I grew up in a rough home. Both of my parents suffered from mental illness and addiction and were in and out of hospitals my entire childhood. My dad still is.
I looked after my younger sister and tried to make my parents feel better, stop drinking, stop fighting, and just be better role models. I really thought I could solve their problems if they would let me. I felt like I was responsible for everything.
My sister and I never reached out formally for help. I don't know if we even realized we needed help. In grade school, I stopped washing my hair and changing my clothes. I didn't say a peep in class. My sister acted out, screaming at her teachers, running away from school, getting in fist fights on the bus. When I was 17, I moved into my own apartment, and the years of trauma I had suffered hit me hard and deep. I experienced severe depression.
I'm good now. After many years working with therapists, reading about trauma, and reflecting, I know that I cannot control others and that I did the best I could to take care of my sister. I am the principal of a wonderful elementary school in northern Wisconsin, and as we say up here, I'm livin' the dream. But I am also aware that there are indelible, lingering emotional scars inside me, and I use my own history as a guide in my daily work with children.
Trauma Everywhere
If you are an educator, you work with kids who have experienced, or are in the throes of experiencing, trauma. It is our job to look out for them and help them the best we can. Trauma, old and new, is everywhere, and unfortunately, it can cause our students to act out in scary ways. For example, I got punched in the nose recently by a 2nd grade student who wasn't as much mad at me as he was mad at the world. That punch hurt, and there were, of course, consequences for it. But I wasn't angry. I knew that sometimes the effects of trauma lead people to do bad things. There's an old saying in education circles that the kids who need us the most sometimes show us in the worst ways. When kids express their own pain in ways that hurt others, I remember that behavior is a way to communicate a need (Chazin & Ledford, 2016). Then, I think of my sister, and I love my students more fiercely than I did the day before.
Making a Plan
When I first became a principal, I was floored by the amount of time I spent working with students who exhibited extreme behaviors. There were several girls and boys at my school who "acted out" because of trauma. Several times a week, 4th grader Wayne (all names in these examples are pseudonyms) dropped to the floor, crawled under his desk, and refused to come out. Roger, in the same grade, had fits of rage where he threw chairs and overturned desks. Alana, a 1st grader, often ran out of the classroom, telling her teacher, "I don't have to do what you say!" Third-grader Sondra shut down when she was corrected and cried for hours at a time. And a kindergarten student, Alandro, twice that year injured paraprofessionals badly enough that two of them had to seek medical care.
These types of behaviors were disruptive to the entire climate of the school. Teachers were exhausted. Students were afraid of their classmates. When I looked at students who acted out, I couldn't help but see the face of my own little sister, and I knew that, as a school, we had to do something. I also knew that the answers were not to send hurting students home, suspend them, or otherwise punish them.
Knowing that answers are often found in the wisdom of the wider group, I asked for volunteers from my staff to form a Behavior Intervention Committee (BIC). Nine teachers and the district curriculum coordinator joined me to form the team. We researched online sources and read books on explosive behavior and trauma-informed teaching. Together, the BIC identified promising practices, trained the rest of the staff, and tried new ideas, in the knowledge that while we can't stop our students from experiencing trauma, there are things we can do to help them learn to deal with it and to lessen the lasting effects of trauma. Below are five strategies we have found to be most helpful at my school.
1. Support students in a meltdown.
This first strategy is more of a bandage than a long-term fix. But, if your school is anything like mine, sometimes you have to apply a bandage first and worry about more lasting solutions later.
Students who've suffered from trauma often have a hard time dealing with stress. They can have meltdowns, breakdowns, fits, or crashes. These episodes are often characterized by extreme emotional behavior, including crying and yelling.
In situations like this, maintaining the safety of the student and his or her classmates is of primary importance. If a student is completely out of control, the first step is to call for help from another adult and have the rest of the class exit the room. Beth Stauner, a paraprofessional at my school who is uniquely well-suited to help students who suffer from the effects of trauma, helped me identify some strategies for helping students get through a meltdown.
- Validate the student's feelings. When a student is melting down, guide them out of the classroom and try saying, "I get it. I really do. You're so angry right now! I have been angry too! Let it out! Yell! Punch this pillow!" Help the student identify his emotion and then allow him to feel it. You can problem solve with the child later.
- Start and end with love. Let students know that there is nothing they can do that will make you love them less. Never take what a child does personally. Even when kids lie or have explosive behavior, always let them know you still care about them. When Alana runs out of the room yelling, "I hate you!" I calmly follow her. I often say, "I love you, Alana. There is nothing you can do that will change that. When you're ready to talk, or if you want help calming down, I am here." We have found that this type of language defuses angry and aggressive behavior quickly.
