The Theory
Traumatized children cannot understand cause-and-effect relationships. These children have difficulty internalizing what is an appropriate reaction and what is not appropriate. This leads to a child’s lack of motivation and poor behavior in the classroom. Traumatized children are easily distracted or lack focus in the classroom. Their school work and behavior becomes problematic. Because of the adverse situations they witness every day, traumatized children gravitate to the wrong things. Many traumatized children exhibit the symptoms of anxiety, hypervigilance to danger, or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to Tough’s researchers, ADHD and trauma often coexist. Children diagnosed with ADHD have difficulty regulating their emotions. Their ability to self-regulate their emotions is critical to being able to function in a classroom setting. They have difficulty sitting in one place for a short amount of time, they cannot pay attention for a sustained amount of time, or have trouble completing assignments.
Jeffrey A. Butts (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is the Director of Research and Evaluation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Dr. Butts’ work focuses on discovering and improving the effectiveness of policies and programs related to the juvenile justice system. Dr. Butts talks about several methods that can be used to dismantle risk factors of youth becoming juvenile delinquents and ultimately incarcerated as adults. According to the book Helping Traumatized Children Learn (a collaborative writing of Susan F. Cole, Jessica O’Brien, M. Gerod Gadd, Joel Ristuccia, D. Luray Wallace, and Michael Gregory) “when children witness violence between their adult caregivers or experience abuse or neglect, they enter the classroom believing that the world is an unpredictable and threatening place. Children in this condition typically are ill-prepared for the academic and social challenges of the classroom. Oftentimes, concentration is nearly impossible for that child”. Aaron Kupchik’s book The School-to-Prison Pipeline, and various PDFs and articles give facts about the school-to-prison pipeline and its effects and ways to afford this pipeline.
Described below are Dr. Butts’ eight modules of prevention methods and if applied effectively, can have lasting effects in teaching traumatized children:
Family communication: Parents need to have an open and honest dialogue with their children. Open communication and dialogue is critical. According to the research conducted by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, adolescents are very impressionable and they lack sound judgement skills. The research also found adolescents lack the correct dopamine levels that control the pleasure area of the brain causing them not to understand their level of pleasure. For example, a child may find comfort and pleasure in playing with toys soldiers or doll babies. However, as their dopamine level matures, the child will learn to adopt new and more advanced levels of comfort like baseball or dress-up. Family communication will enable the child to develop less risky pleasures. A child without family communication and guidance may seek transition from play fighting to actual street fighting or playing with toy guns to shooting real guns.
Family communication helps children be at ease when faced with difficult situations. Today’s youth are faced with situations not known to their parents. Youth have to deal with excessive bullying (cyber, physical, mental), issues of gender orientation, acceptance or isolation, subtle racism and overt racism, gang involvement, drugs, and technology. Parents need to have communication with their children that celebrates achievements. When youth are faced with these troubling issues, knowing a parent or another relative has a vested interest in their development is reassuring. Even if the parent has never experienced these issues, just knowing a parent will help them navigate through the situation builds confidence. Parents need to pay close attention to their children’s non-verbal messages. Non-verbal communication can be as powerful as verbal communication and can offer insight as to what their child is experiencing but not saying. Parents also need to be active listeners. Parents need to try their best to understand their children’s point of view. Being an active listener also means the parent should respect their child’s opinions. Parents should strive to speak with their children in a clear and direct manner – never leaving room for conversations to be misinterpreted.
With the traumatized child, lack of communication may lead to seeking the constant approval of a parent even if the expectations are unrealistic. The child will constantly look for ways to gain approval and validation from the parent. Because traumatized children are accustomed to chaos, they often try to appear in control despite feeling out of control. The result of this constant exposure, the child will become a perfectionist. The perfectionist mentality inflected upon traumatized children causes them to become easily frustrated and give up when they encounter difficulty mastering a task. Traumatized students lack the language to fully express their feelings. They often display fear of the unknown, shame, anger, depression, and guilt. Traumatic experiences disrupt the ability of children to learn and process verbal information and use language to communicate. Difficulty in expressing their feelings and internalizing their feelings puts traumatized children at risk for somatic symptoms. (Stephen Green, Virginia Tech., Families First Keys to Successful Functioning: Communication, May 1, 2004).
A non-parental adult role model: The non-parental adult role model can be a part of a network of responsible adults that guide youth through advice and demonstrate by example. A necessary non-parental adult role model should be a child’s teacher. This is an opportunity for teachers to get to know their students and earn the traumatized students’ trust. With nurtured individual relationships with students, the teacher can earn a higher buy in when teaching, longer attention spans, producing high scores or show growth on standardize testing. Students will take ownership of their misbehavior and self- correct and they take ownership of their classmates’ behavior. Not only can a child’s teacher be their non-parental adult role model, athletic coaches, school counselors, and school administrators can fill the role.
