Trauma

Trauma is when we experience very stressful, frightening or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of our control. It could be one incident, or an ongoing event that happens over a long period of time.

We are all aware of ACE’s and know that these can have a long term impact on both physical and mental health and studies show that every school has children who have been exposed to trauma, such as witnessing domestic abuse, being the direct targets of abuse, and other kinds of adversity. The Adverse Childhood Experiences study found higher levels of traumatic experiences in the general population than previously imagined.

Trauma is not an event itself, but rather a response to one or more overwhelmingly stressful events where one’s ability to cope is dramatically undermined. For some children these experiences result in a trauma response that can lead to a cascade of social, emotional and academic difficulties that can interfere with a child’s ability to learn at school. Neurobiological research has shown that the trauma response can diminish concentration, memory and the organisational and language abilities students need to succeed in school, potentially leading to problems with academic performance, challenging behavior in the classroom, and difficulty forming relationships.

It’s important to remember that trauma looks different for each and every person—from the experiences themselves, to their emotional impacts, to the ways in which they manifest themselves. We may never have a clear answer as to whether or not a child has experienced trauma, nor a full picture of a child’s emotional well-being or needs. When you are challenged by a child's behaviour ask yourself What is happening for them? Understanding why a child is exhibiting these behaviours is the first and most important part of helping them

Stress, or the stress response, is an important function of the central nervous system. When you’re faced with a frightening or difficult situation that feels beyond your ability to cope, your nervous system releases the stress response. This causes changes in the body, like:

Pulse and heart rate get faster
Small airways in your lungs get wider, and you breathe more quickly
Senses (like sight and sound) become sharper

We often talk about stress as being a bad thing, but evolutionary speaking, stress has actually served us well. The physical changes that come along with stress helped us to be prepared for predators and other potential dangers. For example, your heart might pump harder to get more blood into your muscles.

That’s why the stress response is also called the fight, flight, or freeze response. The stress response physiologically helped our ancestors fight off , or run away from, predators and other dangers. If the danger was overwhelming, they also may have “frozen,” a survival tactic that’s similar to when animals play dead. Freezing also allows you to take some extra time to prepare yourself to confront the danger.

In other words, the fight, flight, or freeze response is automatic, and not something that we can control. Obviously, we’re no longer “cave people,” and most of the time, we’re no longer running away from or fighting off tigers and bears. But the stress response is still very active in humans today.

Children who have gone through traumatic experiences may have an overactive stress response. This means that those who have gone through trauma may be more likely to enter into fight, flight, or freeze mode even when there’s no real danger in the classroom and this is known as a trauma response.

Remember that behaviour is communication: it’s the way children let us know what’s happening to them emotionally and psychologically. When a child’s behaviour is challenging, it’s usually serving a purpose for them. It may be a way of letting you know they’re anxious or scared, or a way of them managing big emotions.

This video from Cambridgeshire County Council collaborated with pupils from Swavesey Primary School and Swavesey Village College is a performance of the poem ‘Why I am Rude’, written by Sarah Dillon from the National Association for Therapeutic Parents

(https://www.naotp.com/).

This poem aims to help adults and children to understand the 'why' behind behaviours which may be seen or described as rude, when actually, it is often a defence mechanism. There may be trauma, attachment or adverse childhood events which have impacted on the child's view of themselves and those around them. These children are not rude, they are communicating their pain.

Through research we now know that there two more trauma responses in addition to fight flight and freeze that were used by our ancestors for survival and they are flop and fawn.

So why do children go into survival mode and display trauma responses?

This is a tricky question as we do not always know, what can seem to us a normal request, activity or expectation can cause for a child who has experienced trauma strong emotions and essentially fear.

It is important to remember that if a child has encountered a stressful experience previously, they may be reacting to the association between something that can appear completely normal and a link to their memory of a stressful situation – the reaction may appear to have come completely out of the blue, but something has triggered their behaviour. For example you ask the children to sit in their seats in a neutral tone but for a child who has experienced trauma they may hear this as an exaggerated and angry SIT IN YOUR SEATS. So they may automatically go into a trauma response. Another example is when a child is asked to participate in an activity and they are paralyzed by fear of making a mistake, and that can make them appear to be defiant or oppositional. A mistake that might seem trivial to us becomes magnified, if their experience has been that minor mistakes incurred adult anger or punishment. It could also be, that something being knocked off the table and banging on the floor, might result in a sound which triggers a memory of a traumatic event that involved a loud crashing sound or a smell this could be perfume or the dinner being cooked in the canteen.

What we do know is that when a child displays a trauma response it is because of a perceived danger and they are in a state of fear, they do not have normal brain function at this time, so reasoning or discussion are not possible until they feel safe and have left the survival mode. For some children they can get stuck in a trauma response and they continuously waiting for the next attack and are consistently hypervigilant and in survival mode. I am sure you can all think of children who are persistently challenging within the school environment.

Details of each trauma response can be found below.

Fight

Fight is one of the more oblivious trauma responses to identify. The child feels in danger and believes they can overpower the threat, they are in fight mode. Their brain sends signals throughout their body to rapidly prepare for the physical demands of fighting, they may clench their fists, their muscles and jaw will tighten they use aggression to keep themselves safe.

In a classroom situation, this response is seen in the child who lashes out at those around them, either verbally or physically. Their behaviour will be seen as aggressive and can manifest itself in the throwing of objects from pencils to chairs and desks or verbally shouting, arguing, swearing or being rude. Students may also become physically aggressive with you by biting or scratching. They may come across as oppositional, defiant, not following instructions, students can seem constantly angry or irritable.

