already possess inherent strengths and who can make great contributions to their classrooms, their communities, and the world. Indeed, for too long, teachers have found themselves using language to name their perceptions in terms of what they believe are impossible situations for students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress.

Student vignette: Javier

Here is an example from Chris Homiak, a middle school English and mathematics teacher of English learners in Kansas City, Missouri. He tells us about Javier, a 7 th grade student.

Javier is a 7th grade student who joined our class after being out of school for six months. He is a n English learner whose home language is Spanish. Prior to enrolling in our school, he had recently moved across the country and was in transition, living in homeless shelters with his large family. At first, Javier answered questions very quietly, and his eyes often looked toward the floor or quickly around the room. Also, he often got out of his seat without permission and walked in a small circle near his desk.

In this example, it would be easy to pinpoint the adverse conditions and behaviors that would make Javier's ability to learn and our ability to teach him to be very difficult. However, it is important to take it a step further and look beyond "what is lacking" to find "what is already there". To accomplish this, we need to begin with a shift in mindset from what we believe is not happening and impossible to what is happening and possible. To do this we must take time to:

Identify students' existing strengths.

Honor, value, and acknowledge these strengths.

Help students become aware of their strengths.

Build instructional programming that boosts social ties and networks by drawing from students' strengths.

Let's take a look at Javier's story. What strengths can you see in Javier? At first glance, getting out of his seat without permission may seem to be an unacceptable behavior and, indeed, difficult to view as an asset. But adopting an asset-based perspective requires us to find evidence "in what students do; in what they don't; and in their intentions, hopes, successes, and even failures" ( Grove and Glasser, 2007). In this example, Javier didn't disrupt class by yelling or screaming, or by going to other students to talk to them. He contained himself in a small area, trying not to disrupt the class. This is the behavior we focus on, and the one that we want to acknowledge and reflect back to him to make it visible and transparent. Among Javier's assets is his ability to understand what he needs to turn his classroom environment into a favorable learning experience for him. In this case, it is an environment that will allow him the opportunity to engage in movement like standing, stretching, and moving his body. (Think of yourself during those long professional development trainings!) It is also evidence of Javier's good judgment, consideration, and respect for other people's spaces and time for learning because his behavior was contained and not disruptive. The goal is for Javier to see his strengths, value his own self-worth, create a personal account of his strengths, and begin to operate by drawing from it.

Let's look at what Chris Homiak did to identify Javier's strengths and what this understanding led to:
Observing him during independent work time, I saw that he had a deep capacity for abstract thinking and that he was strong in algebra. I shared my observation by saying: "Javier, you are such a strong problem-solver and algebra-thinker! I noticed that you can see patterns and break down the parts until you solve the problem." As his trusting relationships grew in our small group, I pushed him to explain his answers in more detail and to explore alternative ways for solving the same problem. Initially, he wanted to share his answers first and fast; I supported him to wait for others to catch up, and to see if he could help find their mistakes. I often turned to him to provide constructive feedback or error correction, handing over the document camera or whiteboard for him to play the teacher role.
It is greatly helpful to take time to identify students' strengths and teach by drawing from this understanding.

What strategies support a strengths-based approach?

In this article, we discuss some strategies for using a strengths-based approach in our classroom practice so that English learners, like Javier, and all students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress experience a real sense of being safe, valued, capable of learning, and worthy contributory members of their classroom communities. We consider these four essential experiences to be the basis for creating a strengths-based classroom that is inclusive and responsive to all students, and particularly to those living with trauma, violence and chronic stress.

Take time to build positive, asset-based student-teacher relationships

Working with students living with trauma, violence, or chronic stress requires us to be empathetic educators who care about our students and seek to support them. Nevertheless, we must take it a step further and strive to be asset-based teachers as well. That is, seeking, reflecting back, and honoring the many inherent attributes, values, and qualities our students (and families) possess. But it doesn't stop there. We must support them in drawing from these strengths and capacities to develop the skills, competencies, and confidence to be active learners, independent and critical thinkers, and contributory members of their learning community.

Gather as much information as we can about our students.

Use this background information to build and strengthen our relationships with students by personalizing our interactions using the strengths and assets that we continuously identify.

In Javier's story, his teacher was able to cultivate a positive relationship by helping Javier see his intrinsic assets and strengths and by capitalizing on them to engage Javier in learning. He observed Javier's curiosity and eagerness to solve problems and drew from these qualities to cultivate self-monitoring and leadership skills.

Use consistent positive, asset-based language when communicating with students.

There are many strategies that we can use to identify students' strengths and assets and build trusting relationships with them based on these, including:

An example, that can be adapted with support in a students' home language, is a high school teacher who asks students to complete questions on an index card during their first day of school. The front of the card asks them to write their name and nickname. The back asks the following, "What activities, such as sports, music, and work, are you involved or would like to be involved outside of our high school?" He meets first with individual students who leave the activity question blank and supports them in joining an after-school club, obtaining work, and/or engaging in an activity of their interest. He also takes time to visit students after school where they are participating in a sport or are at work. His sole goal is to help them see that they belong to a classroom community and that they are valued and capable individuals who have many personal strengths and assets worthy of recognition.

An example is a teacher who greets a student with personalized messages such as "Good morning, Lilliana, great to see you after that tough basketball game last night. I heard you were very determined on the court" shows that he understands what is important to the student, and at the same time, he's naming the attribute she is demonstrating (determination) which is one of her strengths. Or, in the case of Javier, his teacher took the opportunity to observe him during independent work and noticed that he had a solid capacity for abstract thinking and that he was strong in algebra. The way he reflected back these personal assets to Javier was by saying, "Javier, you're such a strong problem solver and algebra thinker! I noticed that you can see patterns and break down the parts until you solve the problem." This type of positive energy and language is one of the biggest assets that those of us that work with English learners and all students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress can bring to the classroom.

Create a physical environment that encourages students' sharing, participation and ownership of their physical classroom space.

Co-create (with students) an environment that facilitates their empowerment and voice and reinforces the skills necessary to be successful in a global society that demands constant communication, collaboration, teamwork, and innovation.

Foster unconditional acceptance, a sense of being safe, and of feeling valued and capable of learning.

Construct a physical environment that is conducive for communication and cooperation

Learning spaces have the ability to positively or negatively affect students' learning and morale. From the selection and arrangement of desks, tables and chairs, to the attention we pay to what we place on the classroom walls, every detail counts toward our efforts to keeping students engaged and maximizing their cooperation and creativity. To do this, we have to consider how to:

Students living with traumatic situations, including those who may be English learners, are likely to experience loss of control and sense of powerlessness to various degrees. As such, regaining control is crucial to coping with traumatic stressors ( Perry & Szalavitz, 2006). In the classroom, this translates to implementing practices that value and encourage all students' participation in decisions that matter to them.

For example, some groups of students may wish to work at their desks in the corner of a room, others may prefer to work on the floor, and others may want to stand at the white board. What's key is co-creating a space where students have a voice in arranging their desks, tables, and chairs and displaying (e.g., on classroom walls or tablemats) their shared ideas, opinions, and concepts to demonstrate a shared ownership of learning.

Classroom environments that promote this type of empowerment do so by building the confidence and capacity of English learners and all students to speak up, to present and address issues of their concern, to make changes, and to take risks. Students are more likely to encounter success in this process when adults become partners and provide active support.

Use predictable classroom routines and practices

What time does school actually start and should they arrive?

What should students do if there is a delayed opening or closing of school (e.g., a delay due to inclement weather)

If there is a delay, should students go directly into the school or wait on the playground?

Where should students go if they arrive at school late?

Where do they put their coats and backpacks when they enter their classroom? Where does their homework go?

What should they be doing while they are waiting for the rest of the class to arrive?

Who will be my teacher and what's his/her name?

Using routines and practices that are consistent and predictable have been found to be essential when working with students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress ( Blaustein, 2013).

Start class

Start the lessons

Sequence the lessons

Transition students from one task to the next during the lesson

End the lessons

Support students during non-instructional time

The following questions help to form the routine responses that students need at the beginning of the school year or when a new student enrolls in our schools:

Welcome students positively by letting them know that they are welcomed and valuable members of our classroom community.

