1. TRAUMA & SCHOOL:
What Counts as Success?
Robert Burroughs, PhD
Board Member, Attachment & Trauma Network
& Teaching Consultant
2. Introduction
• Trauma is more pervasive than we think.
• Largest trauma study by CDC puts trauma exposure at about 25%
of U.S. population.
• All areas and classes of population are affected.
• Trauma is over-represented in residential programs?
• Trauma is over-represented among “helping professions”?
3. Learning Objectives
1) Identify the problems that school poses for students with
trauma and attachment issues.
2) Discuss the limitations in conventional school
approaches with traumatized children.
3) Describe a process for determining definitions of “school
success” for traumatized children.
4. The Road Map
• The toll and prevalence of childhood
trauma in America
• The problems that school poses for children
with trauma and attachment
• Why conventional school interventions are
less likely to work with traumatized children
• How relationship-based instruction can help
traumatized children in school
• How parents and teachers can negotiate
school success
7. The Toll of Childhood Trauma
ACE Study began to
progressively uncover
how adverse childhood
experiences (ACE) are
strongly related to
development and
prevalence of risk
factors for disease and
health and social well-
being throughout the
lifespan.
ACE Study began to progressively uncover how adverse childhood experiences
(ACE) are strongly related to development and prevalence of risk factors for
disease and health and social well-being throughout the lifespan.
11. The Road Map
• The toll and prevalence of childhood
trauma in America
• The problems that school poses for children
with trauma and attachment
• Why conventional school interventions are
less likely to work with traumatized children
• How relationship-based instruction can help
traumatized children in school
• How parents and teachers can negotiate
school success
12. How do we learn?
• All learning is based in
social interaction
• Social interaction is
based on relationship
• Learning is based upon
relationship
14. Traumatized Students’ Core Beliefs
• Because of traumatized students’ core beliefs,
they struggle with safety, trust, and community.
• “I won’t try, because then I can’t fail”
• “I don’t trust teachers”
• “Once I get close to teachers, I push them away”
• “If I‘m having success, that makes me anxious”
• “I’m stupid”
15. How Trauma Affects Attention
• Students are hyper-vigilant in school, since the
world is unsafe to them.
• Hyper-vigilance creates anxiety, which
compromises students’ abilities to:
• Concentrate on tasks
• Mentally process information
• Have relationships with peers and teachers
17. The Road Map
• The toll and prevalence of childhood
trauma in America
• The problems that school poses for children
with trauma and attachment
• Why conventional school interventions are
less likely to work with traumatized children
• How relationship-based instruction can help
traumatized children in school
• How parents and teachers can negotiate
school success
18. The Difficulties of School
Organization (Smith, 2010)
• External vs Internal
• School organized around schedules, curriculum, rules
• Child’s internal need for control to feel safe
• Group Activities
• Most activities of school are group-based
• Child has to deal with multiple people as once, stimulating anxiety
• Delayed Gratification
• Approval, achievement, report cards = delayed gratification
• Child focuses on gratification in the moment to stay safe
• Dual Role of teachers
• Teachers are dispensers of resources + limit-setters
• Child sees limits as arbitrary and unworthy of respect
19. The Difficulties with Conventional
School Interventions (Smith, 2010)
• Behavioral Evaluations
• The either/or nature of evaluating behavior: eg, good/bad
• From child’s POV: child’s behavior has a strategic purpose
• Conventional Behavior Plans
• Behavior plans are based on consistency
• Child’s POV: plan is “worked” for child’s goals
• Rewards and incentives often have little impact
• Zero Tolerance
• Runs the risk of an escalating cycle of consequences
• From child’s POV: school becomes a power struggle
20. How “Core Beliefs” Receive…
• Correction/Criticism
• Irrelevance to student’s goal of safety
• Confirmation of negative self image
• Praise
• Challenges core belief, which causes anxiety
• Confirmation that teacher can’t be trusted
• Success
• Challenges core belief, which causes anxiety
• Triggers “sabotage” to restore core belief
21. The Road Map
• The toll and prevalence of childhood
trauma in America
• The problems that school poses for children
with trauma and attachment
• Why conventional school interventions are
less likely to work with traumatized children
• How relationship-based instruction can help
traumatized children in school
• How parents and teachers can negotiate
school success
22. Relationship-Based Learning
• Current socio-cognitive theories
of learning (e.g., Bruner, 1990)
stress the importance of
learning in the context of
others.
• Because developmental trauma is
created in relationship (abuse,
neglect, inconsistency), it can be
healed only in relationship.
23. Trusting Relationships
• Most programs are relationship-based, and school
provides another venue in which students can experience
relationships.
• Trauma-informed teaching stresses establishing
relationships as the first priority. It is less about the
content of the curriculum, and more about the content of
the relationships.
• But because traumatized students often have had such
deep difficultly with school, educating them is messy, as
students struggle to connect with each other and with
teachers.
24. Tips for Teachers (Smith, 2010)
• Truth vs Belief
• Just explaining the difference can be helpful
• Can become basis for suggesting child’s erroneous beliefs
• Challenging Beliefs
• Direct challenge rarely works
• Suggest that child flip the belief
• When met with resistance, be curious
• Accountability for Beliefs
• Before praise, ask if child would believe it
• If yes, give praise; if no, withhold
25. The Road Map
• The toll and prevalence of childhood
trauma in America
• The problems that school poses for children
with trauma and attachment
• Why conventional school interventions are
less likely to work with traumatized children
• How relationship-based instruction can help
traumatized children in school
• How parents and teachers can negotiate
school success
26. The Importance of Regulation
• Forbes & Post (2006), citing Perry (2003) identify
dysregulation in traumatized children as either stemming
from hypo-arousal or hyper-arousal.
27. Why Regulation Matters in
School Classrooms
• In a review of research literature, Duckworth & Carlson
(2013) note:
self-regulation is often a better predictor of academic outcomes
than is IQ or grades. With school achievement levels controlled,
children who were rated one standard deviation above the mean on [a
measure of] attention span/persistence at age 4 years had 39%
greater odds of completing college by age 25. (p. 215)
28. ATrauma-Informed Approach to School
Emotional Regulation
Classroom Conventions
Executive Functioning
Academic Content
29. Fairness Is Getting What You Need
• Fairness = Treating all the same?
• Fair treatment = everyone is treated according to what they
need
• The relevance of comparing children
• When traumatized children raise fairness, usually code for:
• “Things aren’t going my way”
• “I don’t want to be held accountable”
• So what do traumatized children need in school?
31. Resources for Teachers
• Forbes, Heather. (2012). Help for Billy: A beyond
consequences approach to helping challenging children in the
classroom. Boulder, CO: Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC.
• Geddes, Heather. (2006). Attachment in the Classroom.
London: Worth Publishing
• Smith, Lawrence (2010). Oil and water: The attachment
disordered child and school. http://
Attachmentdisordermaryland.com
• Helping Traumatized Children Learn: 5 Core Ideas
http://traumasensitiveschools.org/tlpi-publications
32. References
• Adverse Childhood Events (ACE) study. https://www.cdc.gov/
violenceprevention/acestudy/
• Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning: Four lectures on mind and culture.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Duckworth, A. L., & Carlson, S. M. (2013). Self-regulation and school
success. In B. W. Sokol, F. M. E. Grouzet, & U. Müller (Eds.), Self-
regulation and autonomy: Social and developmental dimensions of human
conduct (pp. 208-230). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Forbes, H.T & Post, B.B. (2006). Beyond consequences and logic
and control: A love-based approach to helping children with severe
behaviors. Orlando, FL: Beyond Consequences Institute.
• Perry, B.D. (2003) Keynote Address. Neurons to Neighborhood 2003
Conference. Los Angeles, CA
