Are schools taking trauma in British school children seriously? Do you know the signs of trauma in children?
We all know that in the UK many schools struggle with managing children’s behaviour, sufficient resources, and making sure that all students achieve good grades, but what if many schools are missing something? What if this something was fundamental to student safety and wellbeing?
Whilst trauma and trauma-informed approaches are becoming well-known buzzwords, in some schools, there is still a lack of awareness about trauma in children and how it can affect them, and how to avoid re-traumatising or not providing support to children that from a young age have been through frightening or life threatening experiences.
Why should we care?
Rather than a nice to know topic, it’s an urgent issue, with a study finding that as many as 31% of children had been exposed to trauma in England (Lewis et al., 2019) by the time that they turned 18 years old.
The approach to behavioural discipline for some British schools still takes a punitive approach with an emphasis on order and discipline that has roots in the Victorian era. Whilst UK schools have come a long way from from the days of making children wear dunce hats (conical hat of shame), the idea of pulling out a child out of a classroom and isolating them in a special area (behavioural unit) remains widely pervasive.
The focus in these instances, are an antiquated attempt to address a child’s behaviour through “consequences” , but in some cases due to what’s actually going on a child’s brain, it may be impossible for some of these children to sit still calmly in a classroom, because they are too traumatised to learn, and more punishments is not going to calm a traumatised brain.
Fortunately, the neuroscience of trauma has unpacked what’s going on in a traumatised brain. Rather than not abstract insights, psychology and neuroscience can have actionable, practical implications to help people that work with children, such as teachers, (and parents too) support a child at school who has already been through severe emotional and physical pain.
Why does the science of trauma in children matter?
3 reasons:
Reason 1. Children that have experienced traumatic experiences and don’t receive support will likely have poor mental health outcomes or develop one or more mental health disorders in childhood, adolescence or adulthood. This could include anxiety, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disoder, to struggles with addiction and social relationships (Lubit et al., 2003) .
Reason 2. Students that have experienced trauma or multiple traumatic events may be more likely to drop out of school, be excluded, and to struggle with having a job, building social relationships and avoiding addiction and other types of risky behaviour (Lubit et al., 2003), all with substantial costs to the public purse.
Reason 3. Serious trauma may be undetected. A child may be in an abusive situation and it’s largely hidden to adults.
What may look like ADHD or a behavioural issue can in fact be signs of trauma and children that have experienced trauma. Children that have experienced trauma are also more likely to be neurodiverse and so students may receive support for their neurodiversity, but not for their trauma (See Gajwani for source, 2023).
Firstly, let’s revisit what trauma is.
What is trauma?
“Trauma is an emotional response to a distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.” (NIMHR)
A traumatic event for a child could be a experiencing their parents having a high conflict divorce, a parent leaving home and being out of contact, witnessing violence, being abused or neglected by a parent or caregiver, bullying, racism and discrimination, or a car accident.
It could be moving to a foster placement and it not working out with new parents. It could be something relatively “normal” such as getting lost in a supermarket for a long time before being found by a parent. Or, for some children, they may be traumatised from having to flee a country due to violence and having to seek safety from war and conflict in a new country.
What researchers do know is that the more traumatic events a given child experiences the more likely they are to have a negative mental health outcome linked to their early life experiences. This is known as the cumulative risk hypothesis due to the disastrous effects of multiple stressful and traumatic events (Appleyard et al. 2005).
Looking on the bright side of trauma
From my PhD research, I know from my own studies and the wider research base that for every child that has experienced trauma, it is very difficult to predict who will go on to experience mental health disorders and who will be resilient.
This fact is both a challenge but also a massive opportunity for anyone working with children, and especially schools. Because it means that the support a child receives from schools or professionals, can drastically effect their future outcomes and chances for long and happy lives.
We also know, fortunately, that there are many things that can buffer the negative effects or trauma, or help children and teens to recover and make sense and meaning out of a traumatic event so that they can move on with their lives.
So, how does trauma change children?
1. Being Constantly Alert for Threat
Children that have experienced a traumatic experience such as abuse at home, become adapted to living in an environment where they are at risk.
They are subsequently in a state of being permanently on guard to threat, called hypervigilance. This in useful adaptation when being at risk of physically or emotionally harmed but not useful in a safe environment, such as a school. When they are in safe environments, the flood of hormones makes it difficult to relax. The problem when the enter school they are not regulated enough to feel safe enough to learn in a new social environment.
One critical area affected by hypervigilance is the amygdala. In hypervigilant children, the amygdala may become hyperactive and oversensitive to potential threats, leading to heightened emotional reactions and increased anxiety. This hyperactivity can also impair the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and rational thought. As a result, hypervigilant children may struggle with regulating their emotions, controlling impulsive behaviors, being still, and making sound judgments.
