What I’d Share About Trauma

A colleague of mine is set to lead some professional learning for childcare workers. Her topic is trauma-informed care, and she reached out to see what I’d make sure to include if I were talking to the audience.

Not wanting to double up on what I was sure she’d already be sharing, I sent her the following from Fostering Resilient Learners by Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall:

I am going to introduce you to a powerful series of six communication steps to begin using with your students and loved ones. I use these often in the couples therapy work that I do, and I swear by them in my interventions in the classroom setting with educators, administrators, students, and families. The steps are as follows:

  1. Listen.
  2. Reassure.
  3. Validate.
  4. Respond.
  5. Repair.
  6. Resolve.

Souers points out we usually hit #s 1, 4, and 6 pretty well, and I’ll admit this used to be my classroom practice. When problems arose in my classroom or in adult classes I teach, these three steps felt like all I needed to “handle” the problem and move on. These three kept us on schedule.

Unfortunately, they didn’t live up to my commitment to care for those I was teaching. In truly frazzled moments, listening more likely ended up as hearing which led to responding in ways that were inauthentic and one-sided, which led to a resolution that took care of what I needed and maybe took care of a piece of what the other person needed.

Pretty decent fail on the ethic of care.

Luckily(?), Souers points out I wasn’t alone:

Repair is one of the biggest steps we miss in education. So often, we mistake a student’s return to regulation as a form of repair. But getting a student to a place of being able to return to the classroom does not constitute repair; it just means that the student may now be primed to reflect on what happened so that repair can actually take place. In addition, many of our students and staff have never had healthy repair modeled for them, so the concept is foreign. Many families engage in the pattern of rupture-separate-return, in which a disruption, argument, or hurtful exchange occurs; the parties involved separate from each other; and, after time passes, they return and act as though nothing happened. Opting not to address what occurred leaves a void of understanding and a lingering fear that the upset may happen again. We have a huge responsibility to model what healthy repair looks like and to incorporate structures into our discipline and corrective policies that enable this step to take place.

Souers, Kristin Van Marter ; Hall, Pete. Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom . ASCD. Kindle Edition.

Since I’ve started incorporating all six steps, I’ve seen a few key outcomes:

  • I’m more connected to whomever I’m working with. The process is a mindful one. It requires me to stop what I’m doing and make sure I’m connecting with the other person.
  • There’s more time. Whether working with my kids or with adults I may be teaching or managing, making sure we’ve worked through the entire process means the conversation isn’t lingering. In each 1-4-6 scenario, my day or time was often interrupted down the road because the other person hadn’t felt the repair and closure they needed to move on. Whatever the original problem, it would keep gnawing away at focus and relationships like an unattended to splinter. Now, we’re working things through, so they aren’t re-manifesting later on.
  • I’m checkin in. As a somewhat conflict-avoidant person, I would often hit 1, 4, and 6 and then avoid the person and the problem for fear that festering splinter would start poking me. The issue, though, was always worrying me. As a caretaker, I remained concerned the other person was still upset and in need. A tough tension to navigate. Now, having worked through to repair and resolution, I feel much freer to check in with the person as a signal I’m still thinking about them and as a way to strengthen our relationship.

The Wind Storm

About two and a half years ago, my kids were – for their second time – visiting what would become our house . It was a week-long visit. I knew I hoped I’d be their forever home, but they thought they were just on a vacation.

One afternoon, I was walking around the block while they went ahead of me on their scooters. “This is what it’s going to be like,” I thought to myself smiling calmly.

“ZAC!” I heard, “He fell! There’s blood! He needs help!” my daughter came yelling to me.

The kids had gone around a corner just out of my sight, and my son had slid off a curb and crashed his scooter, gashing his knee in the process. I ran to him, picked him up and ran the rest of the way to the house.

“Grab the scooters!” I yelled behind me.

What a sight we must have been. He was wailing. She was all of 9 years old, dragging two scooters across the concrete. I’m sure I had a look of pure panic on my face. Irrationally, I thought, “They’ll never let me have these kids now!”

The scene in the bathroom was one of more wailing, navigating a very protective older sister and a little boy who had no reason to trust me clinging to my neck while I cleaned the gravel from his knee. We continued to be a sight.


Today, two years and change later, we had an intense wind storm with gusts of 100+ miles per hour. Neighbor Fran texted to let me know our trampoline had taken flight, hung in the power lines for a few minutes and ended up in Neighbor Gary’s yard. So, we had an adventure to look forward when we got home.

