The term “childhood trauma” refers to the effects—to the brain, nervous system, frame of mind and behavior—of extremely stressful event(s) that occur during childhood and overwhelm a child’s coping ability. Research shows that in-utero infants can also experience trauma if stressful events happen to the person carrying that infant. Examples of trauma include physical, emotional or sexual abuse; neglect; separation from loved ones; or unpredictable parental behaviors, such as those which occur with substance use or other mental disorders, or if the parent has unprocessed trauma of their own.  For many children, entering foster care is another traumatic event.

How Does Trauma Work?

When a stressful event (big or small, singular or repeatedly) occurs, the child’s brain responds with a survival stress response, including: fight (confronting the threat directly), flight (escaping from the threat), freeze (becoming immobile), and fawn (appeasing the threat by people-pleasing behaviors). . These stress responses help a child cope with the overwhelming situation and adapt to the circumstances they have no control over.  Stress response is automatic and initiated from our most primitive “lizard” brain. Therefore, it doesn’t involve the higher reasoning portion of the brain (not yet formed in childhood).

Trauma Triggers and Resulting Behaviors

When a child experiences trauma over time, their body adapts as if on autopilot to do whatever it takes to cope/stay safe (fight, flight, freeze or fawn). This adaptation becomes their stress response to their trauma “triggers,” things that remind them (often subconsciously) of the original traumatic event. Triggers often occur in entirely different settings and remind the child (or adult) of the original event that threatened their safety or nervous system.

Trauma triggers can be a sound, sight, touch, smell, feeling, place, someone’s expression, posture or tone of voice. The trigger drops the child right back into their need to stay safe in the way(s) that worked for them before, without thought. The child is not able to reason or consider the consequences or the effects of their behaviors on others. Triggers can seem unrelated to the child’s traumatic early life events but can be connected in a variety of ways. Homework, trying to fit in with peers, and angst about their family of origin can also move them into the same stress response behavior they first developed.

A young person might exhibit distrust, disobedience, disassociation, aggression, angry outbursts, willful non-listening, or defiance of the adult figure. Think of these behaviors as reflexes or automatic reactions. They are not thought out or planned.

And It’s Not Just Behaviors

Repeated activation of the stress response can also cause a child to experience a host of physical and emotional ailments. This is because stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, trigger the physical changes needed to fight, flight, freeze or fawn. This can result in migraines, headaches, gut problems, acne, anxiety, self-destructive behaviors (cutting, eating disorders, substance use disorder, hair pulling), suicidal ideations, depression, and sleep difficulties, as just some examples.  These ailments can be another sign a child has experienced or is experiencing trauma.

Stay tuned for tips on handling troubling behaviors coming soon in Helping a Young Person Who’s Experienced Trauma – Part 2.

Teens and Halloween Considerations:

• The pandemic interrupted holidays and get-togethers. Those who are teens now were recently tweens or big kids and may have missed the fun these past 2 years.
• Age or size does not equal mental development. A teen in age may be much younger developmentally as trauma and other factors affect development.
• Costumes may look like everyday clothes. Perhaps they may be dressed up as a YouTuber or videogame character, or they may not have money to dress up.
• Free candy! Who doesn’t love that?!

Here are other unique ideas to help teens enjoy a safe and fun Halloween:

• Get crafty — no magic needed, just some DIY fun! Check out these Halloween Crafts for Teens and Tweens by Happiness is Homemade for ideas from candles to wreaths.
• Ask them to hand out the candy. They can even have a little fun being creepy or giving a gentle scare as trick-or-treaters walk up.
• Host a movie night, complete with treats. The film doesn’t have to be gory, there are plenty of options from silly to suspenseful. Check out this list of 97 Best Halloween Movies by Teen Vogue.
• Host a pumpkin carving or painting contest. A traditional and still a favorite!
• Bake festive treats. We like these 20 easy and fun ideas from Raising Teens Today.

No matter how teens engage in the holiday, we encourage them to be safe and respectful.

Sometimes the best tips for mentoring, whether formally, like in our program, or informally, come from sources beyond child welfare. In this case, we draw from The Habits Academy, an online course developed for executives.

Tip 1: To change your habits, change your identity.

Our youth often become a product of the system. When connecting with a young person, especially from foster care, it’s important to focus on the positive traits that they identify. Let’s take Jolene as an example. She introduces herself as a “typical [foster] kid who kind of likes painting and drawing.” Reframe this with her by stating, “Jolene, you are an artist!” As often as is appropriate, reinforce that positive identity.

Tip 2: Stack the new habit on top of a pre-established habit.