- Remember that body language and facial expressions are important. If a child is having a meltdown, never walk directly at her. Use a roundabout way to reach her and stand at an angle. If she is sitting, you should sit too. Look calm and unfazed, even if you have to fake it.
- Ask for help. Sometimes when a student has a meltdown, he needs a different adult to help. Sometimes you will lose your cool. That is OK; there is no shame in allowing someone else to step in. The goal is to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.
2. Build relationships.
In addition to tried-and-true strategies such as greeting students at the door, eating lunch with them, and chatting with them about their lives, we've found that the "check-in, check-out" (CICO) protocol works well. This research-proven best practice (Maggin et al., 2015) helps students build supportive relationships with nurturing adults. In our school, we wanted students in need to have one special adult to connect with each morning when they arrived at school and each afternoon when they left. CICO offers that opportunity in a structured way.
Teachers who are concerned about a student's social-emotional or behavioral needs contact the BIC and ask to have the student paired with an adult for CICO. The BIC team carefully matches each student with an adult who we feel will be a good fit. Then the classroom teacher introduces the pair and helps the student remember to check-in and check-out each day for a quick word of encouragement, a high five, or a hug.
3. Offer tools to help students self-regulate.
Teaching students to recognize their own feelings and to learn to control them can be a gift. Create a sensory toolbox filled with various fidget toys, stress balls, small weighted lap blankets, hand putty, liquid drop timers, and other items. At my school, when Sondra and Wayne feel their emotions getting out of control, they get their sensory toolbox, set a timer for three minutes, and choose a tool to help them relax, focus, and ultimately retain or regain control of their emotions.
4. Teach kids to scale the problem and the response.
Students affected by trauma can react as if all problems are huge in scale and warrant a huge response (Linton & Winner, 2015). For example, a student might have a meltdown because he has to wait before going to the library to check out a new book. Or fall into a puddle of tears when he spills a carton of milk. Or violently punch someone who accidentally bumped his arm. Teaching students to identify the relative magnitude of different problems and how to react proportionally to that size can be helpful.
One way to do this is to ask students to brainstorm a list of any or all problems that might occur in a given day. Do this at a time when there is little stress and your students are not overly emotional. For younger children, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst is a good book to generate ideas about listing smallish problems. For older students, talking about Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) might spark a similar list. You might have to prompt students to list the biggest problems (right up to tragedies including natural disasters, crimes, and deaths) they can think of as well.
When the list is created, work with students to rank the items from the biggest/worst problems to the smallest/least impactful problems. Then have students think about what might be appropriate reactions to problems at each level on the scale. It is often easiest to start at the top of the scale with the most difficult problems. Students can readily identify that a strong emotional reaction to the loss of loved one, for example, is appropriate. Then, work your way down the scale.
Create an anchor chart showing the range of problems with the responses that are likely appropriate for each. Use it as a tool to teach and remind students to gauge the potential "effect strength" of a problem and to monitor themselves and work to control their reaction to it.
5. View students as more than their trauma.
My husband and my sister-in-law, Christy, know trauma well. Five years ago, two of their sisters were murdered in a home invasion. Christy, a professor of education, says that it's important not to define people by the trauma they've lived through. "In addition to offering empathy, teachers must work to maintain high expectations and standards for students who have lived with trauma," she says. "What a powerful gift we could give to students if we could lead them to persevere in the face of adversity. This doesn't mean forsaking flexibility. Extending a deadline is OK; letting the student skip the assignment is not. Asking the student to try is important; giving them a 'day off' is not."
Put another way, keep your classroom consistent. Help students see themselves as capable because you see them as capable.
Draw from the Well
The Behavior Intervention Committee at my school is making strides. Teachers are using the strategies we've shared. We are changing hearts and minds and helping the adults in our building to view troubled children not as problems but as opportunities to express our love for teaching, learning, and nurturing our students at they strive to manage their feelings. We still have a long way to go but we are willing to do the work.
I learned so much from my own trauma and the ensuing depression that I feel I am a better person and educator because of it. It is a deep well from which I can draw to help others, including my students, who have it rough in one way or another.
Maybe you can draw from your own well. But even if you've had a close to idyllic life, I hope that my story and these strategies give you a place from which to draw hope, inspiration, and tools to help the kids in your care who suffer from trauma.
Reflect & Discuss
➛ What's one simple tactic you have for diffusing a difficult situation with a student?
➛ Think of a student at your school dealing with trauma. Would any of Platt's recommendations work to help that student?
➛ How can you help your school to become more welcoming and supportive to students with trauma?
