Researchers have documented what childhood trauma translates to later in life. Studies carried out by Kaiser Permanente call these incidences adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. Like a scorecard for a patient's health history, the higher ACE score an individual has, the more health problems they're likely to develop as adults, with higher likelihood of everything from heart disease to chronic depression to attempting suicide.
Increasingly, teachers are asking that in addition to counselors on campus, that they themselves get training to help kids cope with traumatic stress.
Susan Midori Jones, a California Teachers Association labor representative and former Salinas elementary and high school teacher, noticed many students dealing with traumatic experiences. "Salinas is a community where some children are surrounded by gang violence, who have parents that are absent because of the demands of migratory work or who are incarcerated,"Β Jones says.
She says teachers are finding that traditional methods of discipline - like time-outs or taking away recess - only reinforce feelings of abandonment and mistrust, which damages the bond between teachers and students.
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