RECHARGE for RESILIENCE!
Lark Eshleman,PhD
ACT … INTO ACTION!
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS ABOUT CHILD
TRAUMA
ABOUT CHILD TRAUMA IS A DIVISION OF
ABOUT TRAUMA HEALING, A 501(C)(3)
CORPORATION
Mission: To provide education, trainings, workshops and media material to
parents, professionals and communities where children are struggling with effects
of early emotional trauma.
Recharge for Resilience!
April 19, 2017
Who Am I?
 My credentials
Today’s Agenda & Goals
 1) What Is Reactive Attachment Disorder,
and how is related to Child Trauma? HUGE
impact on each of us, and our world.
 2) RAD is a “Big T” in the brain of a child.
 4) What Are You Doing (already!) to Help?
 5) What else should we do? How can we be
better at what we are already doing?
 6) Outcomes: Making the World Sunnier
What Is RAD relative to Child Trauma?
 Think about being a baby, infant, child. How much
control do you have over your life / what happens to
you / what goes on around you / how others respond
to you?
 John Bowlby,
“Internal
Working Model”
Brandi’s Self
Concept
Resources that guide understanding
 Check out www.attach.org
 Visit
www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org
(explore its Trauma Sensitive Schools
project)
 Handout: the critical nature of
emotional safety, learned through safe
attachment relationships, ACE handout
Child Trauma & Brain Function
• “Young children who experience trauma are at
particular risk because their rapidly developing
brains are very vulnerable. Early childhood trauma
has been associated with reduced size of the brain
cortex…, responsible for many complex functions
including memory, attention, perceptual
awareness, thinking, language, and consciousness.
These changes may affect IQ and the ability to
regulate emotions, and the child may become more
fearful and may not feel as safe or as protected.
Read more: Excessive Stress Disrupts the
Architecture of the Developing Brain, a working
paper from the Center on the Developing Child.”
(NCTSN)
Look at the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)
Study:
 How many of these ACEs can “our children”
mark as “Yes”?
 According to the CDC, these experiences had
to happen before age 18.
 But further research says that if they happen
before age 5 or 6, they have an even greater
negative and long-lasting impact if not
addressed soon and successfully.
RAD as represented in the ACE study
 Of all of the ACE traumas listed, which ones
of them are either parent-related, or could
have been prevented by trusted caregiver, or
the after-effects could have been “treated” or
made less intense by a trusted caregiver?
 Do the children in Cecil County Schools have
trusted caregivers who can help them
process their ongoing (little “t”) or specific
(big “T”) traumas? If not, then what?
Trusted Caregivers
Trauma Facts
 1 in 4 students will witness or experience trauma
before the age of 4
 More than 2/3 will will experience a traumatic
event by 16
 Kindergarteners who suffer from trauma:
 Have below average scores in reading and math
 Are three times as likely to have difficulties
concentrating
 Are two times more likely to be aggressive
towards peers and teachers
(Flannery, 2016)
What does Child Trauma look like Behaviorally?
 Fight, Flight (Cannon, 1927), or Freeze
… “punch, kick, or holler like hell, run
away, or become a “deer in the
headlights.” (Flight is shown to be the
most common response, although it
appears in recent research that the
freeze response is under-counted.)
What does Attachment Trauma look like
behaviorally?
“FU,” I can take care of
this myself! Or
“Help me, help me, help
me … I can’t do anything
by myself!”
Quick review: BIG T, little t
 Where do we draw a line between the
two?
 How are little t’s resolved?
Child’s experience forms the framework for
how they work through trauma
 Brain research on the pattern of where
experiences go to be acted on.
 Again, follow fight, flight, or freeze.
 But now, one step farther – do any of these
responses involve “RECEIVING (not just
asking for) help from a potentially trusted
adult?
“Come Here RIGHT NOW! But Not Too
Close”
Little t Resolved
Big Ts? And not such good comforting? …
 Traumatic stress can be associated with lasting
changes in the amygdala, hippocampus, and
prefrontal cortex brain areas. It is also associated
with increased cortisol and norepinephrine
responses to subsequent stressors: patients with
PTSD show increased cortisol and norepinephrine
responses to stress.
 These are changes to the actual STRUCTURE of the
brain, and also to its FUNCTION. They are not easily
changed, once they become autonomic.
Learning, Attachment, & Complex Trauma
 In the classroom, teachers and school
counsellors may observe complex
trauma symptoms beyond learning
disabilities, including fear, hyperactivity, aggression, somatic problems in
younger children and depression and
self-harming behavior in adolescents
What does it look like Behaviorally?