Developing new habits can feel insurmountable, especially for young people dealing with so much change and inconsistency. Here’s what stacking looks like: If the youth wants to commit to doing more physical activity, encourage them to do just 20 jumping jacks before their get ready routine. Same goes for mindfulness exercises—suggest that they take 5 minutes before sleeping to reflect on the positives of the day and what good things are in store for tomorrow. With repetition, these activities become automatic in a short time.

Tip 3:  Focus on the simple act that sets the stage for a good habit.

It might be difficult to sit down and write a term paper, but it’s often a lot easier to begin by clearing a workspace to simply brainstorm. Forget about the end product at first and a significant barrier can be removed.

Tip 4: Focus less on goals and more on building a new system and approach.

Goals are important. But if goals are not designed to lead to system change, bad habits come right back. We’ll use dieting as an example. If a teen states their weight is causing issues and they want to get to a healthier weight, help them replace a maximum-number-of calories-a-day goal with a  focus on what they can do to promote overall health, such as daily physical activities, omitting sugary drinks, and eating less junk food.

Tip 5: Praise yourself for your bad habit days.

Reverting to a bad habit is natural. For youth who have experienced trauma, the guilt associated with slipping into a bad habit can be a downward spiral. Undo that damage by encouraging even the most minimal thing to make some progress. If your youth committed to limiting screen time and being more active, but then binge-watched all of the Marvel movies over the weekend, encourage him to start again by spending even a few moments outside or exercising to get back into the swing of things.

Mentors who use these five tips have a big advantage in helping to develop life skills and healthy habits in young people. These habits allow them to be better prepared for successful adulthood–this is what our program is all about!

Article by Program Liaison Steve Kempster, LCSW

Aging UP’s trauma-informed approach focuses on building healthy relationships. For youth who have limited community—as it is for most in foster care—we know that compassionate mentors can make a meaningful difference by boosting positive relationships and affirming interactions in the lives of young people.

Acclaimed child trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry states, “Positive relational interactions regulate the brain’s stress response systems and help create positive and healing [states of mind].”

These positive relationships, in turn, calm the over-reactive stress responses that Dr. Nadine Burke Harris discussed in the first post of this series.

Such positive relationships also lead to enhanced resilience. As psychologist Diana Fosha shares in her book The Body keeps Score, “The roots of resilience are to be found in the sense of being understood by and existing in the mind and heart of a loving, attuned, and self-possessed other.”  

Unfortunately, youth in foster care rarely have such people in their lives; mostly, they are surrounded by paid professionals. While we do not intend to belittle the efforts of those hard-working and dedicated individuals, we do wish to emphasize that our youth need positive, committed, personal relationships with a caring teacher, coach, neighbor, mentor and a host of others who are not paid to be in their lives. Dr. Perry highlights such relationships as a powerful therapeutic impact.

Dr. Perry also makes a vivid comparison to spokes on a wheel: the more positive connections and relationships a young person has, the more established and supportive their spokes are to support their whole self.

Once an Aging UP mentor establishes a meaningful friendship with their youth, this relationship has the potential of becoming a conduit to other vital community supports. Their impact, then, increases greatly as the youth becomes more and more connected to their community and to people who understand and earnestly care about them.

Continue to follow along as Part III will explore a creative approach to connect with youth and how establishing good habits further develops positive relationships.

Article by Program Liaison Steve Kempster, LCSW

Part 1 reviews how trauma impacts our youth and why understanding this matters. Parts II and III will explore the importance of relationships and how to co-create the kind of experiences that develop resiliency and give young people a strong foundation for growth.

First, let’s look at how trauma impacts our youth.

Youth who come into the child welfare system do so through no fault of their own. The trauma and neglect that they experienced are compounded by the foster care system itself—rotating social workers, overburdened child advocates, and too few foster families.

One way to measure this complex trauma is through the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) questionnaire. This measures adversity using 10 questions across three domains of abuse, household challenges, and neglect.

In a national ACE study, nearly 80% of respondents scored in the range of 0-2 adverse experiences. Our youth in foster care, however, almost always score above a 4. According to the CDC, this complex trauma negatively impacts their health.   

This level of adversity also impacts brain development. More than one-third of youth emancipating foster care struggle with mental health issues. Many youth who leave foster care feel bogged down by lingering impacts of PTSD and find it difficult to form healthy relationships.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s new Surgeon General and renowned childhood trauma expert, advocates that children with higher ACE scores also experience “an over-reactive stress response, triggering hormones and physical reactions.” Trauma, then, literally lives in the body. The trauma can seem paralyzing or overtaking and inescapable.

And this is where it is crucial that we establish a clear distinction: adverse childhood experiences pose very real challenges for our young people, but these experiences do not necessarily correlate to negative outcomes.

As we will see in Part II of this series, new environments with positive experiences promoted by caring individuals can make a significant difference in the lives of young people.

Article by Program Liaison Steve Kempster, LCSW