Engage students in a sharing activity about special news such as the arrival of a new sibling, an event, and/or occasion such as a birthday or a school event or sports, performance, or curricular activity. Create routines for this sharing activity to help it to be a predictable social activity.

Provide information about the day or class' schedule so that students know what to expect during the school day or class period.

Conduct a short academic or social learning experience. For example, during one meeting, a teacher asked for a student volunteer to share with his/her peers the process that students should follow when leaving from and returning to the classroom for small group instruction. His teaching goal was to support his students in making transitions and empower students in making good choices.

Support students to transition from the opening meeting to the next classroom activity by noticing and acknowledging those who show readiness.

According to Blaustein (2013), using the same routines and rituals in our classroom activities allows students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress to downshift from a fearful state where unpredictability takes control, to a calmer and more positive one where events happen in a predictable manner. These include the ways in which we:

Here are some suggestions:

Listening skills

Empathy

Social and emotional language that is needed to express their feelings to their peers and others

Attention to their own and their peers' values, assets, and strengths

Mediating their own emotions

Resolving conflict in a productive way.

Apprentice students in social and emotional communicative skills

While paired and groupwork are important methods in any classroom, an important means to support the method working more successfully is the level of trust that we create with and among all of our students. Classroom settings are ideal places for students to acquire the social and emotional communication skills that they need to work cooperatively. All students need this type of instruction so that everyone feels safe, competent, valued, and a sense of belonging. Our instruction must involve supporting students in the development and use of the following:

Design pair and group work with plans that explicitly and intentionally support students in the development and strengthening of these skills. Look for opportunities within these groups to recognize the many ways in which students, overtly or covertly, demonstrate their personal assets. Some examples of the type of language/communication that is helpful to acknowledge students' efforts and help them acknowledge others is the following:

Asset-Based Language to Describe Students' Qualities

Focusing on student strengths: Sample feedback

That is excellent use of logic.

You are being wise. That is a great quality that is coming across in your responses.

That was a very insightful thought you just shared.

That was a solid educated guess. That is an important skill.

I appreciate your willingness to collaborate.

You seem to be getting the picture after showing so much hard work analyzing this idea!

That was a great deduction you just made to figure out a possible answer. Well done!

You are showing great curiosity, which is a great way to learn.

The way you put these two ideas together shows how you are using great analytic skills in your problem solving.

I can see how much you are enjoying sharing and defending your unique ideas.

I really like how you are showing respect to your partner by listening carefully to what he is saying.

You are using your great mind to figure out an answer. Well done!

Student attributes, strengths, and values

Many English language learners who have experienced or are experiencing trauma, violence, or chronic stress are demonstrators of great tenacity and determination. Despite the many horrendous and traumatic experiences that many have experienced, living through civil strife, natural disasters, war, extreme poverty and more, they still find the energy to show up in our schools and classrooms every day. This energy reflects one of the many attributes, strengths, and values that they possess. How many other intrinsic qualities and values hidden under adversity can you identify in the students and families you serve? Although not an exhaustive one, this list can help you identify them.

Adapted from Glasser, 2011, p. 64-65.

Final Thoughts

Adopting a strengths-based approach allows us to draw from our students' internal strengths and capacities. It also supports the academic and social-emotional growth of all students - including English learners like Javier.

The strategies and the ideas found in this article are a small sampling from our book Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress. It is our hope that by using these our classrooms can be transformed into safe, productive, and positive places where all students can see their many strengths and unlimited human potential.

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Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELs: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress

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Using a strengths-based approach allows educators to draw upon students' internal strengths and capacities, and it can be a particularly powerful practice for English learners who have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress.

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Trauma is an emotional response to an event that triggers the fight, flight or freeze response.

The 4 types of trauma include:
1. Acute trauma - A single traumatic/dangerous event such as a car accident, assault or death

2. Complex trauma - Multiple traumatic events

3. Chronic trauma - Repeated traumatic and/or prolonged events such as abuse, bullying or rape

4. System induced trauma - Situations where organized systems create trauma such as foster care, law enforcement, juvenile detention facilities

Resource links:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/trauma#definition

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A singular traumatic event that is brief in duration and narrowly focused in nature such a car accident or assault. Linked to Acute Stress Disorder, PTSD and other mental health conditions including Simple Phobias, anxiety, depressive, alcohol abuse and adjustment disorders.

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A singular traumatic event that is brief in duration and narrowly focused in nature such a car accident or assault. Linked to Acute Stress Disorder, PTSD and other mental health conditions including Simple Phobias, anxiety, depressive, alcohol abuse and adjustment disorders.

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Response strategies to trauma and traumatic symptoms

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Response strategies to trauma and traumatic symptoms

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Student who are experiencing trauma are more likely to fall behind in class or present behavioral issues.

How to respond to trauma and traumatic symptoms:

1. Trauma informed teaching - consider how trauma impacts learning and behavior
2. Positive behavior support and intervention - strategies to improve student behavior and create environments where all students succeed

Resources:
https://www.powerschool.com/blog/9-examples-of-positive-behavior-supports-interventions/
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-trauma-informed-teaching

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Positive behavior supports and interventions (PBIS) are strategies that schools use to improve student behavior. PBIS provides effective interventions that guide positive behaviors and create environments to help all students succeed.

What are behavioral supports and interventions?

The PBIS framework fits within a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) and interventions that allow educators to target and aid all students, regardless of their needs.

This structure of interventions provides individualized support for students who have more robust behavioral needs. Within the multi-tiered system, students with disabilities receiving assistance from an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or special education programs have consistent guidance. This also includes students with autism spectrum disorders or developmental disabilities who may need Tier three support.

The ABCs of Behavior Assessment

Behavior assessment provides key data to inform effective PBIS. Teachers typically know their students very well and continue to learn more through observing challenging behaviors within their classroom. Proper analysis of behaviors can give educators insight into the diverse needs within a school or classroom and help them create appropriate PBIS.

One standard format of observing and recording behavior uses the ABCs of behavior assessment. This method of data analysis is often used within special education programs to assess and respond to ongoing student needs. The "ABC" refers to:

After using the ABC method to notice challenging behaviors, the next step is implementing the appropriate positive behavioral interventions to avoid misbehavior and build a warm, focused, and friendly school and classroom culture. With the necessary interventions, all students can be prepared to learn and excel academically.

9 Examples of Positive Behavioral Interventions

Here are nine specific examples of PBIS interventions that you can use in your classroom to reinforce positive student behavior and expectations.

Set clear routines for everything you would like students to do in your classroom, rather than assuming that students know your expectations. Be sure to demonstrate how you would like things to be done. Although it can be tedious, this is key to building a classroom environment that is consistent and predictable.

When building and executing classroom routines, remain explicit so that students clearly understand your expectations. Give students multiple opportunities to practice classroom routines, provide ongoing support for routines and behaviors, reinforce expected behaviors, and explain the consequences if students do not meet expectations.

For example, you may create hand signals for common student requests like getting water or going to the restroom or a simple gesture to use when students should wait for their turn to speak.

At times, students may become overwhelmed or overstimulated, leading to unregulated behavior choices. Students may benefit from a three- to five-minute break to reset and get focused. Consider allowing students to rest and reset before a starting new activity or transitioning to a new task.

Use breaks as a time for self-management and self-regulation. Self-management allows students to pause, reflect, and adjust problematic behavior. Helping students build these skills will let you get back to teaching and learning as quickly as possible. Breaks also help students build skills to self-regulate by assisting the students in determining when their behavior is impulsive and getting back in the mindset to learn.

For example, you can use breaks for meditation, breathing exercises, or movement exercises that help center and settle the student's mind and body.

3. Silent Signals

Create silent signals to remind your students to pay attention and remain on task. These signals can be for your whole class, or you can establish unique signals for a particular student who needs extra behavioral support.

Silent signals are an effective intervention because they quickly reinforce behavioral expectations with minimal disruption. You can come up with signals for your class, or you all can create signals that work best for your community together. Additionally, you can create signals to express your expectations for your students, and you can also come up with signals to allow your students to express their needs to you.

