Last week I watched the Every Child Flourishing Event held in June 2021. The event covered a number of topics relating to the impact trauma has on children’s behaviour and development. There were a number of viewpoints given from professionals and care leavers. I'm going to summarise some of the things that really resonated with what we are working towards at the Thriving Minds Project. 

Understanding trauma starts by understanding the development of the brain. At a basic level, there are three distinct ‘brains’ that were talked about during the event. The first was the brainstem, responsible for survival and the ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response which helped us escape predators in our early evolution. These responses are innate and not easily controlled. The second part is the limbic brain, responsible for emotions and memories. The third part is the pre-frontal cortex or ‘thinking brain’ which we use to analyse situations and make rational decisions. 

Children who are in ‘survival mode’, in order to cope with a traumatic environment, are less able to access their pre-frontal cortex, relying more on their ‘fight, flight, freeze’ instincts. They often exhibit behaviour which is deemed inappropriate such as fidgeting, zoning out or fighting. This behaviour, however, is a response to being in this survival mode, rather than deliberate rule breaking or poor decision making. Language is part of the pre-frontal cortex and cannot be accessed when in survival mode, making it difficult to help children if only a talking approach is offered. 

Practitioner Louise Bomber spoke about children who are exhibiting poor behaviour are often being ‘misinterpreted and misunderstood’ by their teachers and care givers. She states that how we approach children’s behaviours ‘can make all the difference between exclusion and inclusion’. 

As many of us have witnessed, more and more children are struggling with toxic stress, exacerbated in some cases by the pandemic. The stress affects executive function, making it more difficult for the child to focus on the organizational skills and workload that is expected of them by school. It can also affect regulation and psychological development of children, which means they are not able to control the emotions as they might be expected to, and the intensity of the emotions can become overwhelming. 

Louise said children who have been through traumatic experiences have the tendency to never allow themselves to be ‘small, weak and defenseless’ again. Children who misbehave can come across as defensive for this reason. Defensiveness is not deliberate, because the reasoning part of their brain is not activated when they are in a trauma state. When children respond in this way, we need to first make them feel safe, so they can trust us, and we can reach them. 

To help the children who are experiencing stress and trauma, schools should focus on mind body interventions, use sensory tools, and teach children ways of regulating themselves. Cognitive tools, such as talking about emotions and problem solving can be useful for reflection, however at times when a child is experiencing high levels of stress, they are not able to access these tools. Psychotherapist Betsy de Thierry* explained that schools are dependent on a child’s ability to use words to describe how they’re feeling. However, multiple traumas and pervasive trauma changes the brain and ability to use words when they’re in the trauma state. 

Policies and practices that are commonly used in our schools can inadvertently activate a fear response in the child, which prevents the child from engaging effectively in the resolution strategies schools often use.  Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology, Eamon McCory, talked about the very common ‘Zero Tolerance’ to bad behaviour practices in schools. He concluded that these practices can stop schools from exploring why children are showing certain behaviours as individuals, and finding solutions to those problems. Awareness of trauma should inform whole school policies so that all children are being regulated enough to be able to engage in their learning. Betsy de Thierry spoke a lot about the environments that children are in, asking us to consider communication within the family, and what else is going on in their lives. She said schools and care givers need to both be involved in helping the child, and that the whole school culture needs to change to help achieve these goals. 

Professor McCory also talked about the range of impacts lockdown has had on children’s mental health. Some children have benefitted from lockdowns as they have been less anxious due to being at home. However, other children will have found it a traumatic experience. I myself have seen this pattern in children I’ve worked with – some who are dealing with trauma due to isolation and bereavement and others who were doing well at home but can’t cope with being back in a busy and demanding school environment. We need to have curiosity and openness about why children behave in a certain way. 

At the Thriving Minds Project, we want to work with schools to develop up to date policies on behaviour that take all of this into account. We also want to work with children, carers and schools to introduce more sensory work to regulate children’s emotions when using only words is not effective. This will help children to feel safe and understood, which will ultimately enable them to get more out of their learning and meet their goals. 

* A quick dig shows Betsy de Thierry has some unusual views on ADHD and Autism, and has previously stated that Trauma is often mislabeled as ADHD or Autism (and even going as far as saying they do not exist). I want to make it clear I do not agree with these views, having had extensive personal and professional experience with people with these diagnoses. However, she appears to be knowledgeable about trauma, and I admit there is certainly some overlap with the behaviours that often relate to trauma, such as sensory needs and communication barriers, as well as the high prevalence of trauma in the Autistic population.