The American Psychological Association defines trauma as an emotional response to a terrible event, such as an accident, rape, or natural disaster. Longer-term reactions to trauma include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and sometimes physical symptoms.
Although people of all ages experience trauma, it has an exceptionally long-lasting impact on children as their brains are still rapidly developing. Children in schools today are living lives filled with trauma of one sort or another, and trauma that is often out of their control.
For example, over two-thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by age 16. These events include psychological, physical, or sexual abuse, community or school violence, witnessing or experiencing domestic violence, losing a loved one, refugee or war experience, neglect, and serious accidents.
In a class of 24 students, about four struggle with mental health issues that impair them in some way, and nearly half the class has been exposed to at least one traumatic event.
Chronic exposure to traumatic events, especially during a child’s early years, can adversely affect attention, memory, and cognition, reduce a child’s ability to focus, organize, and process information, and result in overwhelming frustration and anxiety.
“Childhood trauma is among the most relevant and significant psycho-social factors affecting education today,” according to The National School Boards Association resource on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
Academic Performance
Exposure to traumatic events and mental illness associated with these events often affect children’s educational experiences.
The American Psychological Association notes that trauma and trauma flashbacks can lead to excessive absences, prevent students from paying attention in class, and undermine various skills crucial for learning, including language development, communication, and organizational and reading skills. In turn, academic performance is significantly affected.
A 2008 study suggested that violence exposure adversely affects reading scores, and the greater the exposure, the lower the achievement. Additionally, a comprehensive research study explained how adverse childhood experiences and suspensions in school impact the high school dropout rate and arrest by 18.
Neuroscientific researchers explained that although trauma can impact a child’s academic health in numerous ways, it can also hinder a child’s capacity for creative play. Play is arguably the most essential tool children use to grow and develop, with significant cognitive, emotional, and social benefits for elementary school children.
Behavior
Children neglected or abused often have problems forming relationships with teachers, a necessary first step in a successful classroom experience. Many of these children haven’t been able to develop secure attachments to the adults in their lives and need help letting other adults in.
These kids may be clingy, fearful of new situations, easily frightened, and difficult to console. They are also particularly likely to experience emotions such as disruptive behavior and verbal or physical aggression toward teachers and peers.
These kids don’t have the context to ask for help. According to Nancy Rappaport, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, they don’t have a model for adults recognizing their needs and giving them what they need.
From an elementary student who has outbursts of anger during class to a teenager who freezes up and can’t focus on exams, there are many ways that trauma can manifest and impact the learning process.
When a child experiences trauma, the brain’s stress response becomes activated, taking up a lot of emotional bandwidth. Therefore, Identifying trauma symptoms in children can help educators understand children’s confusing behavior and avoid misdiagnosis.
Some signs educators can look for in the classroom include excessive anger or irritability, unusual startle reactions, significantly increased or reduced appetite, exhaustion, aggression, regular tardiness, perfectionism, difficulty concentrating, low self-confidence, risky behavior, panic attacks, defiance, or alienation from peers.
“Trauma puts the child’s mind and the body into fight-or-flight mode and redirects energy away from more sophisticated developmental needs, like well-tuned emotion regulation, cognitive processes (such as attention), and high-level social cognition like identity and relationship formation,” Andrew Gerber, MD, PhD, president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut, said in an April 2022 press release.
