When a new child enters your world — whether it’s a newly adopted son or daughter, a foster child or a new student in your church preschool — they often come broken from trauma. This trauma could be from a divorce, abuse, domestic violence, death or more, and often teachers and parents don’t know the signs of trauma, let alone know how to help the child through his or her trauma.
On Aug. 24 at Regency Park Baptist Church in Moore, Oklahoma, Annie Keehn and Elizabeth Justice led a seminar on trauma-informed caregiving. Keehn is the chair of the Henry F. McCabe Family School of Education at Oklahoma Baptist University, and Justice is the associate dean for faculty development and associate professor of education at OBU.
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Both women shared stories of their own family members that faced trauma as well as their family members’ role with foster care and adoption. The participants in this training were foster families, parents that previously adopted children, educators in the school system and teachers in the church.
Helping ‘wounded’ children
“The goal of a trauma-informed caregiver training is to recognize the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences and equip caregivers with knowledge to recognize trauma and strategies to support children who have experienced trauma,” Keehn said.
Essentially this training is built to “help teachers, caregivers and ministers help children that are wounded,” she said.
She and Justice offered five steps of trauma-informed caregiving to help caregivers understand how to recognize the signs of trauma and how to care for the child dealing with that trauma.
1. Realize the prevalence and impact of trauma on children in your care.
Before you understand trauma, you must understand the stress children go through, Keehn said. Some stress is good and normal while other stress can lead to trauma.
- Positive stress — The body’s normal and healthy response to a tense situation. (Examples: Giving a book report, sports, the first day of school.)
- Tolerable stress — Activation to a body’s stress response to a long-lasting or severe situation. In this category of stress these stressors can form into a trauma if a child does not have a support group. (Examples: moving, an accident without injury, not having a stable home.)
- Toxic stress — Prolonged activation of the body’s stress response to frequent or intense situations or events. (Examples: divorce, abuse, neglect, domestic violence in the home.)
“One in seven children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year,” Justice said. “One out of every four school-aged children have been exposed to a traumatic event.”
In these cases, “harsh discipline can re-traumatize children, leading to increased behavior problems,” she said.
Justice continued by explaining the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) questionnaire and explaining how the factors it measures can affect child behavior.
Here are two examples of the 10 ACE questions:
- Did a parent, or other adult in the household often or very often push, grab, slap or throw something at you or hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured? (yes or no)
- Was a household member depressed or mentally ill or did a household member attempt suicide? (yes or no)
“A child with an ACE score of 4 or higher is 51% more likely to have behavioral problems in school — 3% with an ACE of 0,” Justice said.
2. Recognize the signs and symptoms of childhood trauma.
Signs include:
- Separation anxiety or clinginess toward teachers or primary caregivers.
- Regression in previously mastered stages of development or lack of developmental progress.
- Re-creating the traumatic event.
- Sleepiness due to difficulty at nap time or bedtime which may or may not be caused by nightmares or homelife.
- Changes in behavior (biting, hitting, throwing, mood swings, etc.)
- Eating poorly or sudden weight loss.
- Increased somatic complaints (“I have a headache.” or “My belly hurts.”).
- Anxiety, fear, worry.
- Difficulty in authority, redirection, or criticism.
- Hyperarousal (Startling easily).
- Distrust of others, affecting how children interact with both adults and peers.
- Statements and questions about death and dying.
3. Respond to integrating knowledge about trauma into practice.
“Create a safe, calm and a predictable environment into your home or classroom. Establish reinforcement, clear behavior expectations, routines, procedures and connection,” Justice said. “The resilience research shows that the presence of one caring adult in the life of a child can make all the difference.”
Justice and Keehn shared these basic strategies to help a child who is starting to dysregulate:
- Let them know that they are in a safe space. They might not have that at home.
- Activate children’s senses when speaking with them to calm them down. For example, listen to calming sounds or allow them to put lotion on their hands.
- Help the child through breathing exercises.
- Take time to help children with a small stretch break.
- Allow small brain breaks in your room.
- Teach them a fun rhythm to calm their nerves.
4. Resist re-traumatization of children through trauma-informed responses.
Keehn said many children with trauma history “have not experienced what it’s like to be corrected or disciplined without worrying for their safety.”
She offered these discipline recommendations to help keep from re-traumatizing them:
- Offer help first instead of warning — seek to understand what is really going on.
- Avoid empty threats — set clear limits and enforce them.
- Avoid exclusion — bring a child closer instead of isolating.
- Avoid coercive discipline — forceful discipline using threats and control.
5. Rest knowing there is hope through Christ for the children in your care.
Allow yourself self-care and soul care, Keehn said. “You are not a miracle worker. You are not God, God has put you in this position to bring hope to children that desperately need it.”
