Becoming Trauma-Informed and Trauma Responsive

All of us as humans have a threat response system in our brains that involves our sensory afferent pathways to the lower parts of the brain stem to the mid-brain limbic system and directly to action in the case of danger or to the higher planning and executive functions of the cortex in the case of safety cues. Executive planning can occur in the pre-frontal cortex when cues of safety are established or reestablished

An important response of the brainstem and limbic system to trauma is to fight or flee. Energy is drawn away from non-essential functions like digestion and doing math problems and sent to muscles, breathing, and heart rate. It is useful when you are attacked by a bear, but not in the classroom. This response can be strengthened by repeated activations. It can be reinforced to happen when the danger is only perceived and is not real. Activating this stress response in the classroom can manifest as violence or elopement. It is not hard to notice when fully activated but is difficult to respond to appropriately. We can be trained to notice it before it happens. Kids that are close to this state look like a watchdog, with ears perked and the muscles of the face tensing. Some kids will look like a watchdog for most of the day. Many can develop an ability to hold back running away or becoming violent, but this is not a brain state in which students can learn.

Another response of the brainstem and limbic system to trauma is freeze. Sometimes the safest way to survive a threat is to shut down and play dead. When a child is overwhelmed by trauma, and there is no way out, this is the brain and body’s way of blocking out pain. It is useful in a time of great danger, but the energy that would have gone to fighting or running away is stored in the body as trauma. The pathway to the freeze response can be strengthened as well and children can become easily triggered into a shutdown response that turns on much too easily, like when a math problem is too hard, or when someone is yelling or threatening them.

A fourth response is to appease or to fawn. It generates safety by going along with anything that is asked of you. Of course, this safety is a counterfeit. Going along with anything asked of you can actually be very dangerous. Fawn is your body's stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict. This response is reinforced when the need for it arises over and over. A child in this state can appear to be learning but in fact, learning is hindered.

This metaphor refers to our ability to be emotionally regulated. When we are talking too fast, raging with anger, hyper-active, or hyper-aware we are above the window. When we are dissociating, depressed, spacing out, or overly sleepy, we are hypo-active and are below the window. Mentally healthy individuals have a large window of tolerance. They feel the emotional ups and downs while still staying in a mental state where they can function and make good decisions. They have access to all parts of their thinking. When a person has experienced trauma, especially in childhood, their window of tolerance can be very narrow. They can easily be pushed or fall out of that window. (Dr. Dan Siegel, MD is the originator of this concept)

What are the resulting behaviors?

A child in a hypervigilant state is looking for danger and expecting it. Full activation of the stress response can happen very quickly. The child can go from seeming off but ok, to a full-blown rage in seconds. Knowing the warning signs is helpful. Just like a watchdog we see ears perked, muscles of the face contracting, and faster breath and heart rate.

A child in a hypo-active state is sleepy, distracted, unfocused, or even dissociative. This can look like regulation, but in fact, it is a counterfeit. A student trapped in this state cannot learn. We need to find a gentle way to establish safety and bring them back into social engagement.

As we have shown with our explanation of brain function, for a person outside their window of tolerance, at that moment, they are unable to behave in the way required. It is not a matter of won’t, at that moment it is a matter of can’t. An older child who has lived in his traumatized brain longer and has been around inflexible adults long enough will have protective defenses that mask this inability. The behavior will look like rebellion, disrespect, and manipulation. In fact, it will be these things. But underneath all that, is the inability to regulate emotion.

We can help with regulation, and if we are going to teach anything about behavior, we have to do this first, because, without regulation, their brain is not going to have access to the higher functioning of the cortex that enables a conversation about behavior.

I know it goes against what you have heard about responding quickly to misbehavior, but skip this step for the traumatized child and you will escalate the behavior you want to stop! Actually, this escalation is a good indication that trauma may be a problem.

This is what is going on with the student who throws a chair across a room, or jabbes a pencil into their neighbor's hand! They are outside their window of tolerance and the best time to intervene was 5 minutes ago when they first started to get dysregulated. This can also be what is going on with the student who spaces out, sleeps at their desk, or can’t show up on time.

