1.
Knowing that parents are stressed in these tough economic times, is it safe to say that our children are experiencing that stress as well? How? What might they be experiencing as children? The best way I have come to help others understand how children experience the stress around them is this: Imagine you are walking through the woods.
It's a beautiful day.
It's quiet.
You're all alone, and you feel at peace.
Suddenly, you hear a branch break.
The silence is broken and you wonder what could have caused it.
You orient to the area where the sound came from.
You become solely focused, scanning the environment, sensing that something is wrong and you could be in danger.
The key word here is sense.
You feel a tightness in your throat perhaps, quivering knees, butterflies in the stomach.
When your brain and body feel that they may be in danger, it is a sensory experience.
The oldest part of our brain - the reptilian or animal brain - is communicating to us through its language - sensations - in order to warn us that we may be under threat and may have to fight for our survival.
For children, this economic crisis and the stress it invokes within their home is that branch breaking in the woods.
Children's animal brains are the most developed part of their brain.
Their cognitive brain, the center for ration and reason and intellect, is still developing (and is not fully developed until we're in our mid-20s).
Children have greater access to their animal brain and actually live more in a sensory mode, picking up on everything going on around them.
That is how their survival is more likely to be ensured.
In milliseconds and constantly - it's an unconscious, automatic process - the animal brain inside each child is scanning the environment, asking, "Am I okay? Will I be all right? Is my survival ensured? Am I safe?" If the animal brain experiences "YES" to all those questions, it calms down and makes available once again the cognitive brain so necessary for learning and adaptive behavior.
2.
How do their elevated stress and/or anxiety affect them at school? At home with siblings, friends? The brain mediates all of behavior, including school functioning so to really understand the answer to this question we have to understand how the brain works.
Its primary purpose is survival, period.
Until the brain knows survival is ensured, it cannot focus on anything else, least of all reading, writing, and arithmetic.
When our children are afraid, the animal brain fires at full speed and overrides the cognitive brain needed for school.
Our stressed and anxious children cannot focus, concentrate, or be in the here and now to fully benefit from their education.
They look like they're daydreaming.
They're spacey or inattentive.
They appear squirrely or fidgety, like they have ants in their pants.
With siblings and friends, they may seem irritable, pushy, or aggressive because they sense they're in danger somehow - why else would they feel so jittery inside? "It must be because you're threatening me.
" 3.
Can children actually become traumatized by what's going on around them? How will we know if our child has been traumatized? Something like economic stress and uncertainty is not likely to traumatize a child by itself.
It is the kind of environment that is provoked by such instability that can be damaging, especially if a child is already vulnerable or sensitive because of previous experiences of trauma or a lack of available resources.
That brings into question what trauma can be for a child.
So often, I will ask concerned parents if their child has ever experienced a trauma and their answer is invariably, "No, never.
" But when I get more specific and ask detailed questions about accidents, injuries, falls, hospitalizations, surgeries, medical or dental procedures, in utero and birth experiences, I get a very different answer.
In fact, their face will get white as their memory is jogged and they recall how traumatic an event was not just for their child but for them as well.
You will know if your child has been traumatized if he or she is having sleep disturbances, such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, restless sleep, nightmares, or night terrors.
Traumatized children often have changes in their eating.
They eat less or more.
They become more easily upset, over minor triggers.
They stay upset longer, are difficult to soothe and calm.
They may develop fears they didn't have before.
They can become clingy and dependent and may revert back to earlier behaviors they once had outgrown.
4.
What can we do as parents and educators to help our nervous, scared, or traumatized children? The most important thing we must do is recognize the problem for what it is, and not allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the ways in which these children are misunderstood.
Too many are perceived on the part of parents, educators, doctors, and clinicians as ADHD, Bipolar, depressed, phobic, etc.
and put on medications they should never be on.
Traumatized children's responses and behaviors are normal given the abnormal events they have experienced.
They are not part of a lifelong disorder that can only be managed with medication and therapy.
Trauma can be healed, and when it is, so-called symptoms go away.
What our traumatized children need to heal are resources.
The most important resources are safety, competence, and community.
We provide safety through relationship by settling our own nervous system first with our own resources so we can be a calm and reassuring presence for our children.
We provide safety through relationship - a warm and trusting bond with our children - when we are affectionate, physically supportive, and consistent.
We create safety by being predictable, with routines, structure, rules, limits, boundaries, and sensible discipline.
Teachers provide safety when they create, communicate, and post a Zero Tolerance Policy for racism and bullying, or The Rules as well as If-Then charts that state what can be expected if a rule is broken.
Children need to know that when I am with this person in this place, this is how things work, 100 per cent of the time.
This is what I can expect.
Their activated nervous system is soothed tremendously by this level of predictability.
The second we become unpredictable is the second we become just like trauma.
Nervous, scared, or traumatized children need to feel good at something, that they have a contribution to make, that they have value and purpose.
That "knowing," that experience of "I can" inside of them is the antithesis to the physiology of trauma which leads to hopelessness and helplessness, a feeling of "I can't.
It's too much.
I have no control.
What's the point?" Nervous, scared, or traumatized children tend to want to isolate.
Fear takes over.
The world and everything in it, including people, are scary.
We must be sure they continue to engage and be part of a safe and encouraging community.
We know from research conducted after 9/11, for example, that the people who were able to heal and move on more quickly were those that became a part of something, an effort to restore the city, volunteering at Ground Zero, for example, rather than isolating at home watching re-runs of the towers going down.
