Since 1993, April has been designated National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year’s theme for the national campaign is “Every day, we help positive childhood experience take root!”[i]
Positive childhood experiences (PCEs) is an idea we should all support. As leaders, how can we help that idea take root?
Speaking from personal experience, it can be easy to dismiss or overlook the traumas and challenges other people face if we have not faced them ourselves or if we do not see visible displays of trauma.
Thinking about the workplace environment, since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, most people have become more educated on the needs of people who need help and accommodations. We know or have seen people who are permanently confined to a wheelchair or who must adapt after losing a limb or who display other physical impairments.
Yet, when the trauma results from childhood abuse and is hidden behind a façade or buried deep inside a person’s psyche, what do leaders in the workplace need to learn or understand about the lingering effects of child abuse?
The first thing a leader needs to realize is that child abuse is often hidden in plain sight.
During my law enforcement career, when necessary, I found a benefit in blending in with the crowd around me and acting like others when I didn’t want to draw attention to my official capacity. In the typical workplace, a leader can look out among his or her employees and see what he or she wants to see – everyone doing their job and acting like everyone else and not seeing the real struggles taking place.
Unfortunately, this idyllic (i.e., uninformed) scenario is often wrong. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 7 (14%) children experience a form of child abuse or neglect which costs approximately $428 billion to the economy.[ii]
Child abuse has an impact on employees in two fundamental ways. First, if an employee was a victim of abuse as a child, he or she will show up to work with that experience having had an impact on the formation of their brain or executive functions. It’s possible that an unstable, stressful, or abusive work environment can trigger emotional responses that, on the surface, may seem irrational but are grounded and based on how they were treated as a child.
This effect on the brain and executive functions is not just an opinion, it is supported by scientific research. In a 2005 report authored by Dr. Robert F. Anda, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti, Dr. Bruce Perry, and others, they found that “converging evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology suggests that early life stress such as abuse and related adverse experiences cause enduring brain dysfunction that, in turn, affects health and quality of life throughout the lifespan.”[iii]
Second, if the employee was not a victim of child abuse, but is engaged in child abuse, then, again, that employee is bringing to work the ramifications of engaging in physical, emotional, or sexual abuse against children. Once again, an employee’s emotional responses to events at work could be affected by their actions at home (not to mention they may be potentially criminally liable).
The second thing a leader needs to realize is that child abuse and neglect can be prevented, and leaders have a role in the prevention of abuse and neglect.
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P.S. For more information on “(Re)Building Trust: A Trauma-informed Approach to Leadership,” please visit my website mrchrisfreeze.com.
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