After the child experiences co-regulation with a trusted adult, we are ready to talk about behavior.

There are some really great tools out there for teaching about zones of regulation to kids. This can be done in group settings and individually. This is something that can be reinforced by the culture of the school. We talk about how our brains work. Kids are given language for telling teachers about the state of their nervous system. I really like the zones of regulation concept. (concept by Leah Kuypers). https://zonesofregulation.com/index.html

I also like the language of “watchdog, possum, and owl brain” that can be used to teach students about state regulation and awareness. https://robyngobbel.com/freeresources/

I recommend this website and podcasts highly. This is where I learned about the possum, watchdog, and owl brain language. This may be a secondary source for this information but you should find references to the original source here.

Teaching about emotional intelligence using a “feelings wheel” and giving language to emotions is also useful.

In the moment, when a child is outside their window of tolerance, we need a plan for how to react. We can learn to notice it sooner by listening to behavior. Behavior is communication. We can respond with tools for regulating, allowing the child to take a break, get water or food, and find a comfortable location. In a fully escalated state, we can mirror the energy without the dysregulation, validate the child's emotion with our words, give affirmations, and try to make our own regulation contagious.

Restraint and seclusion should never be part of the reaction plan. Restraint is a controversial reaction for good reason. It is retraumatizing, setting the healing process back many steps. We can use de-escalation skills.

Being trauma-responsive means that not only are individuals aware of how trauma affects the brain, the whole environment is set up to counteract the effects of trauma. It is set up to build resources for the child, both internal and external. Positive relationships heal relational trauma, so building relationships among all the staff, students, and parents is a priority.

In a trauma-responsive environment, everyone who comes in contact with the child is trauma-informed from the principal to the bus driver and custodian. There are planning meetings for staff where trauma-informed practices are discussed and connected to the problems at hand. Trauma-informed training is not a one-time event, it is ongoing, and affects the culture of the school.

The school has prioritized rules about safety and has taken a deep look at the policies and rules of the school to make sure that they support all students.

There are some great programs out there for training staff. There are also many ideas to be found about setting up the classroom environment. There are also ideas for regulation and order. I will be gradually adding information to this page to share some that I have found, but a simple internet search can bring up many ideas. Taking the time to continually update the toolbox of the school will mean that individuals are continually learning and adding to the collective knowledge. I invite you to keep learning.

Our schools are a community where we need to have order. How that order is lovingly maintained is important, but so are elements of that order. The elements need to make sense to the children if we are to have their respect. Rules regarding safety are a priority. These rules make the most sense to traumatized children because they are looking for safety with vigilance.

When we choose rules that are irrelevant to safety, we build distrust and rebellion. Rules about safety can be consistently enforced while we can remain flexible about everything else.

Sometimes schools choose rules about expression that bias the dominant cultural norms. We really need to look at these expectations and ask if a rule is needed. Could we teach about cultural norms with greater flexibility and inclusion?

One example is the no hats rule. Many children and youth with trauma use clothing that allows them to hide in the background. They pull up the hood on their hoodie, wear hats or large coats to cover themselves. It is a safeguard that at least for a while, they really need in order to be able to even walk in the door. Sure, we would like them to have more confidence, and we can encourage that eventually, but should we hijack their whole education because they are unable to walk in the door with confidence.

Timeliness is another difficult problem for this population. Awareness of time is a higher brain function. When children are spending so much time in watch dog hyper awareness or possum dissociation, they do not have access to this left brain prefrontal cortex awareness. Bells that go off at seemingly random times, punishments that try to negatively reinforce timeliness, all show the student that we care about things that they cannot do. Too many artificial divisions of time interrupt the moments that students are able to find a flow. When we make timeliness more important than education, we hijack their education. We can introduce punctuality in a developmental way. This is what this model can do.

We should never be leveraging the child's education to get them to behave in socially acceptable ways. That doesn’t mean that we are not going to be teaching students to behave in socially acceptable ways. We welcome students back into social engagement with compassion and patience.