10.6 The Relationship Between Trauma and Behavior
Ardene Niemer, M.Ed.
Many of our children have experienced trauma, and we may or may not be aware. For them, keeping themselves safe becomes the primary motivator of behavior. Children may appear manipulative or controlling when they may be attempting to just keep themselves safe. Safety is the most important goal of a child experiencing trauma (National Child Traumatic Stress Network, n.d.).
Like the tree and root system we learned earlier in this chapter, we only see the small portion above the surface. Look below the surface of the behavior, and you will see the feelings and emotions driving the behavior. The unwanted or “misbehavior” we experience is often a child’s attempt to solve another problem of which we are unaware.
Even minor stressors can act as triggers that fill children with emotion and can result in misbehavior. When teachers and caregivers do not understand why a child is acting out, they are more likely to focus on “managing” the behavior rather than meeting the child’s needs. This is not an effective response to misbehavior, and may actually lead to the child being more unpredictable or even explosive, making the process of calming down even more difficult.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Stress is an automatic physical, mental and emotional response to challenging events. It’s a normal part of everyone’s life, including the lives of children (LaCore, 2022). To understand unwanted or “misbehavior,” it is important to understand the body’s stress response. Children who have experienced repeated trauma often have overactive alarms. They are powerfully attentive to danger and may label non-threatening things as dangerous. False alarms can happen when children hear, see, smell, or feel something that reminds them of frightening things from the past. These reminders are called triggers.
Some common triggers of unwanted behavior include (Kahn, 2023):
- Changes in the schedule, routine or environment that are unexpected
- The sense a child feels of helplessness or fear
- Experiencing a situation that causes a child to feel threatened or attacked
- Overstimulation from the environment (can be many things including too many children/people in the room, noise, light, or activity).
What Does a Triggered Child Look Like?
It is important to note that stress from trauma can show up in our children in their health (physiologically), through their emotions (emotionally), through their thinking and processing of information (cognitively), or behaviorally. In Chapter 10 we’re focusing on the behavioral aspect.
The National Institutes of Health (Chu et al., 2022) shares that behaviors resulting from a stress response typically fall into one of three categories: flight, fight, or freeze. Let’s take a look at what you might see in a classroom with these three categories:
Flight: Children who experience a flight response want to get away, to “flee” the situation or threat. Their body is telling them t