4. Proximity

Proximity is another helpful silent intervention for teachers to redirect student behavior. By getting physically closer to a student, you can get them on-task without giving verbal instructions.

Use proximity when teaching a lesson, during independent work, or in transitions to a new task.

5. Quiet Corrections

When students are off task, they often seek attention. Teachers need to remove the stage when addressing them. Quiet corrections allow you to control the situation and keep the public stage out of the student interaction.

6. Special Tasks

Special tasks will give the student a chance to reset and come back and join the class. Consider ways to encourage leadership and peer interaction by pairing the student up with a classmate as a helper on an academic task. This communicates that you are willing to provide support while encouraging interactions that help build community.

7. Positive Phrasing

Do this when establishing class rules. For example, try phrasing a class rule by saying, "we always walk in the hall" instead of saying, "don't run in the halls."

Here's another example teachers can use if a student is not completing their homework. Instead of saying, "if you don't complete your homework tonight, you will stay inside and complete it at recess tomorrow," say, "if you finish your homework tonight, you will get to go outside and play with your friends." Both express the need to complete homework, but the second statement can encourage a behavior change more effectively.

8. Behavior Statements

Simply state the appropriate behaviors you want to see or acknowledge students who meet expectations right away. This rewards positive behavior and repeats the expectation for students who may not have heard the first time.

For example, when students are lining up and all of them are not ready, you can quickly state the specific behavior that some students are doing correctly. In no time, other students will mimic that behavior to receive positive praise. It is essential to acknowledge and praise appropriate behaviors in your classroom constantly.

9. Tangible Reinforces

Get Started with Positive Behavior Supports & Interventions

Teachers, staff, and administrators all have challenging jobs. We must guide and mold the future leaders of our communities towards academic excellence. When adequate behavior supports and interventions are in place, educators can discourage and avoid disruptive behavior that detracts from teaching and learning.

Unified Classroom® Behavior Support helps educators manage social and emotional learning (SEL) and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), like PBIS, to help improve student well-being and school culture and achieve more equitable outcomes. With tools, strategies, and resources designed to support your school team, you can transform your school culture with practical implementations of PBIS and provide behavioral support for all students.

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9 Examples of Positive Behavior Supports & Interventions

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As challenging student behaviors increase, teachers can turn to positive behavior support & interventions (PBIS) to encourage positive change.

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Symptoms of traumatic stress and response strategies for managing these 

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Symptoms of traumatic stress and response strategies for managing these 

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Symptoms of trauma
A person can respond to trauma in a number of ways and these can include:
1. Emotional/social and psychological responses such as denial, shame, confusion, anxiety, depression, guilt, fear, anger,  hopelessness, irritability, low self esteem or difficulty concentrating, change in ability to respond appropriately to social ques.
2. Physical responses such as sweating, feeling jumpy, digestive problems, self-destructive behavoir, difficulty sleeping/wanting to sleep more than usual. These often lead to other health problems or fear for the safety of others
3. Cognative such as recreating the traumatic event
4. Learning - for example difficulty with direction and criticism, difficulties paying attention during instruction

Trauma can look different from student to student even if the students are experiencing the same trauma. Trauma might be misidentified as ADHD since some symptoms overlap: trouble focusing, hyperactivity, restlessness and disorganization

Here are some suggested responses to trauma:
-Speak to the student after class.
-Use of open ended questions
-Let the student know you care
-Never make promises you cannot keep - promising not to tell someone else (e.g., principal)
-Creating an engaging environment - for example an inclusion activity before starting with class
-Monitor the student and inform your child protection officer or the school counselor
*Use preventative strategies (see picture above)
*Use in the moment strategies (see picture above)
*Use after the moment strategies (see picture above)

Resource links:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/coping-with-emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/appalachia/events/materials/04-8-20-Handout3_common-trauma-symptoms-and-helpful-strategies-for-educators.pdf

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I work at an International school in Kazakhstan. In my school I have seen the following situations causing traumas this year:

1. The Russia-Ukraine war: The majority of new students relocated with (or without parents to live with other family) to Kazakhstan to escape the war. One student in particular is always busy with something other than work. He is distracted and always on edge. He has not caused any fights but he is aggressive towards other students who say or do the wrong thing. It helped to sit down with the student and not calling him out in front of others when disruptive and letting him know that you support him but not tolerating his behavior. Praising him for doing work or participating in class also helps. He seems to value one on one attention without other students.
2. Changing schools: this student has kept to herself and avoids talking to others. Checking in with her in homeroom by using open ended questions helps her to open up and share. Assigning pairs in class (2 students pair group) and pairing her with a caring student helps to lift her mood and she is also more willing to participate
3. Bullying: 2 students used to pick on one student in my class (they sat next to each other). I moved one of the offenders to another seat and after class I talked to the 2 offenders. Later, I talked to the student being bullied. I left one of the offenders next to the student and monitored them. Eventually they became friendly and I placed the second offender next to the bullied student. It is my hope that the second offender also become friendly with the student they used to bully.
I think it's important to not take sides (if I defended the bullied student the other 2 might bully him more).

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Sexual abuse/violence can lead to chronic, severe psychological problems and can be associated with PTSD(Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), depression, suicide, eating disorders, etc. The victim's engagement in relationships can prove to be difficult and personality disorders can develop. Short-term effects include self-isolation, high levels of fear, and confusion. Long-term effects include problems in their developmental process and maintaining relationships.

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Repetitive, prolonged or cumulative exploitation, harm, maltreatment such as abandonment, abuse, etc. Victims struggle emotionally. Children can be prone to detach themselves from adults, distrust, amnesia.

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Treating trauma is a task most therapists can expect to undertake in their careers. In today's social and political climate, in which soldiers are continually being deployed to war zones and the recent recession has been linked to an increase in child abuse, we can anticipate that many cases of complex trauma are sure to arise. Complex trauma is described by psychologist and trauma expert Dr. Christine Courtois, as "a type of trauma that occurs repeatedly and cumulatively, usually over a period of time and within specific relationships and contexts." Examples include severe child abuse, domestic abuse, or multiple military deployments to dangerous locations.

In Dr. Courtois article, " Understanding Complex Trauma, Complex Reactions, and Treatment Approaches" she summarizes complex traumatic events and experiences as stressors that are: (1) repetitive, prolonged, or cumulative (2) most often interpersonal, involving direct harm, exploitation, and maltreatment including neglect, abandonment, or antipathy by primary caregivers or other ostensibly responsible adults, and (3) often occur at developmentally vulnerable times in the victim's life, especially in early childhood or adolescence, but can also occur later in life and in conditions of vulnerability associated with disability, disempowerment, dependency, age, infirmity, and others.

The nature, diagnosis, and treatment of this condition can be controversial, as exemplified through the current debate that's risen over adding the disorder to the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM-V). Yet, the value of familiarizing ourselves with the nature of complex trauma is immeasurable, especially when it results in getting people who are suffering to the help they need. Educating ourselves on the after-effects of trauma not only proves valuable to those of us in the field of mental health but to friends and family members of individuals who struggle with this disorder.

For the men and women afflicted with complex trauma, it's important to understand and recognize the ways they have been impacted by their experience. It is essential for them to understand that their symptoms come from somewhere, so they can have compassion for themselves, and to know that there are treatments available that can be life-changing. While the goal of this brief introduction is not to provide a manual from which to diagnose complex trauma, my hope is it will raise awareness of its symptoms and help to direct these people toward a path to recovery.

In Dr. Courtois's article, "Complex Trauma, Complex Reactions: Assessment and Treatment," she lists symptoms of complex PTSD as including difficulty regulating affective impulses such as anger and self-destructiveness, dissociative episodes, a chronic sense of guilt or responsibility, difficulty trusting people or feeling intimate, hopelessness or despair, and other somatic or medical problems.

Individuals who have been traumatized repeatedly over a period of time or within specific settings and scenarios are vulnerable to many of these emotional struggles. Children who are abused, for example, are even more prone to disassociation than adults. Child abuse often occurs repeatedly in a context in which the victim depends on the attacker for survival. When someone we're supposed to trust inflicts trauma or deep emotional pain on us, our defense may be to mentally disconnect from our own bodies. Children with memories of physical, sexual, or even intense verbal abuse, sometimes remember the scene as if they'd watched it take place from above, as if it wasn't even happening to them. In many cases, they may even experience amnesia or not remember certain painful events at all.

