Trauma-Informed Education

For a long time, the educational system emphasized children adapting to the traditional methods of teaching. However, there has been a recent push in the opposite direction, encouraging teachers to adapt to their students instead to better understand the needs of each child, especially those who have experienced trauma in their past. Trauma-informed education is a key aspect of this movement, focusing on facilitating the healthy growth and healing of all children by being more sensitive to the struggles they may face.

What is Trauma-Informed Education?

Trauma-informed education is basically what it sounds like: considering the effects of trauma when creating an educational environment in which students can reach their utmost potential. Childhood trauma has many forms, including neglect, unsafe home environments, physical or emotional abuse, racism, poverty, community violence, and bullying. By understanding how trauma affects a child’s development in terms of their behavior, emotions, and overall brain function, it becomes possible to adapt educational systems to make trauma-affected children feel more included and cater to their specific needs.

How Do Trauma Symptoms Manifest in School Behavior?

Traditionally, many schools utilize a color-coded system for regulating children’s behavior. This system usually involves green behavior and red behavior, with some including a cautionary yellow in the middle. Children who behave in the green zone show signs of social awareness and emotional regulation by remaining in control of their behavior and cooperating with both staff and their peers. Red-zone behavior is usually characterized as aggressiveness, out-of-control energy, and active defiance against staff and peers. 

This type of behavioral categorization can be detrimental to children who are affected by trauma, as they may find it difficult to maintain green-zone behaviors due to the way their brain has developed. Children who have suffered from neglect or have grown up in a scary or stressful environment without proper care and attention from an adult will have an overactive limbic system (regulates fight or flight responses) and an immature prefrontal cortex (regulates emotion and behavior). 

As they grow, children need a steady environment that provides them with essentials so they can feel safe. Without such an environment and the presence of an adult to calmly teach them emotional regulation, children will not be able to develop green-zone behaviors on their own, as their brains have rightfully focused attention and growth on keeping themselves safe rather than behavioral regulation. Therefore, utilizing green and red systems may make children who are trauma survivors feel frustrated, excluded, and misunderstood.

These systems of regulating behavior can have the reverse of the desired effect for trauma-affected children. The green and red zones are essentially a reward and punishment system for behaviors. As mentioned before, a child who is a trauma survivor has an overactive limbic system, meaning that any red-zone behaviors they exhibit are already a result of fear or uncertainty. By adding the threat of punishment for these behaviors into the mix, children will only become more afraid, increasing their flight or flight response and any behavioral difficulties. Regulation through fear is not the desired solution. Rather, the goal should be to help children learn and adapt in a safe environment to truly heal and reach their full potential.

What Does a Trauma-Informed Educational Environment Look Like?

In a trauma-informed educational environment, the green and red system still exist. However, it does not include punishments for red zone behavior or public shaming for it. The emphasis must be placed on helping children to understand their behavior and track what zone they are in at a given moment based on the way they are feeling. This should be a personal experience for the child, not a public display.

An effective way of reinforcing green behavior and helping children understand their zones is to give them a physical way to track their zone as well as providing verbal reminders when they begin to stray. For example, have children create a chart with green and red zones on it and an arrow in the middle. This way, depending on the way they are feeling, children can actively move the arrow to indicate their zone and associate those feelings or behaviors with the correct zone. Simple or playful verbal reminders can be very beneficial in demonstrating which behaviors belong in which zones. 

Children, however, who are affected by trauma will need more than a verbal prompt to get back into the green zone once they have crossed into the red. The best way to assist them is to address the behavior quickly but calmly and provide a solution to help them get back into the green zone while enforcing a boundary line. Essentially, to re-enter the green zone themselves, they need assistance from an adult who is in the green zone as well. Thus, soft eyes and a calm voice are key when enforcing boundaries. Many children may benefit from movement as well, whether via small stress toys like squeeze balls or chewing gum or with a scheduled activity such as stretching or even yoga.

Why is Trauma-Informed Education Important?

Trauma-informed education is essential in adapting the school system to be more inclusive and understanding of the struggles faced by students with a traumatic past or ongoing trauma. For these children to form meaningful social relationships and truly heal internally, they must be allowed to learn inside an environment that feels safe and encourages their growth through understanding rather than punishment. Incorporating these methods into the classroom benefits all the children, not only those who have suffered from trauma. Extra help in learning to regulate behavior is never a bad thing and can help to facilitate emotional wellness and a deeper understanding of feelings regardless of past trauma.