2. Is she angry with me? Difficulties with social information processing
Children that have experienced trauma have been found to perceive neutral faces as angry faces and so may react inappropriately in everyday social interactions. This is the concept of hostile attribution bias. For example, If a teacher gives instructions specifically to a traumatised child in front of the class, a child may find that they perceive the teacher as being hostile without due cause and may respond in an overly reactive way. A child can be labelled as naughty and aggressive when in fact they may have been the victim of maltreatment that’s altered their capacity to process social information accurately.
3. Numbing and an absence of joy
For some children that have been exposed to trauma, it can be harder to experience pleasure or enjoyment. This is described as the blunting of the reward system in the brain.
4. Changes in memory
Latest neuroscientific research finds that children that have experienced abuse or trauma struggle with detailed memories about their own lives, they have impairments in autobiographical memory (Mcrory, 2017). For children that have experienced trauma, their memory is often overgeneral rather than specific. This means remembering things in the past might be really difficult or memories may be absent.
Changes in memory can lead children to have an impaired self-understanding. It might be hard to remember birthdays or festive holidays and other events. Memories about one’s life can help manage new situations but difficulties in accessing these memories may result in heightened emotional reactivity, contributing to feelings of anxiety or depression.
5. Disassociation and flashbacks
A child may experience flashbacks and painful memories in relation to a traumatic event. They may want to avoid specific people or places due to the association with the trauma.
Fortunately, children’s brains are still growing and whilst they experience these changes they do not need to stay on a trajectory to mental illness. Schools, care systems, and careful therapeutic treatment and support for parents can help children to recover.
Signs of trauma
- Startling easily or being jumpy.
- Feeling tense, on guard, or on edge.
- Difficulty concentrating.
- Difficulty falling asleep or sleeping through the night.
- Feeling irate and having angry or aggressive episodes
- Engaging in risky, or destructive behavior.
In children younger than age 6, symptoms can include:
- Wetting the bed after having learned to use the toilet
- Forgetting how to talk or being unable to talk
- Acting out the scary event during playtime
- Being unusually clingy with a parent or other adult
Why must schools and school staff be aware of trauma?
- Recovery
Schools can be a place where children feel valued and that they belong after being in non-supporting environments, they can correct some of the negative experiences a child has gone through and help a child learn to trust and settle into a place of learning and building social relationships (See Avery et al, 2021) .
2. A duty of care to children in need
If a school identifies a child is an unsafe situation or teachers may hear a disclosure from a student that they are struggling or are having troubles at home, a school has a duty of care towards a child’ wellbeing and safety to get support for that child.
3. Business as usual behavioural policies don’t work
Children that have experienced trauma are often mislabeled as naughty or having behavioural issues. Some of the school behavioural practices for children that have experienced trauma don’t work and may serve to retraumatise. When systems in schools are trauma informed, then children might be more likely to respond to other types of support as well as behavioural interventions.
4. Teachers can be negatively affected
Teaching staff may be under the impression they are doing behaviour management, when in fact they are managing highly traumatised children which can cause teachers stress and exhaustion and affect their wellbeing as well as affect the classroom.
How can schools take a more science-based, trauma sensitive approach?
- Early identification of children that have high levels of risk and are therefore more at risk of behavioural or mental health symptoms.
- Know the signs of trauma
- Reviewing over reliance on a behavioural consequences approach for disciplining children
- Ensuring the wellbeing of staff. When staff are well, positive and adequately supported they are in a better position to support children experiencing adversity outside of school.
- Training so that all school staff from dinner ladies to Head Teachers know how to spot trauma in children and refer to specialist help.
- Engaging with a trauma informed approach. The UK government, Welsh Government and Scottish government all have excellent resources on trauma and have outlined key principles of trauma.
What is key in a trauma informed approach?
There are many useful principles applied and these vary across definitions and governing bodies. One common thread in Trauma Informed Practice is the critical principle of avoiding further re-traumatisation of the child.
It (a trauma informed approach) seeks to actively resist traumatising people again and prevent and mitigate adverse consequences, prioritising physical and emotional safety and commits to ‘do no harm’ in practice and to proactively support and help affected people make their own informed decisions.
~Trauma Informed Wales, Welsh Government
Take away
The good news about trauma and the brain is that with the right care, support and therapy children may go on to be mentally healthy adults, have positive social relationships and achieve great things. No child is a lost cause or stuck on a trajectory based on their past.
Insights from neuroscience have boosted our knowledge of the brain and can show us how to spot trauma and intervene.
Whilst behavioural policies might be good for creating safe learning environments, they may re-traumatise a child in need. Embedding trauma informed practice into schools, can help us detect harm and support children who may serve to benefit the most from institutional support.
