When School Is Traumatizing For Kids

Lately, while trying to reach out to families that I think might be interested in Someday School, I've heard some disturbing stories. The stories were all very similar. Yet they happened at different times, in different schools, to different kids. I believe this story is more common than we think.

The stories all go something like this. A child was enrolled in a public school. The child had some sort of special need, such as ADHD, autism, or anxiety, although for some children it was not yet diagnosed at the time. The child began having behavior challenges at school. The child became upset. The child threw something, or hit someone, or had some sort of unsafe behavior. Staff members physically restrained the child, and/or shut her into an isolation room. This happened many times, to the point where the child started to become afraid to go to school. Just walking into school became a trigger for the child, because she would be anticipating having a terrible day. Eventually, their parents decided to homeschool them.

In the stories that I heard, some of the children were even diagnosed with PTSD later. Some could not even drive past their former school building, or any school at all, without becoming very anxious and upset.

It is a hard situation, and one that is actually hard for me to blog about, because I've been a teacher in a school.

When the child is already throwing things and hitting people, the situation has become a crisis and there are not many choices that staff members have. They can have the other children and staff members go sit in another room, while the upset child continues throwing objects and trying to hit other people, or even hurting themselves. They can physically restrain the child in one place. Or they can physically restrain the child and then transport him to an isolation room. It is a horrible situation for everyone involved... the other children who witness the first child becoming upset, and who also have to stop their classroom activities until the classroom is safe, the staff members who have to figure out very quickly what to do to keep everyone safe, and especially the child who is in the middle of it all.

When I'm thinking about this situation, I'm thinking about the specific children that I have known in the schools where I have worked. Here are a few of the things I've been reflecting on.

Children do not want to be out of control in school. It is a scary feeling for them. Often, after a child has calmed down, they feel very sad and guilty about anyone they have hurt and anything they have broken. If you think about a hypothetical situation situation in which  you would be screaming, hitting people, and throwing things, imagine how you would be feeling at the time. Angry? Scared? Frustrated? Attacked? Whatever feelings you'd be having would have to be very intense in order for you to be screaming, breaking things, and trying to hurt others or yourself. Now imagine those intense feelings happening to a child.

A lot of times, teachers and staff members trigger those feelings in a child by backing them into a proverbial corner. A very common example is when the child doesn't want to do a task. In the staff member's mind, the child must do the task. Every student in the classroom must do the task! People cannot just opt out of the task! If this student does not do the task, then all of the children will want to opt out of the tasks they don't want to do, and then what? So they attempt to make the child do the task, by making their voice louder and more stern, and issuing consequences. Do the worksheet or you will lose recess. Do the worksheet or you will not be allowed to participate in the classroom party. Do the worksheet or else. In schools where ABA-type behavior management is used, staff members may even attempt to physically force the student to do the task. The child's feelings are becoming more and more intense. Remember, this is a child who probably already has difficulty controlling their impulses and emotions. They're starting to feel backed into the corner. So what do they do? They scream! They knock over a desk! They push the teacher! They run from the room!

What if the teacher had been able to give the child... ideally, all of the children... options for what task they could do? Or if they could have given the child an option for when they would do it? Unfortunately, most public schools are not set up in a way that this would easily be possible. Even if a teacher was willing to do it, many times the administrators frown upon it. I once spoke with a teacher who had a child that dealt with high anxiety. The teacher came up with a solution. She put an empty desk behind the child's seat. When he started to feel anxious during class, he was allowed to turn his seat around to face the empty desk. It helped him feel less closed in. He could put his head down if he needed to. The administrator reprimanded the teacher for not holding the child to the same "expectations" as the others. Giving that child this little bit of extra space made it possible for him to stay in his classroom and regulate his emotions. But the administrator insisted that he should be facing front, and sitting up straight, at all times.

I spoke to another teacher who described a child with autism who liked to draw all the time. He would draw during class. He would listen to the teacher, and if he was asked to do something he would stop drawing long enough to do what he was asked to do. When he wasn't engaged in something else, he was drawing. The student's IEP team made a goal that he would refrain from drawing 90% of the time. The teacher disagreed with the goal, because she saw that drawing helped the child focus and participate. When he was told he could not draw, the child became upset. But the "expectation" for the school was that being "on task" would look the same for all children: hands folded, eyes on the teacher, desktop clear except for what the teacher has told them to have out.

Often, school staff members think, "But the children must do what they are told to do. After all, everyone has to follow rules. I have to go to work, and I follow rules at work." This is true, to a point. Lots of rules are there for a reason. For example, stop signs. If people opt not to obey stop signs, they will eventually crash into each other. People could die. The stop sign rule is very necessary. Now, think about your job. Did someone come to your house, put you in a bus, and drive you to a random job that you did not choose? Did they march you into a building and tell you that you must do what you are told to do, for the entire day? Hopefully not. You had some choice of what you wanted to spend your days doing. Even if you hate your job, you have some control over it. You can tell yourself that you are doing this in order to earn money. You can tell yourself that, if it gets too terrible, you will quit. You can even decide to take a mental health day once in a while. Children do not have these options.

And so, they scream. They throw things. They push people. They try to escape. They get restrained. They get put into isolation rooms. Some of them even develop PTSD.