Gary answered his door.

“Gary, if you wanted to borrow our trampoline, all you had to do is ask.”

“I think my trampoline days are long gone.”

The kids and I started to pull the legs and such off the trampoline in Gary’s back yard. The boy went back to our house to get the dogs who’d been barking orders at us from across yard back in the house to bring some semblance of calm to the neighborhood.

The girl and I were working and heard the boy yelling, “Come! Come! Come! Come!” Listening through the wind, I heard the tone my heart knows needs me – now.

A gust of wind had blown through the garage door to slam the back door on his fingers. One of them had a decent chunk of skin missing. He clung to me once we were in the bathroom. Unintelligible words coming from his mouth, gulping air. The kind of crying only children can do when life hurts and scares at the same time.

Once I’d determined no need for a visit to urgent care, “I know what we are going to do, but I won’t do anything without you telling me it’s okay. Would you like me to tell you what we’re going to do?”

A whimpering nod.

Around this time, his sister appears. “What’s going on!?”

We explain, wailing much lessened.

She is concerned, but waiting for directions.

We move through the steps of repair. When we run out of things requiring three of us, I ask her to go clean up the shreds of paper the dogs greeted us with when we go home. She goes without argument. She knows I’ve got this.

Once the bandage is secured with ample antiseptic, he asks to go play a video game and she asks to watch a show. I say yes and start to make dinner.

The rest of our evening is status quo. Well, eating dinner with a non-dominant hand was interesting to watch.

Two years ago, or even four months ago, any of these things would have derailed our night and possibly our week.

Tonight, I didn’t stop to think, “This is what it’s going to be like,” because this is simply what it’s like. This is our family.

Next Monday, two years and 16 days since they moved in, we’ll sit in a courtroom, and a judge will make our family official. Tonight, though, we wrangled an errant trampoline, patched up a finger, cleaned up after anxious dogs, ate dinner, and brushed and flossed.

I’d say it’s official.

Play Dates

I’m writing this from the basement.

Upstairs are 5 children under the age of 12. Two of them are mine.

We’ve been having a pretty quiet Sunday morning. I even got coffee on the couch. We started moving around a bit and then the request came, “Can we go see if the kids around the corner can play?”

Sure. We don’t have plans until after lunch. Go run and get your wiggles and sillies out.

A few minutes later, “They can’t play.”

No problem. They settle in. M asks if she can go for a walk. T asks if he can play Spider-Man. Yes to both. I keep moving, cleaning bathroom, moving laundry from dryer to hamper and pretending someone else is coming to fold it all.

A knock at the door.

“Zac, they can play!”

Great!

“They said they just have to be home at 2.”

I look at the clock. It is 10:30 in the morning.

Admittedly, I am relatively new to this play date thing. But, sending your young children to a neighbor’s house for 3.5 hours feels like a big move, right?

I’ve met these kids’ mom one time.

I just realized lunch is within that timeframe. Am I supposed to feed these three?

I mean, of course I’m going to take care of the kids and make sure everyone’s having fun and being safe. I’ll make sure they have a good lunch. I’ll help my kids clean up the messes that follow my specific “you can play with whatever you want as long as everyone picks it up before they go home”.

I’ll parent the hell out of this play date.

And, I’ll keep wondering about the wisdom of this move. I’ll work myself to being okay with assuming there won’t be any reciprocity.

Because, I have two kids and know how much it all feels like on the second day of a weekend when they keep looking to you for what’s next and what they can do and snack. I know what it’s like to have two, and can imagine what it’s like to have three who are all even younger.

Because, sometimes, it’s all so heavy that I understand how a parent brain might think, “That guy with the kids around the corner passed muster in the three minutes I talked to him. Maybe he and his kids can carry this weight for a little bit.”

18 May 21 – The Dentist

This afternoon, we were supposed to go to the dentist. Again.

We were at the orthodontist Friday for my daughter. She had the choice of getting her braces off Friday or keeping them on for a few months longer to really straighten some teeth. It may not surprise you to know she chose to get them taken off.

It did surprise her – and me and her brother – to know the process of having your braces removed. Pliers to pull off the brackets, that drill thing to remove the glue, weird foam in your mouth for retainer impressions.

