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Links Between Conflict Management and Trauma
By Jennifer C. Batton and Mary Sharron
Swearing, fighting with classmates, throwing tantrums, withdraw, and defiance — these are behaviors teachers and caregivers see exhibited in classrooms everyday. To understand and effectively deal with these behaviors, many teachers and caregivers are using the training and tools provided through school-based conflict management programs. These programs teach constructive problem solving as a life skill and give teachers and school personnel valuable tools to assist students in managing conflict. To increase the effectiveness of conflict management programs, many educators, caregivers, and trainers are beginning to explore the connection between aggressive and disruptive behavior and trauma. The cause(s) behind a sudden display of inappropriate behavior is not always apparent. Are these behaviors simply those of "bad children"? Or are these symptoms of children who feel totally helpless and frightened due to a traumatic experience?
The term trauma is generally associated with individuals who have been witnesses to or victims of violence, such as during times of war. However, according to Paramjit T-Joshi, a pediatrician and a child psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, children in America whose environments consist of high amounts of poverty, violence, drugs, unemployment and teen pregnancy are much worse off than some of the children in war torn areas such as the Balkans. Many children in America are exposed to a constant state of conflict and other stresses that can lead to trauma. The social setting in which a child grows up plays a major role in the development of the brain. A child’s reaction may differ according to the level of traumatic exposure, but trauma does not appear to discriminate according to sex, ethnicity, or age. All children are vulnerable.
Bill Steele, Director of the Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, states that trauma occurs not only when a child has been a direct victim of violence, but also when a child has indirect contact when a child has witnessed violence; is related to a victim of violence; has friends in common with a victim; or is a student at a school where violence has occurred. Trauma can also occur when a child experiences changes in their lifestyle. Such a change can include a new sibling, moving, divorce, or a change in school, childcare center, or the health of a family member.
To increase the effectiveness of conflict management programs, educators and caregivers need to identify and address the root cause(s) of a child’s negative behavior. Often trauma is a root cause. For example, during a mediation session designed to address a student’s truancy at an Ohio elementary school, a mediator learned of a prior traumatic experience that was affecting the student’s attendance. The student, Sarah, refused to leave her mother’s side. She did not want to go to school. During the mediation, Sarah was asked how she liked her teachers, how she was doing in her classes, was she well behaved, and did she like the other kids in her class. She responded positively to each question as though nothing was upsetting her at school. When the mediator spoke with Sarah’s mother in private, she asked if anything different had happened close to the time when Sarah began to refuse to go to school. Sarah’s mother explained that nothing had happened recently, but about a year earlier Sarah found her father’s dead body in the living room of their home. After the death of her father, Sarah did attend counseling sessions for a while, but the sessions were stopped because Sarah was not exhibiting any negative behavior. Everything seemed to be OK. Sarah’s mother did not attribute Sarah’s refusal to attend school to her finding her father’s body because no behavioral signs were apparent immediately following the incident. Now, a year later, Sarah was exhibiting several trauma specific responses. According to Bill Steele, this situation is not unusual. A child may not show responsive signs to a trauma until more than a year after the disturbing event.
If a traumatic experience could be the root cause of a child’s negative or inappropriate behavior, educators and caregivers should first identify an appropriate individual or agency to assist the child and his/her family with assessment and any needed follow-up counseling. In addition, classroom interventions can be identified to help deal with the child’s behavior. Although teachers should not be placed in a therapist’s or counselor’s role, there are classroom activities that use role playing, art, literature, and music to assist children who have experienced trauma. Dealing with trauma often requires psychomotor intervention rather than a cognitive or emotional style of intervention. For example, children must first have an opportunity to heal themselves through healing play, art, or literary activities. In her book Making it Better: Activities for Children Living in a Stressful World, Barbara Oehlberg offers a number of activities designed to help children address issues of loss, separation, rejection, despair, frustration, anger and powerlessness.
In his article Neurodevelopment Adaptations to Violence: How Children Survive the Intergenerational Vortex of Violence, Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine explains that conflict resolution models will fail with children who have experienced trauma unless they involve the elements of role playing and information learned in song, rhyme, or rap. A traumatized child in a state of anxiety more easily recalls information learned in this manner. Cognitively stored information does a child little good in a life threatening moment because children who have suffered from trauma can not access the problem-solving portion of their brain when placed under extreme duress.
Children who have suffered through some kind of trauma typically exhibit a decreased ability to remember information they have learned or a decreased ability to learn new classroom material. Often students have problems concentrating and may exhibit a great deal of anxiety with regard to their schoolwork or their social activities. Such high anxiety can lead to an inability to access the problem-solving part of the brain, thus limiting a child’s response to conflict to a "flight-or-fight" mentality. When this occurs in a classroom, students often see their fight response as a defense mechanism rather than an aggressive or "bad" behavior.
Also, children who have suffered through trauma pay enormous attention to nonverbal clues. For example, if a teacher’s anxiety level is high when she addresses a conflict with a student, the student’s anxiety level will likely increase as well. As a result, the student’s ability to weigh particular options to a conflict are impaired, and the "fight-or-flight" response for resolving a conflict wins out over a more level-headed response. If, on the other hand, a teacher remains calm and exhibits positive conflict management skills with regard to body language, tone of voice, and breathing patterns then a student is more likely to respond in a non-aggressive manner. Children do not heal from the results of a trauma without support. They need parents, educators and caregivers that have the ability to recognize and understand what they are experiencing, and the tools to support the child as they deal with the traumatic experience.
In an effort to raise the awareness of educators, caregivers, and conflict management practitioners regarding trauma and children, this past fall and winter the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management sponsored a series of free workshops on Trauma and Loss in Children. This series was conducted by Bill Steele, Director of the Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children (TLC).
For more information on the Institute, please call or write TLC at: 900 Cook Road, Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, 48236, phone (313) 885-0390.
For more information on Barb Oehlberg's work on childhood trauma and its effects, you may access her power point presentation by clicking on Nurturing Resiliency & Hope for Children Living in a Stressful World or go to her website at: http://www.reachingdifficultkids.org.
For more information on the links between conflict management and trauma or the Commission’s future professional development workshops, please contact Jennifer Batton at (614) 752-9595 or via e-mail at Jennifer.Batton@cdr.state.oh.us
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