What about the isolation rooms? While some schools are trying to avoid these rooms, and instead evacuate the rest of the children from the classroom, isolation rooms still exist. Usually they are about the size of a walk-in closet. They have gym mats on the floor and sometimes the walls. They usually have one-way mirrors as windows, so that the child cannot see out. While the idea is that the child will be kept in this room until she is calm enough to not hurt herself or others, often the child doesn't understand this. Being in the room can make the child's feelings even more intense. Plus, the fact that they were most likely physically forced into the room by staff members, usually including their teacher, can destroy the trust the child has for the staff. Now, every day, he must come to a place where people who are larger than him, and who are not his parents, might physically restrain him and lock him in a room.

A common alternative, evacuating the other students and keeping the child in the classroom, usually with at least one staff member, sounds okay but doen't often work out in reality. The typical classroom is filled with materials that a very angry child could use to hurt himself or someone else. It is also filled with learning materials that a very angry child could destroy. I have watched while children have ripped up most of the books on my bookshelf... books I paid for out of my pocket. It was not a good experience. It usually ends with the child eventually calming down, but then becoming reescalated when he is faced with the overwhelming task of trying to clean up the mess he just made.

In the schools where I worked, there was a lot of pressure to "not let them win." We, as adults, had to "win" by making the children comply. If you told a child to pick up his pencil, you'd better be ready to do whatever it takes, remove any privileges you needed to, or send your other students out of the room, to get this kid to pick up the pencil. And at the end... after the other students are sent out, the kid has destroyed the room, the parents have been called, etc... you're still supposed to say, "Now, you need to pick up this pencil."

To me, a lot of the problem is because schools are set up similar to businesses, where the idea is to spend the least amount of money possible in order to get the desired results. What is the maximum number of students we can put in each classroom where the teacher is still able to get some teaching done? What is the fewest number of paraprofessionals we can put in the special education room? How can we make this one single school social worker stretch out enough to serve all of these students who desperately need help? What is the shortest amount of recess we can get away with giving kids, in order to get the most academic instruction in, so that we can raise our test results? It is about numbers, it is about dollars, and we could make it all work so beautifully if it weren't for these darn square children who don't fit into our round holes. And when some children fall apart, we blame everything on them.

If someone was to ask me what schools can do to avoid traumatizing children, here is what I would say.

1. Give them choices so that they do not feel backed into a corner. Do not make every task a control battle that the teacher must win in order to save face and be respected. Will the classroom structure crumble around you if every child does not complete every worksheet? If your administrator requires you to make sure every child participates in every lesson (pretty much the norm in public schools), then give them options for how they will show their understanding of the lesson. They could do a task on the iPad or computer, do a learning center, demonstrate solving a problem on the whiteboard, or just choose which worksheet to complete. If the child refuses to do anything, what would happen if you just waited until later, talked to them privately, and gave them the option at that point to show you their understanding of the lesson? Is the goal for the child to learn the concept, or is the goal for them to produce a completely filled out worksheet?

2. Give them the space they need. If a child needs to draw, or turn around and face the empty desk behind them, or get up and pace, in order to get through their day, isn't that something we can allow them?

3. Instead of isolation rooms, what if there was a calming room? I am imagining a different sort of padded room... with gym mats, but large enough so that the child could use them to do somersaults on if she wanted to. Maybe those large foam Gymboree blocks for the child to tumble around on. Maybe a tent where the child could hide if she wanted to. A room that would have the clear purpose of helping the child calm down, instead of feeling like a punishment or consequence. A room that the child could ask to go to when they were feeling overwhelmed. Many people may say, "But then the child will want to be in there every day, all day." My suspicion is that the child may want to be there for several hours a day when he first discovers it... but most children who are not in a moment of crisis will get bored in there after a while. They will want to move onto another activity. What if the child went into this room with an adult, and after the child started to calm down the adult could talk with them and help them process things and make a plan? Some children really might need to go to this room several times a day. But would that be the worst thing in the world?

4. If you absolutely have to physically restrain a child because they are doing something very dangerous... trying to jump out the window, maybe, or slamming their head into a wall... then do it for as short a time as possible. Do it calmly, and quietly, and in the least restrictive way possible. That might mean leaving their arms and legs free and just holding them around their torso until another staff member removes a dangerous object. (Depending on what crisis intervention method you've been trained in... some do have restraint positions where you can leave one or both of their arms free.) Never speak angrily or even overly firmly to them while you are restraining them. Never use restraint as a threat. It is not a punishment. They do not necessarily have to be completely calm for you to release them. It is very hard to calm yourself down when someone is restraining you, and demanding that they calm themselves down in order to be let go can make them even more upset.

5. I once went to a workshop by an autism specialist who said something I would never forget. She said, just leaving their homes and showing up at school takes a tremendous amount of effort and emotion for some kids. For that, they should be guaranteed that at least one great thing will happen no matter what. Don't turn every single thing they enjoy into a reward that must be earned through compliance. If playing with the Legos is their favorite thing, build a few Lego breaks into their schedule and do not mess with that. If the entire class has been looking forward to a worm observation activity on Friday, do not take that away. This is a heartbreaking thought, but as children with special needs such as ADHD, autism and anxiety get older, they will be statistically more likely to have suicidal feelings than their peers. Part of our job should be to give them as many moments of joy as we can. School should not be a place that is unbearable for children. They should know that, no matter what, someone at school will be happy to see them, and there will be some awesome things to look forward to.

Someday School in Washougal can be a great solution. Because we are a small school, we can be more flexible than other schools. We can truly individualize each student's educational experience. We give them control over their own learning, while teaching them to deal with conflicts and treat others with respect. Contact us to find out more.