Knowing that parents are stressed in these tough economic times, is it safe to say that our children are experiencing that stress as well? How? What might they be experiencing as children? The best way I have come to help others understand how children experience the stress around them is this: Imagine you are walking through the woods.
It's a beautiful day.
It's quiet.
You're all alone, and you feel at peace.
Suddenly, you hear a branch break.
The silence is broken and you wonder what could have caused it.
You orient to the area where the sound came from.
You become solely focused, scanning the environment, sensing that something is wrong and you could be in danger.
The key word here is sense.
You feel a tightness in your throat perhaps, quivering knees, butterflies in the stomach.
When your brain and body feel that they may be in danger, it is a sensory experience.
The oldest part of our brain - the reptilian or animal brain - is communicating to us through its language - sensations - in order to warn us that we may be under threat and may have to fight for our survival.
For children, this economic crisis and the stress it invokes within their home is that branch breaking in the woods.
Children's animal brains are the most developed part of their brain.
Their cognitive brain, the center for ration and reason and intellect, is still developing (and is not fully developed until we're in our mid-20s).
Children have greater access to their animal brain and actually live more in a sensory mode, picking up on everything going on around them.
That is how their survival is more likely to be ensured.
In milliseconds and constantly - it's an unconscious, automatic process - the animal brain inside each child is scanning the environment, asking, "Am I okay? Will I be all right? Is my survival ensured? Am I safe?" If the animal brain experiences "YES" to all those questions, it calms down and makes available once again the cognitive brain so necessary for learning and adaptive behavior.
2.
How do their elevated stress and/or anxiety affect them at school? At home with siblings, friends? The brain mediates all of behavior, including school functioning so to really understand the answer to this question we have to understand how the brain works.
Its primary purpose is survival, period.
Until the brain knows survival is ensured, it cannot focus on anything else, least of all reading, writing, and arithmetic.
When our children are afraid, the animal brain fires at full speed and overrides the cognitive brain needed for school.
Our stressed and anxious children cannot focus, concentrate, or be in the here and now to fully benefit from their education.
They look like they're daydreaming.
They're spacey or inattentive.
They appear squirrely or fidgety, like they have ants in their pants.
With siblings and friends, they may seem irritable, pushy, or aggressive because they sense they're in danger somehow - why else would they feel so jittery inside? "It must be because you're threatening me.
" 3.
Can children actually become traumatized by what's going on around them? How will we know if our child has been traumatized? Something like economic stress and uncertainty is not likely to traumatize a child by itself.
It is the kind of environment that is provoked by such instability that can be damaging, especially if a child is already vulnerable or sensitive because of previous experiences of trauma or a lack of available resources.
That brings into question what trauma can be for a child.
So often, I will ask concerned parents if their child has ever experienced a trauma and their answer is invariably, "No, never.
" But when I get more specific and ask detailed questions about accidents, injuries, falls, hospitalizations, surgeries, medical or dental procedures, in utero and birth experiences, I get a very different answer.
In fact, their face will get white as their memory is jogged and they recall how traumatic an event was not just for their child but for them as well.
You will know if your child has been traumatized if he or she is having sleep disturbances, such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, restless sleep, nightmares, or night terrors.
Traumatized children often have changes in their eating.
They eat less or more.
They become more easily upset, over minor triggers.
They stay upset longer, are difficult to soothe and calm.
They may develop fears they didn't have before.
They can become clingy and dependent and may revert back to earlier behaviors they once had outgrown.
4.
What can we do as parents and educators to help our nervous, scared, or traumatized children? The most important thing we must do is recognize the problem for what it is, and not allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the ways in which these children are misunderstood.
Too many are perceived on the part of parents, educators, doctors, and clinicians as ADHD, Bipolar, depressed, phobic, etc.
and put on medications they should never be on.
Traumatized children's responses and behaviors are normal given the abnormal events they have experienced.
They are not part of a lifelong disorder that can only be managed with medication and therapy.
Trauma can be healed, and when it is, so-called symptoms go away.
What our traumatized children need to heal are resources.
The most important resources are safety, competence, and community.
We provide safety through relationship by settling our own nervous system first with our own resources so we can be a calm and reassuring presence for our children.
We provide safety through relationship - a warm and trusting bond with our children - when we are affectionate, physically supportive, and consistent.
We create safety by being predictable, with routines, structure, rules, limits, boundaries, and sensible discipline.
Teachers provide safety when they create, communicate, and post a Zero Tolerance Policy for racism and bullying, or The Rules as well as If-Then charts that state what can be expected if a rule is broken.
Children need to know that when I am with this person in this place, this is how things work, 100 per cent of the time.
This is what I can expect.
Their activated nervous system is soothed tremendously by this level of predictability.
The second we become unpredictable is the second we become just like trauma.
Nervous, scared, or traumatized children need to feel good at something, that they have a contribution to make, that they have value and purpose.
That "knowing," that experience of "I can" inside of them is the antithesis to the physiology of trauma which leads to hopelessness and helplessness, a feeling of "I can't.
It's too much.
I have no control.
What's the point?" Nervous, scared, or traumatized children tend to want to isolate.
Fear takes over.
The world and everything in it, including people, are scary.
We must be sure they continue to engage and be part of a safe and encouraging community.
We know from research conducted after 9/11, for example, that the people who were able to heal and move on more quickly were those that became a part of something, an effort to restore the city, volunteering at Ground Zero, for example, rather than isolating at home watching re-runs of the towers going down.
Source...