Incidents of trauma, whether they occurred in a childhood home, a warzone, or a POW cell can incite guilt in those impacted. Traumatized individuals may experience an altered self-perception in which they suffer from feelings of intense shame. They may experience severe guilt, believing it is somehow their fault that certain terrorizing events took place.

One painful identification people make when they are victims of abuse occurs when they internalize their aggressor. In other words, they may start to identify with the person who hurt them the most, sometimes feeling protective or taking on their destructive point of view toward themselves. I often discuss the concept of the critical inner voice, a term my father Robert Firestone, Ph.D., and I use to describe a negative self-perception we carry with us in our minds. All of us possess this inner critic, but those of us who are traumatized may experience this "voice" as a deeply destructive and terrifying enemy whose attacks on us can feel crippling and constant and can lead to even life-threatening, self-destructive behavior. When a person feels hopeless or isolated in their suffering or finds it difficult to trust easily, he or she can become further victimized by their critical inner voice. In turn, they may fail to have compassion for themselves and may make choices that repeat destructive patterns of their past. For instance, an abused child may wind up in an abusive relationship as an adult.

It is essential for victims of trauma to find ways to differentiate from the negative programming they've received in moments of stress. In order to do so, they must be able to feel compassion for themselves and the intense emotional anguish they've endured. Complex trauma requires complex and sequenced treatment, which involves multiple components that target the different symptoms that arise on the road to recovery. The good news is that treatment is available, and research is helping to inform the development and implementation of cutting-edge treatments. Dr. Courtois is an expert in these methodologies and will discuss her work and research findings in our upcoming Webinar. The message to take away from the work of mental health professionals like Dr. Courtois and her colleagues is that no one should feel hopeless. Help is available, even for those who have survived the most excruciating of conditions. Everyone deserves to be reached and steered through even their darkest times.
Read more from Dr. Lisa Firestone at PsychAlive.org and learn more about Dr. Christine Courtois at DrChrisCourtois.com

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Treating trauma is a task most therapists can expect to undertake in their careers. In today's social and political climate, in which soldiers are continually being deployed to war zones and the recent recession has been linked to an increase in child abuse, we can anticipate that many cases of complex trauma are sure to arise.

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1. Healing and Repair
Teachers can help develop understanding and emotionally supporting students. Exercises and activities to regulate their heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature can be implemented.
2. Growth and Strength
Teachers focus on what is possible rather than what is asking what the problem is. Repairing students metnally and accommodating with lessons that focus on their academic capacities can help them not only to heal but to rise up.
3. Positive Relationships
Creating a safe and comforatble environment in class. Bonding with students and seek out social relationships. Supportive relationships are key.
4. Positive Physical Space
Layout of the classroom can be used to build positive emotions. Positive visuals and quotes to inspire, natural light, open warm, relaxing environments.
5. Positive Priming
Foster positive emotions such as content, pride, awe and wonder.

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For some students, school is not just a place of learning and growth but also a refuge from abuse.

Data suggest that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. have been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent.

These types of stressors, known as complex trauma, have the added wound of being perpetrated by a person with whom the child or teen has an ongoing relationship. The very people who are supposed to support and protect are those who wound and abuse. This leads to continuing states of grief, loss, abandonment, and neglect as well as persistent anxiety, fear, and depression-all at a time when the brain is in crucial stages of development.

For some young people, school is the only place in their lives where they know they are safe and can form trusted, enduring relationships. It is, therefore, a cruel irony that many students who are affected by trauma also have trouble engaging at school. They may attend school with the best of intentions, hoping to form friendships, feel connected to their teachers, and succeed at the day's tasks. Yet they can find themselves defiant, demanding, and disengaged -unable to learn and confused about why they can't relate and bond with others.

What do the latest scientific findings from the fields of traumatology, neuroscience, and positive education tell us about how to best help students who are affected by trauma? Below, we highlight some of the new practices that teachers can use to not only help students heal but also help them grow.

Healing and repair

The new field of "trauma-informed learning" has made great strides in helping teachers to better understand the developmental, emotional, and social challenges that students who are impacted by trauma face at school. While teachers are not mental health professionals, trauma-informed learning trains teachers in therapeutic approaches that can be woven into the classroom to redress the delayed development, underdeveloped neural pathways, and over-regulated nervous systems that students experience as a result of trauma.

For example, teachers can directly teach students about their body's own stress activation response and help them find techniques to regulate their heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Teaching through rhythm-for example, learning about math to the beat of a drum, reading an English text while riding an exercise bike, or having a disciplinary conversation while walking around the school yard together-is now an accepted classroom technique that assists trauma-affected students to regulate their nervous system through rhythmic movement.

Feeling calmer in class has the knock-on effects of helping students get along better with others, think more clearly, and stay on task. These approaches nurture students' stamina and persistence, allowing them to better deal with frustration, which benefits their social behavior in class and their capacity to take on greater academic challenges. This is indeed a hopeful approach.

Growth and strength

Trauma-informed education has helped teachers to evolve from the question of "What is wrong with this student?" to "What has this student been through?" In the field of positive psychology, we add a further question: "What does this student need to reach their potential?" This allows teachers to extend the focus from what is wrong, to what is needed, to what is possible. Building the mental health and academic capacities of students affected by trauma requires more than repairing psychological disorder and developmental delays-it requires the dual mantra of healing and growth. Of repairing and rising up.

Research by Corey Keyes shows us that healing and growth can be simultaneous processes. We don't always need to wait until something is fixed before we work on building our strengths. Indeed, growing the psychological strengths of a student affected by trauma can be a core part of healing their psychological struggles.

Working with students who are affected by trauma requires schools to assist in providing individual counseling services, safety and crisis planning, behavior plans, self-care plans to address triggers, and case management. Most of these services are not provided by the classroom teacher, yet the teacher is the person who spends the most time with trauma-affected students. A key way in which positive psychology adds to the trauma-informed strategies above is by empowering teachers in the classroom to help their students on a daily basis.

Here are five teaching techniques that you can use in your class, knowing that these approaches also assist your mainstream students.

1. Positive relationships. Trauma-affected students have more relationship challenges to navigate than most. These students can be dealing with harmful relationships at home and then come to school to manage relationships not only with their teachers but also with social workers, police officers, and clinicians-all while living out their daily lives.

It is critical that we help these students feel safe and trusting where possible, so they learn to develop social intelligence and seek out positive bonds with others. Teachers may be the only people who help these students learn what a healthy, supportive relationship feels like. Building relational trust involves simple teaching practices such as smiling, sharing parts of your life with your students, getting to know your students as individuals, and using yourself as a role model of a reliable and regulated adult.

2. Positive physical space. The physical layout and look of your classroom can be used to build positive emotions. Putting up positive visuals and quotes can inspire creative thinking and teamwork in your students. Increased natural light or soft lighting can enhance an open, warm, and relaxing environment.

Consider how the furniture and seating is arranged in your class. Is it helping students to feel safe and connected? You could also bring plants into the room or create a mindfulness corner, a dedicated space that students can visit when they need to regulate their stress response. The corner can include a bean bag, mindful coloring books, squeeze toys, noise-cancelling headphones, and more.

3. Positive priming. Following the research of Barbara Frederickson, you can use simple priming techniques to foster positive emotions such as contentment, pride, awe, and wonder in class.

Brain breaks are one helpful technique. The teachers who work with us have found that brain breaks are most effective when students reflect on the type of energy they need at that moment for learning: Escalating brain breaks build positive energy and emotions such as joy, happiness, and wonder (e.g., clapping games, thumb wars, laughter yoga, racing around the desk), while de-escalating brain breaks build calm emotions such as contentment and serenity, which help a student to feel safe and focused (e.g., silently tracing the movements of a partner, triangle breathing, playing music or repeating mantras, and body movements such as shoulder shrugging or pumping your toes inside your shoes).