What I thought was going to be an early morning check in turned into two hours of crying and hugs and “I don’t want to do this. Let’s leave now.” She was saying it, but I was thinking it. Because it was an early morning appointment, we’d not eaten breakfast either. The plan was to check on the braces and pick something up on the way to school.

Dental work can be triggering for kids from trauma. It is invasive and requires you to give up control. These are things folx with no history of trauma find problematic, now multiply that exponentially.

We made it through Friday. The braces are off for a year or so until we head into Phase 2. And, I am incredibly proud of my kids. She made it through and she knew I would be there. She knew she didn’t have to be the bravest person in the room because I’d do that for her as long as she needed to.

And she was still so brave. Brave and trusting.

About my kids and kids in general I’ve heard or read this line several times in the last year, “They’re so resilient.”

And, yeah, they are. But that’s not a reason to ask them to be. My kids, and all kids have proven their resiliency. So, when there’s the chance to not ask them to prove it anymore, I say we take it.

So, I re-scheduled today’s dentist appointments. Pushed them back a few weeks. Decided we could use a night of not proving our resilience to anyone.

30 Jan 21 – Trauma

I’m worried my kids will have teachers who haven’t done or refuse to do the work of becoming trauma-informed in their practice.

I’m worried the actions that come from survival instincts of flight, fight, freeze, and submit will be mistaken for their true and beautiful personalities.

I’m worried this will mean my kids won’t be seen for the amazing people they are.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “More than 25% of American youth experience a serious traumatic event by their 16th birthday, and many children suffer multiple and repeated traumas.”

Acknowledging trauma and acting in trauma-informed ways are not the same things. Without the latter, we will only find success by accident and happenstance. That’s unacceptable.

If you are an educator who hasn’t yet started this work, start. If you work with children, you work with children in trauma. They need you to do this work.

Some places to start:

29 Jan 21 – She ran up a wall

Starting a good many months back, I signed the kids up for Ninja classes through a local gym called Warrior Playground. It’s an obstacle course gym in the vein of American Ninja Warrior or my favorite Ultimate Beastmaster.

In these pandemic times, classes are limited to 4 students, which is pretty amazing. Among all the obstacles, the warped wall has most been the focus of both kids’ efforts. It’s what it sounds like. In the first weeks, they were able to run up and summit the 8-foot wall. No problem.

Next, Coach Glenn challenged them to get to the top of the 12-foot wall. So, for more than 4 months, that’s what they’ve been trying to do.

Well, today, the 11yo did it. For week’s she’s been within 6-8 inches. But those 6-8 inches have proven too much. It has led to many a “Can we go home now?” midway through class.

Running into and up a wall more than twice your size can take the spirit out of you on a normal day. When it’s the wall you’ve been running up against for months, it can feel literally insurmountable.

Tonight, at dinner, she said, “And, Coach Glenn said, ‘Believe you can do it.’ So, I closed my eyes and decided to believe I can do it. And, I did it.”

Simple as that.

I don’t need to list all the walls she’s faced. I don’t need to warn her of all the walls ahead. She knows what they were, and she’ll know them when she meets them.

“So, I closed my eyes and decided to believe I can do it. And, I did it.”

Keep going, love.

28 Jan 21 – Ten (living) people I will likely never meet, and very much would like to

10. Dan Levy

9. Brandi Carlile

8 & 7. The Avett Brothers

6. Robert Fulghum

5. Vice President Harris

4. Rainbow Rowell

3. The Most Rev. Michael Curry

2. Sen. Tammy Duckworth

1. George Takei

Who are ten of yours?

27 Jan 21 – Tonight was jam-packed

I made this for dinner tonight. It was delicious.

The 9yo did not think it was delicious. He also did not have the tools or capacity tonight to say it in a way that was kind. So, it was “gross,” “disgusting,” and “horrible.” I told him it was okay that he didn’t like the food, and that those words hurt my feelings.

And, then he was worried that I would get angry. “Now you’re not going to let me have any food. I am going to starve.”

black trash bin with full of trash
Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Not getting any food if you don’t eat what’s for dinner is not a rule in our house. Everyone gets to always know they will be able to eat and no one in our family will ever go hungry.

He just couldn’t see it.

It took a few rounds and several minutes of him balled up on my lap hugging me before we got to the words he needed and thereby a bowl of cereal with bananas. We found the light and our way out.

Then.