Another side of the fight response which you may think is unexpected is that a child in fight response can become a bully, studies have shown that a child who has a number of ACE’s can exhibit bullying behaviour in response to trauma.

Flight

In a flight response, a student is highly anxious and hyper vigilant. They scan the environment in preparation to flee danger.

In the classroom situation, the flight reaction is exhibited by a student that faced with stress runs for the classroom door, hides at the end of playtime, or locks themselves in the toilets, hides under tables. Needing to be first in line or at the front this is so they can escape or flee first before everyone else.

Hyperactivity, they never sit still they may get up and walk around the classroom, constantly moving in their chair, clicking their pen. The class clown, they become silly and a bit manic this is to cause a distraction so they either have an opportunity to escape or are sent out of the classroom.

The reaction can also be much more subtle, with a child choosing to switch off and not engage in a lesson, with you or their peers – while they haven’t physically attempted to flee the situation, they are mentally opting out of it. Some students who have a high flight response may have separation anxiety or want to go home.

For older students this can include not attending lessons, they can also participate in substance misuse whether this is drugs or alcohol this is a way for them to escape life in a sense they feel it helps them to mentally opt out.

Freeze

Students in a freeze response may totally shut down. The student who is “freezing” might look physically immobile to you, as if they can’t move or their body is heavy. They might also be dazed or distracted, and have a hard time starting tasks. When you talk to them, they may be unresponsive or say “I don’t know” a lot.

If circumstances prevent them from fighting or fleeing, their system resorts to freezing. They are unable to think clearly or reply to someone well. Inside they are frightened. This response can lead to shame when they can’t find their thoughts or words when asked a question in class.

In the classroom this can often be the subtlest of reactions to stress and harder to identify. It can manifest as a child who appears very quiet and shy at school but catch them on the weekend or at home and they will be animated and lively. In this situation, they are trying not to get noticed in class. They never offer an answer and asking them a question directly serves only to heighten their anxiety. At a more extreme level it can also manifest itself as the child refusing to follow instructions or complete work.

Flop

Flop is similar to freeze, however this response can be more extreme and rather than freezing with the body going tense, the muscle will loosen and the body will become floppy, the mind may also shut down this is to protect from physical pain.

Subtle flop responses could include being unable to think clearly only providing yes or no answers, being socially withdrawn, low and depressive mood. Students may also lose control of their bodily functions, this is seen more in younger children who may wet themselves.

I worked with a child who had a flop response, for this child her whole body would shut down and this would result in her collapsing this could be while she was walking down the corridor or working at her desk. It was like she had fainted and she could be out for seconds or a prolonged period. When she would come to within a matter of seconds she was back to what she was doing and getting on with her work in class. There was no medical reason for her body to respond in this way, she had seen numerous doctors and had various tests but there was no diagnosable reason for her body reacting in this way. This child had a traumatic home life in her early years and had been removed from her biological parents, it is believed that this was a traumatic response with no identifiable trigger as little was known about the extend of what this child had experienced.

Fawn

For children, a fawn trauma response can be defined as a need to be a “good kid” in order to escape mistreatment . Sometimes this is called friend, please and appease or submit.

This is an extract from an article entitled the dangers of a good child which articulates well the fawn response.

They do their homework on time; their writing is neat; they keep their bedroom tidy; they are often a little shy; they want to help their parents; they use their brakes when cycling down a hill.

Because they don’t pose many immediate problems, we tend to assume all is well with good children. They aren’t the target for particular concern; that goes to the kids who are graffitiing the underpass. People imagine the good children are fine; because they do everything that’s expected of them.

And that, of course, is precisely the problem. The secret sorrows – and future difficulties – of the good boy or girl begin with their inner need for excessive compliance. The good child isn’t good because by a quirk of nature they simply have no inclination to be anything else. They are good because they have no other option. Their goodness is a necessity rather than a choice.

Many good children are good out of love of a depressed harassed parent who makes it clear they just couldn’t cope with any more complications or difficulties. Or maybe they are very good to soothe a violently angry parent who could become catastrophically frightening at any sign of less than perfect conduct. Or perhaps the parent was very busy and distracted; only by being very good could the child hope to gain a sliver of their interest.

But this repression of more challenging emotions, though it produces short-term pleasant obedience, stores up a huge amount of difficulty in later life. Practiced educators and parents should spot signs of exaggerated politeness – and treat them as the danger they are.

The good child becomes a keeper of too many secrets and an appalling communicator of unpopular but important things. They say lovely words, they are experts in satisfying the expectations of their audiences, but their real thoughts and feelings stay buried

The sickness of the good child is that they have no experience of other people being able to tolerate their badness. They have missed out a vital privilege accorded to the healthy child; that of being able to display envious, greedy, egomaniacal sides and yet be tolerated and loved nevertheless.

When a child is fawning, they are seeking to please and appease someone to avoid conflict. They don’t stand up for themselves they avoid danger and pain by accommodating someone else. In the classroom this child remains under the radar as they are well behaved although they may find themselves in trouble when pleasing and appeasing their peers.

When children are in a trauma response they are in a state of fear because they feel in danger, they do not have normal brain function at this time.

In this video Dr Jacob Ham explains about the learning brain when children are open and calm to learning vs when they are in survival mode.

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