You can also use positive primers to boost positive emotion when students first enter the classroom (such as by greeting them with the healthy touch of a handshake or a high five), during transitions (by turning transition routines into a silent game such as "follow the leader"), or during independent work breaks (by having students deliberately savor their accomplishment and share with a peer).

According to Fredrickson's theory, helping your students build up their bank account of positive emotions over time changes their brain to help them learn more effectively, form better relationships, and become more resilient. Next time you are planning a lesson, think about how you can use positive primers throughout the learning experience.

4. Using character strengths. Teaching strengths in schools has been shown to increase achievement and well-being. All students, especially trauma-affected students, need opportunities to identify, recognize, practice, and use their character strengths, which include qualities like kindness, humor, creativity, and bravery.

Ways to help students learn about their own strengths and the strengths of others include strengths surveys (if their literacy skills allow), strengths cards, and strengths spotting exercises-like identifying strengths in their heroes or playing a secret agent game where they are invited to "spy" on a fellow student to identify the strengths of that student. To teach about particular strengths, you could focus on stories in English and Humanities curriculums where characters or historical figures displayed those strengths. Strengths can also be developed through performing arts, sports, and other co-curricula.

5. Building resilience. Sadly, you cannot always impact the life of a student outside of school, but you can teach resilience strategies that help a student affected by trauma to gain a better understanding of their situation and to counteract the negative messages of shame they often internalize.

Students can practice resilience skills through role plays that help them to act out skills such as setting boundaries and verbalizing their feelings, all while in the safety of a classroom. Literature, poetry, and song lyrics can help students identify examples of resilient thinking-for example, Ariana Grande's song "No Tears Left to Cry" following the London terrorist attack at her concert. Analyzing the ways in which media figures, sports heroes, and other high-profile people explain their successes and failures showcases the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Teachers can also use moments in the learning process when students feel frustration or self-doubt to coach them on how to dispute their pessimism and automatic negative thinking ( "I can't do this"; "I'm dumb") to make room for optimism and constructive thinking ( "Maybe I'm tired and I need a break"; "I solved the problem last week and I can do it again"; "It takes me a little longer than others, but I've come a long way"). Learning resilience skills can provide an internal psychological buffer for students when they are outside of school, as well as providing empowering experiences at school.

Every teacher wants to positively impact the lives of their students. For students who are affected by trauma, the teacher plays an even more vital role. The introduction of positive psychology into the classroom has huge potential to change the trajectories of the lives of many of these young people by moving beyond repair to also inspire growth.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma

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Teachers can help students recognize their strengths and build resilience.

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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma

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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma

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1. Positive relationships.
Teachers may be the only people who help these students learn what a healthy, supportive relationship feels like. Building relational trust involves simple teaching practices such as smiling, sharing parts of your life with your students, getting to know your students as individuals, and using yourself as a role model of a reliable and regulated adult.

2. Positive physical space.
The physical layout and look of your classroom can be used to build positive emotions. Putting up positive visuals and quotes can inspire creative thinking and teamwork in your students. Increased natural light or soft lighting can enhance an open, warm, and relaxing environment.

3. Positive priming.
Following the research of Barbara Frederickson, you can use simple priming techniques to foster positive emotions such as contentment, pride, awe, and wonder in class.

Brain breaks are one helpful technique... build positive energy and emotions such as joy, happiness, and wonder (e.g., clapping games, thumb wars...) ... while de-escalating brain breaks build calm emotions... help a student to feel safe and focused (e.g., silently tracing the movements of a partner, triangle breathing...

You can also use positive primers to boost positive emotion when students first enter the classroom (such as by greeting them with the healthy touch of a handshake or a high five), during transitions (by turning transition routines into a silent game such as “follow the leader”), or during independent work breaks (by having students deliberately savor their accomplishment and share with a peer).

4. Using character strengths.
Teaching strengths in schools has been shown to increase achievement and well-being... which include qualities like kindness, humor, creativity, and bravery...
strengths surveys (if their literacy skills allow), strengths cards, and strengths spotting exercises—like identifying strengths in their heroes or playing a secret agent game where they are invited to “spy” on a fellow student to identify the strengths of that student.

5. Building resilience.

Students can practice resilience skills through role plays that help them to act out skills such as setting boundaries and verbalizing their feelings, all while in the safety of a classroom. Literature, poetry, and song lyrics can help students identify examples of resilient thinking—for example, Ariana Grande’s song “No Tears Left to Cry” following the London terrorist attack at her concert. Analyzing the ways in which media figures, sports heroes, and other high-profile people explain their successes and failures showcases the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Teachers can also use moments in the learning process when students feel frustration or self-doubt to coach them on how to dispute their pessimism and automatic negative thinking (“I can’t do this”; “I’m dumb”) to make room for optimism and constructive thinking (“Maybe I’m tired and I need a break”; “I solved the problem last week and I can do it again”; “It takes me a little longer than others, but I’ve come a long way”). Learning resilience skills can provide an internal psychological buffer for students when they are outside of school, as well as providing empowering experiences at school.

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For some students, school is not just a place of learning and growth but also a refuge from abuse.

Data suggest that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. have been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent.

These types of stressors, known as complex trauma, have the added wound of being perpetrated by a person with whom the child or teen has an ongoing relationship. The very people who are supposed to support and protect are those who wound and abuse. This leads to continuing states of grief, loss, abandonment, and neglect as well as persistent anxiety, fear, and depression-all at a time when the brain is in crucial stages of development.

For some young people, school is the only place in their lives where they know they are safe and can form trusted, enduring relationships. It is, therefore, a cruel irony that many students who are affected by trauma also have trouble engaging at school. They may attend school with the best of intentions, hoping to form friendships, feel connected to their teachers, and succeed at the day's tasks. Yet they can find themselves defiant, demanding, and disengaged -unable to learn and confused about why they can't relate and bond with others.

What do the latest scientific findings from the fields of traumatology, neuroscience, and positive education tell us about how to best help students who are affected by trauma? Below, we highlight some of the new practices that teachers can use to not only help students heal but also help them grow.

Healing and repair

The new field of "trauma-informed learning" has made great strides in helping teachers to better understand the developmental, emotional, and social challenges that students who are impacted by trauma face at school. While teachers are not mental health professionals, trauma-informed learning trains teachers in therapeutic approaches that can be woven into the classroom to redress the delayed development, underdeveloped neural pathways, and over-regulated nervous systems that students experience as a result of trauma.

For example, teachers can directly teach students about their body's own stress activation response and help them find techniques to regulate their heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure. Teaching through rhythm-for example, learning about math to the beat of a drum, reading an English text while riding an exercise bike, or having a disciplinary conversation while walking around the school yard together-is now an accepted classroom technique that assists trauma-affected students to regulate their nervous system through rhythmic movement.

Feeling calmer in class has the knock-on effects of helping students get along better with others, think more clearly, and stay on task. These approaches nurture students' stamina and persistence, allowing them to better deal with frustration, which benefits their social behavior in class and their capacity to take on greater academic challenges. This is indeed a hopeful approach.

Growth and strength

Trauma-informed education has helped teachers to evolve from the question of "What is wrong with this student?" to "What has this student been through?" In the field of positive psychology, we add a further question: "What does this student need to reach their potential?" This allows teachers to extend the focus from what is wrong, to what is needed, to what is possible. Building the mental health and academic capacities of students affected by trauma requires more than repairing psychological disorder and developmental delays-it requires the dual mantra of healing and growth. Of repairing and rising up.

Research by Corey Keyes shows us that healing and growth can be simultaneous processes. We don't always need to wait until something is fixed before we work on building our strengths. Indeed, growing the psychological strengths of a student affected by trauma can be a core part of healing their psychological struggles.

Working with students who are affected by trauma requires schools to assist in providing individual counseling services, safety and crisis planning, behavior plans, self-care plans to address triggers, and case management. Most of these services are not provided by the classroom teacher, yet the teacher is the person who spends the most time with trauma-affected students. A key way in which positive psychology adds to the trauma-informed strategies above is by empowering teachers in the classroom to help their students on a daily basis.

Here are five teaching techniques that you can use in your class, knowing that these approaches also assist your mainstream students.

1. Positive relationships. Trauma-affected students have more relationship challenges to navigate than most. These students can be dealing with harmful relationships at home and then come to school to manage relationships not only with their teachers but also with social workers, police officers, and clinicians-all while living out their daily lives.

It is critical that we help these students feel safe and trusting where possible, so they learn to develop social intelligence and seek out positive bonds with others. Teachers may be the only people who help these students learn what a healthy, supportive relationship feels like. Building relational trust involves simple teaching practices such as smiling, sharing parts of your life with your students, getting to know your students as individuals, and using yourself as a role model of a reliable and regulated adult.

2. Positive physical space. The physical layout and look of your classroom can be used to build positive emotions. Putting up positive visuals and quotes can inspire creative thinking and teamwork in your students. Increased natural light or soft lighting can enhance an open, warm, and relaxing environment.

Consider how the furniture and seating is arranged in your class. Is it helping students to feel safe and connected? You could also bring plants into the room or create a mindfulness corner, a dedicated space that students can visit when they need to regulate their stress response. The corner can include a bean bag, mindful coloring books, squeeze toys, noise-cancelling headphones, and more.

3. Positive priming. Following the research of Barbara Frederickson, you can use simple priming techniques to foster positive emotions such as contentment, pride, awe, and wonder in class.

Brain breaks are one helpful technique. The teachers who work with us have found that brain breaks are most effective when students reflect on the type of energy they need at that moment for learning: Escalating brain breaks build positive energy and emotions such as joy, happiness, and wonder (e.g., clapping games, thumb wars, laughter yoga, racing around the desk), while de-escalating brain breaks build calm emotions such as contentment and serenity, which help a student to feel safe and focused (e.g., silently tracing the movements of a partner, triangle breathing, playing music or repeating mantras, and body movements such as shoulder shrugging or pumping your toes inside your shoes).

You can also use positive primers to boost positive emotion when students first enter the classroom (such as by greeting them with the healthy touch of a handshake or a high five), during transitions (by turning transition routines into a silent game such as "follow the leader"), or during independent work breaks (by having students deliberately savor their accomplishment and share with a peer).

According to Fredrickson's theory, helping your students build up their bank account of positive emotions over time changes their brain to help them learn more effectively, form better relationships, and become more resilient. Next time you are planning a lesson, think about how you can use positive primers throughout the learning experience.

4. Using character strengths. Teaching strengths in schools has been shown to increase achievement and well-being. All students, especially trauma-affected students, need opportunities to identify, recognize, practice, and use their character strengths, which include qualities like kindness, humor, creativity, and bravery.

Ways to help students learn about their own strengths and the strengths of others include strengths surveys (if their literacy skills allow), strengths cards, and strengths spotting exercises-like identifying strengths in their heroes or playing a secret agent game where they are invited to "spy" on a fellow student to identify the strengths of that student. To teach about particular strengths, you could focus on stories in English and Humanities curriculums where characters or historical figures displayed those strengths. Strengths can also be developed through performing arts, sports, and other co-curricula.

5. Building resilience. Sadly, you cannot always impact the life of a student outside of school, but you can teach resilience strategies that help a student affected by trauma to gain a better understanding of their situation and to counteract the negative messages of shame they often internalize.

Students can practice resilience skills through role plays that help them to act out skills such as setting boundaries and verbalizing their feelings, all while in the safety of a classroom. Literature, poetry, and song lyrics can help students identify examples of resilient thinking-for example, Ariana Grande's song "No Tears Left to Cry" following the London terrorist attack at her concert. Analyzing the ways in which media figures, sports heroes, and other high-profile people explain their successes and failures showcases the difference between optimism and pessimism.

Teachers can also use moments in the learning process when students feel frustration or self-doubt to coach them on how to dispute their pessimism and automatic negative thinking ( "I can't do this"; "I'm dumb") to make room for optimism and constructive thinking ( "Maybe I'm tired and I need a break"; "I solved the problem last week and I can do it again"; "It takes me a little longer than others, but I've come a long way"). Learning resilience skills can provide an internal psychological buffer for students when they are outside of school, as well as providing empowering experiences at school.

Every teacher wants to positively impact the lives of their students. For students who are affected by trauma, the teacher plays an even more vital role. The introduction of positive psychology into the classroom has huge potential to change the trajectories of the lives of many of these young people by moving beyond repair to also inspire growth.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma

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Teachers can help students recognize their strengths and build resilience.

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Texas A&M Today spoke with two experts with backgrounds in educational psychology to better understand how trauma affects K-12 students: Jeffrey Liew and Idean Ettekal are professors in the Department of Educational Psychology in the School of Education & Human Development at Texas A&M University.

Questions by the interviewer and then responses from these two professors.

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In addition to the normal anxiety associated with heading back to school, Texas school children may also be facing extra stressors this year.

Experts say students can be affected by trauma in several ways, such as experiencing or learning about events like the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. Texas A&M Today spoke with two experts with backgrounds in educational psychology to better understand how trauma affects K-12 students: Jeffrey Liew and Idean Ettekal are professors in the Department of Educational Psychology in the School of Education & Human Development at Texas A&M University.

What is trauma?

Liew: Trauma is an emotional and stress response that overwhelms or interferes with a person's ability to cope with future or further experiences of stress. Simply put, trauma can be thought of as emotional and psychological injuries. There are different types of trauma, such as acute, chronic and complex trauma depending on the frequency, duration and nature or severity of the stressful or traumatic events.

Ettekal: Trauma typically relates to significant adverse experiences and events that have an impact on children's (and adults') psychological, social and emotional adjustment.

Does trauma affect how students react to their environments and with other people?

Liew: Many children who experienced trauma are likely to feel unsafe or in danger, seeing people or situations in the school or classroom as potential threats. When this happens, they experience hyperarousal, which could lead them to become emotionally dysregulated and go into fight, flight or freeze reactions to perceived threats. They may also become hypervigilant, leading them to become distracted from learning and achieving academically.

Ettekal: Traumatic experiences can affect students in many ways. For some students, their reactions may involve different types of externalizing behaviors including aggression and violence. For others, the reactions may be more of an internalizing nature (like anxiety, depression and withdrawal). In both cases, these types of behaviors may impact how students get along with others.

How might trauma be expressed by students in school and in the classroom?

Liew: Trauma can be complex. Students who have been exposed to traumatic or adverse experiences show symptoms of their trauma through dysregulation of their emotions, attention or behaviors. Teachers can easily misinterpret these symptoms of trauma as misbehavior or disengagement from students. What teachers may not know is that students with complex trauma may be experiencing a hijacking of neurobiological systems so that their emotions, attention and behaviors are dysregulated or out of control. The fear and anxiety some students experience could lead to problems in learning and academic achievement, as well as social, emotional and behavioral problems, peer problems, and school absenteeism or eventual school drop-out.

Ettekal: It likely depends on how students are coping with the trauma and types of support that they are receiving. For children who are having difficulty coping with trauma, they may seem less attentive in classwork, less interested in interacting with classmates and teachers, and generally exhibiting a decline in their school engagement (for example, less participation, greater absences, decline in work quality or completion).

How does trauma affect the brain behaviorally?

Liew: Trauma can impact children's neurophysiology and their development of self-regulation of their emotions and attention. Children who have been exposed to trauma may develop changes in their neurophysiology that impacts how they respond to everyday situations in their environment, including the school or classroom. These neurophysiological changes in children's development could result in emotion dysregulation or an "amygdala hijack," hypervigilance and internalizing or external problem behaviors.

Ettekal: There are likely different types of behavioral reactions associated with experiencing trauma. Perhaps the most common behavioral reactions would pertain to different types of internalizing problems, including feelings of depression, anxiety and withdrawal. Traumatic experiences may also lead to greater negative emotionality as well as greater difficulty controlling and regulating emotions, which may also lead to frustration and irritability.

How can parents, teachers and administrators provide support for students during the beginning of the school year?

Liew: Students exposed to trauma may have a difficult time trusting others, and may not feel safe around others, including teachers. Teachers' empathy plays a critical role in being able to engage in trauma-informed teaching practices. For example, teachers who are empathetic are likely to be mindful of creating trauma-sensitive learning environments for their students. Trauma-sensitive classrooms have predictable environments and schedules, planned transitions and clear boundaries and expectations. In our own research, we found that poorly regulated or dysregulated students were able to achieve academically just as well as students with good self-regulation skills when they were paired with a positive and supportive teacher. What this tells us is that teacher-student relationships matter, especially for students who have difficulties with emotion and self-regulation.

