Skip to main content

“PACEs

"TRAUMA SENSITIVE" CARE IN SCHOOLS Pt. 1

 

“ Troubled children with histories of abuse and neglect who show up in clinics, schools, hospitals, and police stations, the traumatic roots of their behaviors are less obvious, particularly because  they rarely talk about being hit, abandoned, or molested, even when asked.

Eighty two (82%) of the traumatized children seen in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network do not meet the criteria for PTSD. Because often they are shut down, suspicious, or aggressive they now receive pseudo-scientific diagnoses such as “oppositional defiant disorder”, meaning “This kid hates my guts and won’t do anything I tell him to do,” or “disruptive mood dys-regulation disorder”, meaning he has temper tantrums.

 

Having as many problems as they do, these kids accumulate numerous diagnoses over time. Before they reach their twenties, many patients have been given four, five, six or more of these impressive but meaningless labels. If they receive treatment at all, they get whatever is being promulgated as a method of management du jour: medication, behavior modification, or exposure therapy. These rarely work and often cause more damage.” Pg. 157

 

 

Dr. van der Kolk work went on to call the diagnosis for this group of very troubled young people: Developmental Trauma Disorder.“ As we organized our finding, we discovered a consistent profile:

  1. A pervasive pattern of dys-regulation
  2. Problems with attention and concentration and
  3. Difficulties getting along with themselves and others.

These children’s moods and feelings rapidly shifted from one extreme to another-from temper tantrums and panic to detachment, flatness, and dissociation.

When they got upset (which was much of the time), they could neither calm themselves down nor describe what they were feeling.

 Having a biological system that keeps pumping out stress hormones to deal with real or imagined threats leads to physical problems: sleep disturbances, headaches, unexplained pain, over-sensitivity to touch or sound.

Being so agitated or shut down keeps them from being able to focus their attention and concentration. To relieve their tension, they engage in chronic masturbation, rocking, or self-harming activities ( biting, cutting, burning, and hitting themselves, pulling their hair out, picking at their skin until it bled ) It also leads to difficulties with language processing and fine-motor coordination. Spending all their energy on staying in control, they usually have trouble paying attention to things, like school work, that are not directly relevant to survival, and their hyper-arousal makes them easily distracted.

Having been frequently ignored or abandoned leaves them clinging and needy; even with the people who have abused them.  Having been chronically beaten, molested, and otherwise mistreated, they can not help but define themselves as defective and worthless. They come by their self-loathing, sense of defectiveness and worthlessness honestly. Was it any surprise that they didn’t trust anyone?

 ( The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. )

These young people often are in a persistent state of alarm! 

Rather then continue to get into escalating power struggles or expel these young people to "No-Where" we can begin to learn what it is we see everyday in more and more of our schools!

As always... take a second a let me know what you think and would your school or organization be interested in trauma informed training.

Add Comment

Comments (8)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Please share a PSA link to help grow public awareness of the impacts of developmental trauma. There are so many of us who’ve never heard of the overpowering, life-long impacts.   Click HERE for links designed to use in social media:

https://lucidwitness.com/2016/...dex-to-lucidwitness/

David, I would pursue Michael's training as he has a lot to offer. My assistant is working with Childwise to do a training in Great Falls Monatana some time in March. My training will be focused on how to implement a trauma informed model in a school's daily practices and routine.  I have a new book out in which Heather Forbes co-authored, and it is the Guide to "how" do we implement TIC models into our schools. You can check it out at www.TheTraumaInformedSchool.com  We are all on the same team, supporting one another as we aim for the same goal for our students of trauma....hope and healing that leads to building resilience.  

Michael has written a powerul article, and I would respectfully place him as your number one priority.  Blessings, Jim

An excellent vivid summary. So... what does it cost to bring your trauma informed training to the lower level schools of Southern Montana nations: Lodge Grass, Busby, Lame Deer, Wyola, Ashland, St Xavier, Pryor, Crow Agency... ? 

Thank you Michael, filling the gap and giving teachers permission to address emotional and social learning will help closing the gap as both teachers and students learn how important self-regulation is to creating win/win situations in our classrooms and schools. Thanks for the work that you are doing to bring awareness to how we can best serve all of our kids. 

Thanks for your thoughtful responses Andi Fetzner and Jim Sporleder. Andi i sure agree with the though of the adult being a thermostat not a thermometer and spend significant time teaching educators how to become that! Jim i agree with your take but also see it as a gap to be filled with more education as teachers receive almost nothing in their formal training in this area. Just showed the film Paper Tigers to educators last night and they are eager to learn more! Leadership in our schools in this area is critical! 

Thank you, Michael for your post. We as a community must also recognize the experiences that may dysregulate us. Christine Bethell says, "We are the medicine." If the adults in the room, with fully formed hardware, are not able to calm their stress response system and shift into their para-sympathetic system, the levels of toxic stress sustain for both parties and, even more dangerously, relationships become wired up as stressful. Throughout my career in working, training, and advocating  in the system (education, justice, health and behavioral health), we have not done a great job focusing on the professional development piece and parent engagement. This continues to be an area where we all must come together to support one another.

With all of the evidence based research, our schools too often turn to punishment, when we should be reaching out to develop caring adult relationships to connect with these students... we should be meeting them at their level of pain so we can build the trust to influence healing and safety. Excellent article, it''s painful to see our system rejecting the very kids we should be embracing.  

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×