To take challenging behaviour at face value and write disruptive children off as ‘troublemakers’ is to do them a disservice. By failing to acknowledge each child’s unique history and context, we are fundamentally letting children down.
As Professor Mark Solms says, “if we just see behaviour with no reference to the context of the child’s life, we do terrible violence to the facts of what has happened to him”.
As Co-Director of Trauma Informed Schools UK, I’ve visited schools across the country to celebrate teachers and education staff who are leading the way in terms of best practice in mental health. The following case study illustrates a fundamental principle that we consistently find in mentally healthy schools: the need to view a child’s current behaviour within the context of their home life.
Tragically, too many children are excluded for challenging behaviour which stems directly from unaddressed traumatic life experiences. It’s crucial that we establish context before the point of exclusion. I passionately believe that psychological safeguarding is just as important as physical safeguarding, and if we fail to be curious or even ask basic questions about a child’s home circumstances, we are simply retraumatising the traumatised.
Nearly half a million children in the UK report that they have no one to confide in at school when they experience feelings of sadness/anxiety (Mental Health Foundation, October 2018), and these feelings of isolation manifest in sleep difficulties, aggression, concentration issues and trouble socialising with peers.
The following case study describes a situation with a seemingly very defiant eight-year-old, ‘Sebbie’, whose challenging behaviour was met by school staff with harsh criticism and threat making. Neither of these methods worked, but both proved very time consuming. It was only after a trauma-informed practitioner engaged in a conversation with Sebbie about his feelings that staff saw a notable change in his behaviour.
What happened
- For three days, eight-year-old Sebbie refused to step foot into his classroom – instead, choosing to sit outside in the corridor. Teachers called him “attention seeking” and threatened detention, which only made Sebbie curl up into a tighter ball and go even quieter.
- This response is typical – when any mammal (be it a human child or a bear cub!) experiences feelings of threat, they enter ‘fight’, ‘flight’, or ‘freeze’ mode. When frustrated teachers issue warnings to challenging children, responses could include running away from school, hiding under a desk, or cowering with their head in their hands (like Sebbie). When children perceive threat in a situation, they experience neurochemical responses as part of their social defence system, which the founder of attachment theory Sir John Bowlby described as “shrinking from the world or doing battle with it”.
- If we want children who are happy, well behaved and ready to learn, school staff must make sure that they are supporting children’s psychological safety. Using a warm, gentle voice, getting down to their level and being genuinely curious about a child’s feelings are all excellent ways to promote feelings of safeness and ensure they are ready to learn.