Teachers who are empathetic know how to establish trust and bond with students. But it is also important for teachers to set clear boundaries for themselves and to practice self-care, so that they can avoid or prevent compassion fatigue and burnout.

Our students have experienced life with a global pandemic, and many of them have also known neglect, abuse, violence, natural hazards or unnatural disasters. Many of our students have shown their resilience, but many are also struggling and suffering. Parents, teachers and school leaders could go a long way to support students during the start of the school year by meeting students where they're at because students with trauma histories can react in diverse and unexpected ways when they become triggered. Taking time to understand what may trigger students helps parents and teachers find ways to help students feel safe. In addition, while all students can benefit from predictability and consistency in the home and at school, this is particularly important for students struggling with stress or trauma. As part of this, teachers and school administrators can actively build emotionally healthy school cultures that benefit all students. For example, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs can be combined with trauma-informed approaches to promote students' emotional self-regulation, adaptive skills and resilience, as well as a positive and safe school climate.

Ettekal: For many students, the start of the school year may already be stressful as they are transitioning to new schools or classrooms, meeting new peers and adjusting to different standards or expectations. Experiencing more significant traumatic events on top of these more typical stressors may be overwhelming for some students, and require that they seek out additional supports. First, it is important for teachers and adult staff to recognize that students may be experiencing trauma and that students may be reacting to these experiences in different ways. Second, it is essential for adults to build responsive and caring relationships with their students and to start forming trust so that their students feel comfortable approaching them and confiding in them. Third, teachers and school administrators should be aware of the school- and community-based mental health and psychological services that are available to students so that they can help students access these additional resources and supports. In our Department of Educational Psychology, we also train school and counseling psychologists and offer a variety of affordable therapeutic and assessment services to children, youth, and families through our Counseling and Assessment Clinic (CAC) at Texas A&M.

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Recognizing Trauma In Students As Kids Head Back To School

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In addition to the normal anxiety associated with heading back to school, Texas school children may also be facing extra stressors this year. Experts say students can be affected by trauma in several ways, such as experiencing or learning about events like the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.

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THE PROBLEM: IMPACT

Recent neurobiological, epigenetics, and psychological studies have shown that traumatic experiences in childhood can diminish concentration, memory, and the organizational and language abilities children need to succeed in school. For some children, this can lead to problems with academic performance, inappropriate behavior in the classroom, and difficulty forming relationships. Learning about the impacts of trauma can help keep educators from misunderstanding the reasons underlying some children's difficulties with learning, behavior and relationships.

A) Childhood Trauma and Academic Performance

Learning to read, write, take part in a discussion, and solve mathematical problems rests on many underlying foundations-organization, comprehension, memory, the ability to produce work, engagement in learning, and trust. Another prerequisite for achieving classroom competency is the ability to self-regulate attention, emotions, and behavior. Not surprisingly, trauma resulting from overwhelming experiences has the power to disturb a student's development of these foundations for learning. It can undermine the development of language and communication skills, thwart the establishment of a coherent sense of self, compromise the ability to attend to classroom tasks and instructions, interfere with the ability to organize and remember new information, and hinder the grasping of cause-and-effect relationships-all of which are necessary to process information effectively. Trauma can also interfere with the capacity for creative play, which is one of the ways children learn how to cope with the problems of everyday life.
This first video below explores The Impacts of Trauma on Learning Part 1: Academic Performance.
B) Childhood Trauma and Classroom Behavior

For many children who have experienced traumatic events, the school setting can feel like a battleground in which their assumptions of the world as a dangerous place sabotage their ability to remain calm and regulate their behavior in the classroom. Unfortunately, many of these children develop behavioral coping mechanisms in an effort to feel safe and in control, yet these behaviors can frustrate educators and evoke exasperated reprisals, reactions that both strengthen the child's expectations of confrontation and danger and reinforce a negative self-image.

Many of the effects of traumatic experiences on classroom behavior originate from the same problems that create academic difficulties: the inability to process social cues and to convey feelings in an appropriate manner. This behavior can be highly confusing, and children suffering from the behavioral impacts of trauma are often profoundly misunderstood. Whether a child who has experienced traumatic events externalizes (acts out) or internalizes (withdraws, is numb, frozen, or depressed), a child's behavioral response to traumatic events can lead to lost learning time and strained relationships with teachers and peers.
This second video below explores The Impacts of Trauma on Learning Part 2: Classroom Behavior.
C) Childhood Trauma and Relationships

Children's struggles with traumatic stress and their insecure relationships with adults outside of school can adversely affect their relationships with school personnel and with peers. Preoccupied with their physical and psychological safety, children who have experienced traumatic events may be distrustful of adults and/or fellow students and unsure of the security of the school setting in general. They may also suffer delays in the development of age-appropriate social skills. They may not know how to initiate and cultivate healthy interpersonal relationships with their teachers or their peers.
This third video below explores The Impacts of Trauma on Learning Part 3: Relationships.

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The Problem: Impact - Trauma Sensitive Schools

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THE PROBLEM: IMPACT 2. Traumatic experiences can impact learning, behavior and relationships at school. Recent neurobiological, epigenetics, and

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Why Do We Need Trauma-Sensitive Schools - Trauma Sensitive Schools

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Part 2: Why Do We Need Trauma-Sensitive Schools? Providing trauma-sensitive, safe and supportive learning environments helps all students to feel calm,

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Supporting children through divorce or parental separation | YoungMinds Parents Lounge

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The article goes over how moving abroad or even moving from different places has trauma on American teenagers. Being in a new and strange place for anyone can be difficult let alone young individuals. There are numerous psychological challenges. They may not speak the language, have trouble fitting in, making friends, and adjusting to cultural norms (culture shock). Constant moving will mean they will be unable to settle down and develop strong friendships with peers and teacher/ other adults. Extreme cases they may even be alienated from certain members of their own family. The work life may be intense in the new country. Family members might work longer hours and not spend adequate time with their children. There were two groups studied: one group of American teenagers living in Europe and had moved at least 3 or more times, the other group lived in America. The results were the group living in Europe experienced more loneliness and feeling uncomfortable. These types of feelings can lead to alcoholism or other types of disorders.

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Moving and living overseas can have a multitude of positive and negative effects of individuals.  Kids often don't have much of a choice when moving abroad and can often feel negative emotional effects.  Growing up is difficult as it is, when this is put into the equation more problems can develop.  Some of the problems could be difficulty eating or sleeping.  The country may have different food that the child is used to and communication may be a problem.  Stress is another problem that may develop.  Children don't know how to express themselves emotionally sometimes.  This may lead to violence or other types of outbursts.  Severe cases may even lead to depression.  They may withdraw from others and want to stay home and not communicate at all.  Parents living abroad might find themselves busier and their child may develop feelings of loneliness, on top of having trouble making new friends in a new country.  An opposite effect of clinging more to the parents might develop.  It is important to always communicate with children and talk with them on an adult level sometimes.  It is okay to move abroad with kids but make sure they are prepared emotionally.

https://pacificprime.cn/blog/signs-of-expat-child-syndrome/

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Relocation isn't as simple as moving your physical body to a new country. It can be an emotionally-draining process that deeply affects your kid's psyche. Expat child syndrome (ECS) occurs when even after months, your child has still not settled in their new home. Psychologists use this term to describe children suffering from emotional stress because of their move abroad. Is your kid dealing with the signs of expat child syndrome and how can you help? Read on to find out in this Pacific Prime China article.

What is expat child syndrome?

ECS impacts children of all ages, but is most commonly found in 10 to 15-year-olds. Adolescents are the most vulnerable group because at this age, they rely heavily on peers for support. What's more, they're also dealing with the hormonal/emotional and physical changes that come with growing up - none of which they have a firm grasp on. Thus, cutting off relationships can be an incredibly painful experience for your teenagers.

