What we must do to help turn off the dripping tap of trauma for children and young people

• 29 December 2016
• Jane Evans
• no comments

Why do we still hold on to a belief that time alone heals?

For the past 23 years I have lost count of the number children and young people I have known, or known of, who have grown up with a level of trauma as the backdrop to their early childhood. Unending, like a dripping tap of trauma. It leaves its mark, it doesn’t just fade away, they don’t just ‘get over it’ in time.

I know this because I have also worked with hundreds of adults for whom this too was their childhood. Low, medium, sometimes high and ongoing levels of unpredictability and fear at home and from those they depended upon for safety and love. They do function in daily life but it is a very real struggle and often makes them mentally and physically ill, unless they have come across the right therapies and support.

Is there no hope for a better life beyond trauma?

Fortunately there is always hope, and many children go on to be full members of society, have successful relationships and careers, and relatively good health. Brains have the capacity to rewire and bodies hold the answer to self-regulation and balance which is wonderful news. A better life comes if the right interventions and knowledge is available, and great people show up with compassion, unconditional connection, patience and trustworthiness.

Why is young person STILL acting out when their trauma is a dim, distant memory?

A baby or child who grows up feeling unsafe, emotionally and physically vulnerable and overwhelmed, experiences this as trauma. They may live with domestic violence, where one of the adults they depend upon regularly scares, harms and threatens the other adult they depend upon for nurturing interactions and emotional and physical regulation.

Imagine being trapped 18 months old and living in a home where you are totally dependent on one adult who is scary, the other who is scared. Every day their attention is on each other, one to keep safe, and the other to cause suffering. It’s not hard to see that this leaves very little room for gentle, emotionally and physically soothing interactions with a young child.

In time, much like a soldier in a war zone adapts to being on high alert 24/7, so will a child. With their survival system constantly flicking into fight or flight and as this can’t be acted out, freeze so their system protects them by shutting off so they escape the terror for a while.

• Fast forward to being 6 years old and losing play time for shouting out AGAIN in class.
• Fast forward to 12 years of age being seen as a ‘problem’ to be repeatedly sent to the Zone for time out.
• Fast forward to 15 years old, teachers knowing they are trouble and pick up on the slightest thing, confrontations become an all too familiar experience.

Why don’t they learn to make a ‘good choice?’

Trauma is stored in the body. The body and brain are in constant communication to keep us safe and well. If a body and brain have got this far by being on high alert and reacting instantly to incoming information from the five senses and the body’s sensory systems, it can’t power down just because it is in day-care or school, or anywhere else for that matter! It takes a long time and techniques to find ways of regulating the nervous system over and over. It is possible to learn these and be helped with them BUT IT TAKES TIME, ATTENTION AND SUPPORT!

It is important to appreciate that every child is wired to try to connect and get on with the adults around them as they depend upon them for safety and their well-being. The urge to do this is a strong one. However, it’s not much use if a child has had no success at it other than by using behaviours which have the opposite effect. Shouting out, slamming a chair down, swearing, throwing things, hurting others the list goes on. These will bring an adult to them, but the outcome will not be what they hoped for, needed or intended.

What the child benefits most from is an adult who knows to come with calmness, connection, compassion. Also with the willingness to work towards alternative ways with the child, or young person, to eventually they can begin to get the connection they need to feel safe, in a more acceptable way.

It is time that we all stepped up and stepped over our egos?!

What often happens is our ‘ego’ trips us up. We feel deeply sad for a child/young person and want the absolute best for them and believe firm boundaries and teaching them how to behave will serve them best so that becomes our mission.

As a teacher, support worker, or other professional we have some information on a child with a ‘difficult past.’ It may be available because they are a child in the care system, or/and there have been Common Assessment Framework, Single Assessment Framework, Looked After Child or Child Protection meetings and/or plans. There is sometimes a shared understanding of the difficulties inherent from the child’s lived experiences, yet eventually, one of three things happens:

1. Extra compassion, support and understanding are available on an ongoing basis – sometimes professionals access additional training, services and work closely with parents and carers.
2. Initially some ‘allowances’ are made but over time there is an expectation and belief that the child can, and should know, and therefore follow, the rules by now!
3. Professionals experience compassion fatigue, or struggle/refuse to engage with the information that early, repetitive trauma is a reason for behaviours they find unacceptable.

How do I know so much?

I recall when I was first a respite foster carer feeling that part of doing my best for a child would be to show them how to behave so life would become easier for them. It was my agenda, it was missing the point of the story, and it was arrogant and ill-informed BUT I did mean well. Luckily I also voraciously began studying childhood trauma so hopefully didn’t cause too much harm along the way!

I know of professionals in the daily lives of children and young people with trauma who have tried all they know to support them, even when they can’t understand the ‘why.’ They get that the child is doing their best, and that is enough. Sadly they often get criticised and undermined by others, either family, friends or other professionals, so it can be a lonely place on the island of unremitting compassion and unconditional connection!

I know many parents and carers who tell me how their children are treated when they can’t comply with sitting still at circle time, on a chair, or in Assembly. They have tried to explain the needs of their child who is hyper vigilant 24/7, has a hypersensitivity to touch, sights, sounds, smells, even tastes, who has to have sight of a door and their back near a wall to feel safe, who needs a trusted adult near them at all times, but have been seen as making excuses.

Sometimes, the parent or carer holds back on telling the full horrors a child/young person has lived through. They don’t want to shock people, or prefer not to make it public knowledge as living it once was horrific enough and then they feel they may be failing to get their child’s needs fully understood, a horrible dilemma.

Young people who have lived with extensive domestic violence as long as they can recall, have told me how they would go into a classroom with the intention of trying to make it through a lesson without being a pain in the arse again. Only to be told, “I can see you are going to be trouble today” even before they’ve sat down.

Youngsters living a life of hell at home and seeking safety at school each day, to then kick off there and be excluded and sent back to the hell hole. Then there are those who have survived their daily childhood horrors by not drawing attention to themselves.  Along the way, they have unknowingly found ways to self-regulate their ever present fight, flight or freeze response. Unfortunately, these include humming, tapping, rocking, picking, pulling, fiddling, chewing, having headphones in, and jiggling about, not fun for an over-worked stressed teacher to overlook. Confrontation often follows and then when it’s time for that lesson their anxiety, and possibly the teacher’s too, would be heightened so a confrontation was more likely.

Compassion has to have a long-lasting rechargeable battery!

None of the children/young people need pity. Most would love to feel normal and fit in. There is no pleasure to be had from clashes with those they depend upon, feeling like the problem, rubbing shoulders with shame on a daily basis.

Their best hope is to be surrounded by adults who are full of aspiration and hope for, and with, them and who are willing and able to:

• Be curious about what lies behind behaviours – not to ask the child/young person as they won’t know, but to extend a level of curiosity as a bright beacon for every child.
• Calmness, Connection, Compassionate Learning – repeat this cycle for every child, always.
• Focus on self-regulation each and every day – find out what it is, how to do it and why it is vital for everyone who works with children/young people.
• Become educated in the basics of what early trauma does to a developing body and brain – share this with colleagues.
• Access plenty of emotional support to be able to extend compassion to every child as a first reaction and interaction, always.
• Believe in the power of kindness and COMPASSION, and that it is a right for every child, always.

I had to learn all of this the hard way. I often fell short along the way.

Now, I have learned that compassionate connection is the only way for every child, but most importantly for the children and young people who were unable to turn off the dripping tap of trauma.

Book your place on my next training event on: Understanding and supporting the needs of children impacted by early repetitive trauma in Brighton, April 3rd 2017.

E: janeevans61@hotmail.co.uk