Children who are traumatized lack the ability to process information and cannot distinguish between threatening and non-threatening situations which leads to the inability to form trusting relationships with adults, particularly their teacher. Childhood trauma and a failure to do well in academics go hand-in-hand. Because of this inability, traumatic children often experience difficulty with literacy skills and behavioral self-regulation (Helping Traumatic Children Learn).
When the teacher asks the traumatized student to comply with simple instructions, the student may act as if they did not hear the teacher or simply refuse to comply. To the traumatized student, complying with simple directives can be seen as a threat leaving them vulnerable. Some traumatized children will react to directives by disengagement, withdrawal, or dissociating - “going away” in their minds. Disengagement or dissociating causes the child to miss large amounts of learning.
Peer role models: Children should have a circle of friends that offer support, share safe interests and contribute to their emotional growth. Having friends to share feelings with when going through a “rough patch” makes the experience easier to cope with. Peer role models show you who you are. People, in general, seek out friends who have similar interest and actions. Good peer role models help one another stay focused. Good friends know each other inside and out; sometimes they are able to spot things that their friend cannot see or for some reason has chosen to overlook. A good peer model is not afraid to speak their mind when a friend gets out of line. A good peer model can serve as a source of inspiration.
A good peer role model is essential for traumatized children since they have problems dealing with adults. They behave confrontationally or overact when they are being disciplined or redirected by the teacher. They often vie for power with the classroom teacher. Traumatized children feel they are only safe if they are in control of their surroundings. Traumatized children do not like surprises and they cannot handle spontaneous events or change. These children may find it difficult to make transitions during the course of the school day. A good peer role model can help the traumatized student transition from lessons in the class to changes they may alter the school day.
Good health practices: A child’s lifestyle that includes regular exercise and nutrition helps with their physical and mental development. Regular exercise eliminates the possibility of becoming overweight and high levels of stress. A good nutritional balance of the five food groups significantly lowers the possibility of developing stress-related and chronic diseases. Children should get regular check-ups by pediatricians, dentists, and have regular eye exams. These factors are necessary in developing and maintaining a healthy body for life (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).
Traumatized children often do not have good health practices. Traumatized children may have frequent headaches, complain about gastrointestinal problems, and body pains. Traumatized children may experience extended periods of fatigue, sleeplessness and eating disorders. Somatic symptoms can lead to time absent from school and constant request to go to the restroom or school nurse’s office. These activities adversely affect the student’s academic performance.
Time spent in group activities: A connection to an organization or league, be it religious, artistic or athletic fosters a sense of belonging and teamwork skills. Group activities help youth develop good decision-making skills, conflict resolution skills, and problem solving skills. Group activities enhance social skills and interactions. Group activities with students from diverse backgrounds provide opportunities to share experiences with other students. Students who may be introverted can have an opportunity to be heard.
When traumatic children have no outlet and school has become too difficult or bothersome, they often find themselves in situations that lead to criminal offenses. The traumatic child will most certainly end up in the juvenile justice system.
Community involvement: An attachment to society can spark a sense of engagement with the youth. Youth involved in community activities develop the skill of resilience. The idea is that resilient communities have the capacity to support youth in times of need. By youths developing positive relationships within the community, youths grow to understand the value of their community. Youths involved in the community tend to demonstrate increased social participation and be involved in community actions (The Positive Effects of Youth Community Engagement, 2013-2018).
Responsible choices: Parents need to develop within their children the ability to judge situations, evaluate risks, and make good and positive long-term decisions. Being able to make sound decisions at an early age, helps children to develop the skills necessary for adulthood decision making. Bad decision making is an essential part of maturity, but if poor decision becomes a pattern, it can be the recipe for destruction. Parents cannot abruptly thrust their children into making good decisions, it has to be a process. Parents need to start with small doses. A perfect example for a young child is having them decide what candy they want at the check-out line. Boundaries need to be set, otherwise the child will be overwhelmed by the choices. A parent could give them a small number of items in which to choose from, making the process less cumbersome. As the child matures, the decision making should increase at their level of maturity (Parenting: Decision Making-Help Your Child Become Good Decision Makers, October, 19, 2009).
Aspirations for the future: Aspiration help fosters children’s vision of their destiny and belief that their goals are attainable. High aspirations of children, with the support from their parents, has a direct link to higher school achievement. Developing high aspirations as a child is a good predictor of the child meeting goals as an adult. High aspirations must be coupled with high expectations in order to be fully affective. A well connected family with clear values and goals, will make it easier for a child to set their aspirations and meet or exceed their expectations. Setting high aspirations and expectations at an early age also forms a positive attitude toward education, career goals, and work ethics. Parents need to expose their children to positive and fulfilling experiences and cultures, such as theatre or art, music, languages, technology, and diversity of people. These exposures enable children to be well-rounded and understand that no aspiration or expectation is out of reach (Nabil Khattab, Students’ Aspiration Expectation and School Achievement).
For traumatized children, everything looks bleak; they expect themselves to fail. Children surviving daily trauma typically have a low sense of self-worth. Because the inner self is so off balanced, they have no way to develop an internal road map to guide them. Therefore, what the child relies on is the notion to act instead of plan.
Comments: