Trauma
(10 minute read)
There are many forms of trauma that include: chronic-meaning long term exposure to trauma such as domestic violence, family trauma (generational), acute trauma-single event that exposes the body to a high level of stress, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, humiliation and the list goes on. A lot of factors play into how the body handles trauma. Some children can be more resilient due to personality characteristics, social support, the level of trauma they were exposed to and how long, a child’s age and so on. Any form of trauma can affect a persons ability to relate with others and function in society. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk states, ” Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” (The Body Keeps the Score, 2014)
So lets start with a basic understanding of how trauma affects the brain. Trauma actually affects the physical brain. It is a well known fact that trauma actually shrinks some parts of the brain! The parts we are going to discuss today include the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. Our goal here is to understand how trauma affects the brain and then we will move into some basic conversation about how we increase our ‘window of tolerance’ through meeting most primitive basic needs, and conversation, so we can calm our children’s brain stem and help our children move into their safe zone and feel emotionally connected.
BRAIN
Amygdala
Lets talk about the amygdala! The amygdala is for the mere purposes of analyzing sensory information and the key to processing emotions, especially fear, anxiety and anger. Of course the amygdala is connected with other parts of the brain, as it functions as a whole unit therefore, it connects with learning, memory and our senses as well. The brain interprets information and threats and will trigger emotional responses such as our fight, flight, freeze/collapse. The amygdala responds with extreme quickness and will enact certain responses and shoots messages to the brain stem. So I often share with my clients and parents, informing them, that if the child is in a regular state of stress their brain stem is constantly in the “red” and we want to help the brain re pattern to stay in the “blue”.
Brain stem
The brain stem receives messages from the amygdala and then activates our sympathetic nervous system. I wrote another article explaining the sympathetic nervous system, an easy read that explains our sympathetic nervous system in a very understandable format (link below). Theses messages that are sent through the brain stem, then tell our body how to respond by releasing hormones and responses through nervous system. This includes the para sympathetic system (depression, shut down, calm down responses) and sympathetic system (on the alert, hyper aroused). Read the Parenting Paradigm Shift real quick! I promise its super helpful to understand how your child’s brain works! Simply put, stress from trauma can create unhealthy neural pathways. These pathways are used so much due to the trauma the child has experienced that the amygdala begins to recognize stress when there may not even be stress present. Or it recognizes a stress trigger and will respond with a high alert message sent through the brain stem to their bodies. Keeping their brain stem reacting and responding in unhealthy ways through the body on a regular basis.
Hippocampus
The hippocampus, responsibility is to help with learning and memory. This particular part of the brain can shrink after trauma, which in turn affects a child’s memory, focus and learning abilities.
Prefrontal Cortex
Prefrontal Cortex, is what I call the “upstairs” part of our brain. It is the part of the brain that helps with rational decisions, emotional regulation and thinking! Trauma can directly affect this part of the brain as well causing focus issues, poor emotional regulation, and impulsive behaviors.
Basic Needs Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs.
So where do we start to engage our children into their safety zone (comfort). We start by remembering the 5 most important basic needs. (Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs) Looking at the chart, we want to make sure that their physiological needs are met to the best of our ability, food, water, warmth and such. And note, that warmth and food increase serotonin levels in the brain. This is also where play, activity, and nurturing comes in as well, as I believe those are core physiological needs. My oldest son had some tactile needs and dysregulation. He needed certain socks, certain shoes, certain clothing, quiet spaces, and so on. So, I made sure that we worked hard to give him those needs as much as I possibly could! When he would start to unravel, I would quickly provide a basic need that would provide comfort! Why!? Because I wanted to rewire his brain pathways so that, when he asked for something that was tactile related, he would get it immediately! These are needs he believed that had to be met or something was not right! Even though I knew that they were unnecessary, I met that need over and over so then the anxiety behind those needs actually started to disappear. His brain was rewired to believe that his need would be met therefore there was no anxiety. We would pre-plan and talk through issues when we would know that his needs couldn’t be met and we would brainstorm and find other comfort measures. (This increased his window of tolerance, later in the article I’ll explain more) When he struggled with switching schools and emotionally could not hack the new classroom environment, I pulled him out and home schooled him and nurtured his every need and social needs to build the skills he needed to go back into the classroom. I know this sounds extreme and many of you are unable to make such big decisions as homeschooling! But you can find ways to meet those basic needs that will create the new pathways in their brain to help lesson their negative behaviors! After 6 months of nurturing and strengthening his social skills I was able to place him back in the classroom! He has now graduated high school with lots of friends and is a manager at a local tire company!
Create safety. Remind children they are safe. Do not increase a un safe environment. Screaming, yelling, chaos, lack of organization, no planning etc will increase their feelings of not being safe. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk states, “yelling at someone who is already out of control can only lead to further dysregulation.” (The Body Keeps the Score, 2014) We have to ensure that the systems our children are involved in provide a sense of safety that not only includes our homes, but also, school room, community activities, peers and self. If you feel your child’s school room is not promoting a safe emotional space for you child then that needs to be addressed. All systems need to be safe (emotionally) to help in the healing process from trauma. When we have a child who is consistently dysregulated it makes it hard for parents to remain regulated. Their will be a higher level of need for self awareness and tools that your ready to use to help yourself keep calm. Self care, therapy, social support, fun activities, calming activities and such will go a long way for your own bodies. Also don’t forget to read my article, Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Big Words for Simple Solutions With Your Children, for tools and a simple plan to deal with extreme behaviors.
Love and Belonging
Well I could not stress this enough! Love means to accept, be present, engage and care for another without conditions. Love includes nurturing, patience, guidance, gentleness, its the core of our relationships. Please read my article on Belonging and Significance
Self-actualization
Self Actualization is the process of realizing your full potential and becoming the best version of yourself! How do we help our children achieve this!? Well! We start looking for things our children are good at and we expose them and grow them! Whether is sports, dance, art, computers, music, theater, and when all else fails, it can even be social and emotional gain through those closest to you (church, your own friends and children). We encourage activities, engage in relationships, provide play with friends, and engage in lots of activities within the family system. I cannot express how important social activities and engagements are! Play! Play! Play!
Window of Tolerance
Okay now we know from reading this article, how our brain functions (somewhat)! Also don’t forget to read Parenting Paradigm Shift. This article and the Parenting Paradigm Shift really will drive home how the brain works! Moving forward, lets combine all we have covered this article: brain function, basic needs, and our nervous system. What is our “window of tolerance”? Our window is how much we can actually handle without having a negative emotional response. Dan Siegel, is a Dr. of Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and also another one of my favorite authors. He wrote a slew of books, some of my favorite include, The Whole Brain Child, The Developing Mind, and No Drama Discipline. He came up with the theory of our “window of tolerance” What is window of tolerance theory Dr. Dan Siegel?
“Window of Tolerance describes the best state of ‘arousal’ or stimulation in which we are able to function and thrive in everyday life. When we exist within this window, we are able to learn effectively, play, and relate well to ourselves and others.” (The Developing Mind, 1999) However, when our experiences start to expand our window, we began to see dysregulation of the nervous system! Our goal here is to help our children be aware and us as parents be mindful of their own personal window of tolerance! Once we are more aware, then we also can understand and help our children by staying within their bounds. We also can work to increase their window of tolerance!
1st step-help your child be aware that they have their own unique window of tolerance
2nd step- help your child understand that when they are out side their window of tolerance it could cause discomfort, dysregulation, anxiety, depression, anger and so on. Again awareness is everything!
3rd step-begin to help your child plan for obstacles that increase stress. Brainstorm solutions and skills to negotiate the obstacles. Planning helps increase their window of tolerance. This is called providing process interventions.
4th step-provide or set up extra support. Build predictability, visual time tables, add some structure, routines. Provide more personal support either from you or teachers, counselors, social groups, family and such.
5th use regulation sensory accommodations. Blankets, quiet space, toys that can help regulate and so on to either calm the child back down or get them through their obstacle. Offer a play activity, game or going to grab something to eat together (serotonin boost) or physical activity! Its like a visual aid but an active one that can help them through! These are called compensation interventions.
https://amzn.to/3DZdWXU Slime actually stimulates the vagus nerve response when you play with it! Pay attention when you play with slime do you end up releasing a sigh. It releases tension and promotes relaxation by stimulating the vagus nerve.
Look for my article on ways to regulate your child with play, communication and activities that can help the body regulate. Or join our mailing list for regulatory toys and ideas!
Check back soon!
Susanna L. Prensner
Bringing hope and education to youth and families in today’s society.