7 signs of expat child syndrome

What's interesting about ECS is that the way it manifests depends on your child's personality and how deeply they've been affected by the move. Common risk factors of ECS include whether you're relocating to a culturally different country with a language barrier and how frequently your family relocates.

Nevertheless, see below for a list of common expat child syndrome symptoms to look out for. Observe your little one closely for any drastic behavioral or personality changes. All in all, watch out for their inability to adapt to the new environment.

1. Behavioral changes

Younger expat children who can't express their feelings might have trouble sleeping all of a sudden and/or just stop eating.

2. Hitting and biting

Another way your little ones cope with frustration and anger is by hitting and biting. Failing to express their emotions in words, might be a sign that they are terribly stressed about something but don't have the words to express it. Try to be understanding as children are more sensitive to changes compared to adults.

3. Withdrawal as one of the signs of expat child syndrome and depression

Did your beloved social butterfly spend most of the time locked up in their room seemingly overnight? Do they prefer to stay home alone or avoid communicating with others altogether?

Your child might be suffering from one of the signs of expat children syndrome if they remain this way for months after migration.

4. Loneliness

Have your children found a new group of friends? Are they complaining of feeling lonely in your new home? You are likely to be much busier than usual dealing with your new job, new home, and your own adjustment process. Check out our life hacks for expats living in China to make life easier. This can make your child feel even more alone and isolated.

5. Uncooperative or disruptive behavior

Your normally well-behaved kids may be lashing out either at home or school.

6. Irritability

Maybe they've become extra fussy and uncooperative after moving to your new home.

7. Unusually attached to the parents

The world your kids have known and loved has changed dramatically. They're cut off entirely from their social support system. To feel safe again, they might cling excessively to one or both parents. Maybe they've started crying at school time or are anxious whenever you're leaving for work. Here are some tips to help your child when starting a new school.

How to help a child with expat child syndrome

As expat parents, you're key to helping your kids overcome the signs of expat child syndrome. Maybe your children, particularly if they're teenagers, are resentful of your decision to move abroad. However, it's important that you push through. Be an understanding and patient parent for your kids during this difficult time. Acknowledge and validate their feelings, however irrational. This way, you'll help them find their footing and thrive in their new home.

See below for several ways you can help a child with expat child syndrome.

1. Communication to ease the signs of expat child syndrome

You should regularly gauge how your little ones are settling down into expat life. Identify any difficulties they may be having with the following questions:

Is it easy to make friends at school?

What is your favorite part and least favorite part about your new school?

What do you like about our life overseas?

What do you miss most about our home country?

To take it a step further, talk through and label these feelings with them. It'll help children learn to better recognize unfamiliar feelings and handle them the right way.

Note: All it takes is one little thing, such as a difficult day at a new school, to send a child into their shell and dearly miss their home country and old friends. Remember that adjusting to a new country takes time and is not a linear process.

Communication prior to relocation

Let your kids in on your decisions and discussions of the family relocation. Be as transparent as possible to prepare them mentally for the move, so there will be no nasty surprises. Allow them to decide on what to bring to your new house and what to ship. Most importantly, let them say their farewells to their friends and family.

If time is on your side, familiarize your kid with visits to their new school prior to migration. Keep in mind that international schools are full of children in a similar situation, so they may be a good choice for yours too.

2. Positive social interaction

Making new friends at school may be hard for your little one. This is especially true if you experience a language barrier at your new home. Find other opportunities to interact with kids their own age, such as:

Extracurricular activities or classes

Find a local youth group

Volunteer

Social media groups for expats

Language classes

Your child might find it much easier to make friends if there's a common interest. After all, basketball plays the same way no matter where you are in the world, right? As a bonus, you might also meet other expat parents who will "show you the ropes" to thriving in this new country.

3. Find a balance between staying in touch with friends back home

While your family might be moving to the other side of the world, it doesn't mean you have to cut off all ties to your home country. Make sure your kids know this. Help your munchkins plan proper farewell parties for their friends and family. This will be seen as a celebration and a happy send-off.

After relocation, remember to help them maintain contact with their loved ones. Whether it's Facetime, Zoom, or email, all contact is good contact. You can also celebrate the old traditions while embracing new ones to help your kids feel connected. Last but not least, plan activities around your new city to help them feel excited about living there.

After following these tips to fight off the signs of expat children syndrome, follow up by observing your child's behavior and state of mind. Ask for feedback from teachers to see how your kid is faring at school.

Protect your family with family insurance

Relocation is a time of high stress for many families. That makes it all the more important to secure health insurance for kids in China. Along with the physical and emotional toll of the move, finding a trusted hospital in your new home can be difficult. Moreover, hospital bills can certainly add up. With health insurance in hand, you'll get peace of mind knowing that you won't have to pay out-of-pocket. Here are our tips on finding the best family health insurance plan in China.

Pacific Prime China has over 20 years of experience working in the health insurance industry. We partner with reputable insurers to find you attractive plans for your budget. For a free plan comparison and impartial advice, contact our team of insurance advisors today.
Disclaimer: Pacific Prime China solely represents, operates, and manages locally regulated insurance products and services in the territory of PR China. Any references to Pacific Prime Global Company or Group, the international services, insurance products, or otherwise stated written or verbally, is for introduction purposes about our overseas network only as each entity is fully independent.

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7 Signs of Expat Child Syndrome: What is it and How Can Parents Help?

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Relocation isn't as simple as moving your physical body to a new country. It can be an emotionally-draining process that deeply affects your kid's psyche. Expat child syndrome (ECS) occurs when even after months, your child has still not settled in their new home.

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Strategies for dealing with trauma in the music classroom

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Strategies for dealing with trauma in the music classroom

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Here are some of the strategies that I would like to use in my music classroom to enable me to create a safe space where students with trauma are managed effectively and identified.

1) My upmost priority would be to work on ensuring a 'safe space' for students. I would greet students with a smile and communicate with each of them warmly. I would speak respectfully and kindly to them and never rush them or put pressure on them to perform musically.
2) I would treat my classroom as a holistic environment whereby I could reframe the mindset for disruptive students from 'what is wrong with this student' to 'what happened to you'. For example if a student is screaming during choir practise or banging instruments violently, perhaps there are reasons, and they have activated the 'flight or fight' response. I could consult best trauma-informed practises within the music literature to best manage these students. For example:
3) I could create an environment where trauma and it's realisation are allowed. Music therapy interventions can be utilised, such as drumming and movement body activation therapy, singing and movement, mirroring, and emotive songwriting strategies. We can also use art and drawing as as way of interpreting and labelling difficult fealings.
4) We can explore mindfulness and meditation within the framework of music. How can we become aware of our breathing whilst singing, how can we label and disattach from these negative feelings. Can we meditate before selecting instruments and can we be aware of our body whilst performing. All of mindfulness techniques on offer these days can substantially limit the disruptive effects of trauma. Ultimately it is an interdiscplinary approach which requires the efforts of all involved, from parents, to teachers to counselors. At the root of every trauma based disruption, there is an underlying cause which is then projected into the behaviour. It is up to the educator to allow time and space to explore these feelings and to seek the neccessary interventions to manage them appropiately.

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Disruptive instrument playing may be a sign of inner anger and unrealised stress. By offering a safe zone to actually allow these feelings to be conveyed in a safe way - we can label and ackowledge them. For example in piano therapy - We ask the student 'Can you play what happy sounds like'? - The student plays. 'Can you play what sad sounds like' etc. Or the teacher can play angry, whilst the student moves or acts in an angry way. It is essentially about allowing the feelings to be realised and accepted.

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Student withdraws from all musical activities

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Student withdraws from all musical activities

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Often times, withdrawal from all musical activities is a sign that the student is experiencing symptoms of trauma. The student feels incapable, on a subconscious level, or allowing the possibility that the sound of his sadness/anger is to be displayed or noticed. The student typically then starts to try and prevent others from playing or seeks to mock them or bully them. One solution is to give the student music therapy. As a trained music therapist, I am able to offer interventions to students such as piano therapy and drum therapy, whereby , on a one to one basic, I slowly remove the blocks to their emotional suppression, musically. This may involve musical mirroring, songwriting and improvisation - all of which encourage self-expression and channelling.