Tucking in 11yo, I went to kiss her on her forehead and she moved her head forward. I saw stars and both lips were bloodied. I’m at the foot of the bed taking breaths, remaining calm, quietly saying, “Owwwww.”

She’s at the head of the bed, holding her forehead, ramping up because she’s scared I’m mad at her.

I cannot talk because my mouth hurts.

I pull myself together and hug her. “What do you have in your head that makes it so hard?” I ask in an exaggerated voice. It is enough to tease out a giggle. Light and our way out.

After books and rubbing her back, I get up to go.

“Hey, Zac!”

This is our ritual. She’s trying to find something to hold on to the day, the ritual, the time together. Some nights, the “Hey, Zac!” gets out before she’s thought of what she’s going to say or ask, and I stand in the doorway waiting. Tonight there’s no wait.

11yo: Hey, Zac!

Me: Yes, love?

11yo: You are the best dad ever.

Me: You are the best daughter ever.

11yo: Love you. Goodnight.

We find the light and our way out.

26 Jan 21 – Ugh…feelings

I’m working really hard here. It turns out, when parenting, your children pay particular attention to your non-verbal communication signals and then, get this, respond based on what they interpret those signals to mean.

AND, get this, they’re children, so they don’t have a whole ton of coping mechanisms when they decide what they’ve read in your signals is that you are angry or don’t like them, or don’t love them.

So, this may not surprise you, their reactions tend toward the negative.

I’m working really, really, really hard on something anyone I’ve ever dated will tell you I’m not great at – telling you how I feel when that feeling is not a positive one. My guess is it’s all attached to some pre-coming-out habits.

photo of man leaning on wooden table
Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com

Being gay felt like it was a bad thing to be. It would, in the very least, make people feel uncomfortable around me. So, to keep those around me comfortable, I’d better stuff that truth way down deep.

Along the way, this rule started to apply to anything I perceived as negative. If I’m angry, that could make someone uncomfortable around me. I’d better do what I did with that other big thing I was worried would make people uncomfortable. Eventually, the habit became so easy to repeat, any negative feeling I might have was internalized so as not to make things rough for others.

Healthy, right?

The good news is I’ve been working on it. The better and slightly more uncomfortable news is being a parent has fast-tracked that process.

When one of my kids asks, “Are you angry at me?” and I respond, “I am not angry at you. I will tell you if I am angry at you,” I damned well better be sure to communicate that when it happens.

In the last few months, I’ve done a lot of telling my kids how I feel. My use of “I statements” is the strongest it’s ever been.

You know what else? I’ve also been following those statements up with, “And that’s okay.” Because, turns out, it is okay when I’m frustrated because someone yelled at me.

The world does not end when I get angry. My ability to love and be loved remains as strong and constant as ever. I can love a person and be infinitely frustrated at that person at the exact same time.

This is a lesson everyone in our family is learning – over and over.

25 Jan 21 – Don’t Teach How

A teacher friend opened up her current events assignment from its previous scope after some family pushback. Current events being what they are, some families sniffed an agenda where there was none. Still, it worried the friend.

gray wooden maze
Photo by Soulful Pizza on Pexels.com

She wants her students following contemporary informational texts across a span of time. She wants them tracking how stories are told about a specific event or idea. She is not so much interested in shaping her students’ political leanings.

This was not what the families thought was happening.

She went the route of being less helpful.

Together, her students brainstormed a list of every possible current event they could think of. Everything on the table.

And, just before the brainstorm, a letter home to parents and caregivers.

“Hey,” it said, “your kid is about to start asking questions about the world. It can be about anything happening in said world. Would you help a teacher out and help them pick something that lines up with what you care about as a family?”

I’m paraphrasing.

Then, the students started submitting the topics they thought they might like to dig a bit more deeply on. The swath, my friend has told me, is much wider than could have been imagined.

This does not surprise me. Given the opportunity to ask questions about the world and a little assistance in thinking about which parts of the world, our students will always astound us.

The next thing for these students to do is use the Question Formulation Technique developed by the folx at rightquestion.org to come up with mound and heaps and oodles of questions about their topics. Then, they get to set about the task about finding the answers and, if they’re doing it right, more questions.

The relieved teacher friend and I were talking.

“Of course this is better,” I said, “You’ve proven you don’t care what they think, but that they think and think deeply about their world.”

It doesn’t matter the topic. That skill is transferrable.