5 Signs of Trauma in Students

While in my role at the Advocacy Center, I had the privilege of writing monthly educational articles for the community that were published by The County Press newspaper. The following post is from September 2018 about creating trauma-informed schools; check out the original article here

“INSIDE THE CAC: Identifying Signs of Trauma in Students Key to Positive Response”

As summer comes to an end, and a new school year begins, it’s important for parents, teachers and school staff to be reminded and be aware of the number of students who are impacted by trauma and know how to respond.

Identifying and working with students who have been traumatized can be challenging for educators because kids and teens often hide their pain with behavior that’s aggressive or off-putting — they are typically the students who are labeled the “bad kids.”

Knowing the symptoms of trauma in kids and teens can help educators understand these confusing behaviors and can help avoid misdiagnosis, as these symptoms can mimic other problems, including ADHD and other behavior disorders.

Some of the common identifiers of trauma include: 

Difficulty Forming Relationships 

Children who have been neglected or abused have problems forming relationships with teachers because they’ve been ignored or betrayed by those they’ve depended on, and through this experience they have learned adults are not trustworthy. It can be very challenging to support these kids when they misbehave because our schools often use discipline techniques that involve withdrawing attention and support, rather than addressing their problems head-on. In these situations, it can be beneficial to acknowledge the child’s emotion and name it, before jumping into a behavior plan, such as taking away recess or suspending. By naming the emotion, it helps the child move towards expressing it in a more appropriate way.

Big Emotions 

Traumatized children often have a hard time controlling their strong emotions because they have not been taught how to control them or self-soothe. In the classroom, these students may need their teachers to support and teach them ways to calm themselves down and manage their emotions because it’s something they don’t know how to do. They need coaching and practice to learn how to regroup when they feel overwhelmed.

Lack of Participation

Another challenge to traumatized kids is they develop the belief that they’re bad, and what’s happened to them is their fault. This leads to the expectation that people are not going to like them or treat them well, especially if they make a mistake or “fail.” Sometimes when given a simple command or direction, the child immediately assumes he/she is in trouble and the teacher is yelling at him/ her. They may also refuse to participate in an activity if they are scared of messing up. To counter this negative thinking, these students need help understanding they’re not “bad kids.” They need the teacher’s support to experience small successes throughout the day, but also the help to see that at school, making a mistake is normal and a necessary part of learning.

Easily Startled

One of the more common symptoms of trauma is hyper-vigilance, which means being overly alert to danger. This can lead to the child being jumpy and demonstrating big emotions to seemingly small annoyances. This symptom is what is most commonly misdiagnosed as ADHD because it appears the kid can’t sit still or pay attention, when really they are really strugglingwith feeling agitated, scared, and irritable. The most beneficial thing to do when a student is demonstrating these behaviors is to connect with the “big feeling” they are communicating to you by trying to identify it for them. Even if you take a guess and you aren’t right, they’re likely to correct you, which helps you to understand what they’re feeling.

Difficulty Learning

Trauma can have a severe impact on a child’s memory, their ability to pay attention, plan, and think things through. Having difficulty learning and planning makes it difficult for the child to learn and complete tasks in school, but also hinders his/her ability to plan his/her behavior and communicate his/her needs and feelings. These children can benefit from a high level of structure and the teacher repeatedly telling them what is going to happen next and what to expect. When kids who have been traumatized don’t know what is coming, it can be unsettling and create unnecessary anxiety. In addition to recognizing and connecting with kids who’ve been traumatized, it is extremely important to give them as much positive attention as possible. This “positive attention” needs to be given to them in a way that is fast, predictable and efficient, just as they would receive the negative attention if they were doing something wrong. This positive attention includes not only praising them for the good things, but also expressing warmth and kindness that aren’t necessarily earned. Surprising kids with “random acts of kindness” can help break them from habits of acting out to get attention.