 Display excessive temper
 Demand attention through both positive and
negative behaviors
 Exhibit regressive behaviors
 Exhibit aggressive behaviors
 Act out in social situations
 Imitate the abusive/traumatic event
 Are verbally abusive …
What does it look like Behaviorally?
 … Scream or cry excessively
 Startle easily
 Are unable to trust others or make or keep friends
 Believe they are to blame for traumatic experience
 Fear adults who remind them of the traumatic event
 Fear being separated from parent/caregiver
 Are anxious and fearful and avoidant, Act withdrawn
 Show irritability, sadness, and anxiety
 Lack self-confidence
What does it look like Physiologically?
 Have a poor appetite, low weight, and/or
digestive problems
 Experience stomachaches and headaches
 Have poor sleep habits
 Experience nightmares or sleep difficulties
 Wet the bed or self after being toilet trained
or exhibit other regressive behaviors
Research
 Brain Scanning has taught us much about the
“Mis-wiring” of trauma-affected brains.
 Names in research: Porges, Van der Kolk,
Yehuda
 Intergenerational
 Specific to attachment/relationships
 Intransigence of unhealthy brain structural and
functional changes (why is change so difficult?)
 “New” age of maturation!
Structural – not just functional – brain
changes
Self-regulation
 Difficulty with calming after being
aroused
 State of arousal much of the time:
higher “set point”
 “Kick the dog” syndrome
 What can we do? Regulation activities,
place to “blow,” allow for “kick the dog”
in acceptable place.
Trauma Symptoms Checklist for (Young)
Children and Marschak Interaction Method
 John Briere & Theraplay Institute
 Well normed
 Accepted in court
 Used by major treatment centers
 Very informative!
 Be an agent of change – use
investigative tools that give direction
Celebrating YOU!
 YOU are the people who bring new hope to
families!
 You are the partners who support, educate,
and model for people who need help, even
when they are hardly aware of their own
needs, or don’t know how to identify,
express, or accept help for those needs.
 You are the empathetic angels who empower
and change lives.
YOU are also at risk for burn-out!
 Not a big surprise?
 Let’s “fill you up” with new, or revised, or
strategic ways to keep yourselves feeling
positive, empowered, and enthusiastic about
the critically valuable work you do!
 Here are some ideas, and here is a strong
“wind beneath your wings” to carry you
forward and upward !
So, what more can you do to help families?
 Teach effective coping skills to
address not only traumatic
events but also common life
stressors
 Deep breathing exercises
 Progressive muscle
relaxation
 “Taking a break”
 Emotional identification
and regulation skills
 Assertive communication
styles
 Problem solving strategies
 Mindfulness exercises
 Demonstrate empathy and
provide support
 YOU often provide these
families with a sense of routine
and safety
 Be attentive to sudden changes
in the child’s behaviors
 Recommend “disruptive”
children for a meeting with a
mental health clinician
(Deihl, 2013)
What Can You Do As a Parent Guide?
 Don’t expect most of “our” children to do well in
groups until they master listening, turn-taking, and a
better sense of self.
 Really listen to parents and include them in some
way in everything you do. They live with these
children. You may not agree with what parents have
to offer, but you will learn a lot.
 Intergenerational healing can be your most powerful
ally.
What Can Your Community Do?
 Educate at least one person in your community to be
an expert on attachment trauma, and then ask that
person to be available to help when there is clear or
suspected attachment trauma at play.
 Educate at least one professional in your community
to be an expert on sensory processing disorder, and
then use that person as a resource to see if SPD could
be a co-occurring problem for this child OR how to
incorporate SPD interventions into school activities.
TREATMENT for PTSD, Attachment type?
 Treatments that are efficacious for
attachment-trauma show promotion of
memory and increased hippocampal
volume, plus enhanced pro-social skills.
 Treatments MUST be brain-centered, most
effective when they are attachment-focused.
 EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Theraplay,
Neurofeedback, Mindfulness, TANT
 Promising new work in Mindfulness!
Classic Child Games
 Encouraging parents to use “classic” child games,
even with older children, is a way of returning the
child to a place of emotional safety, or perhaps even
creating an emotional “safe place” for a child for the
first time.
 Classic child games are neurologically-based.
 Perhaps ask older children to help play with younger
ones, which can set the stage for younger AND older
children in the family to experience healing and
emotional growth.
Who Are Your Cheerleaders?!
Helpful Resources- Coping Skills
 https://www.understood.org/en/friends-
feelings/common-challenges/selfcontrol/developing-coping-skills-5-ways-to-helpkids-who-struggle-with-self-control
 http://www.copingskills4kids.net
 https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/families/startingschool/5-coping-skills-children
 http://theplumtree.net/coping-skills-activities/
References
Booth, P. & Jernberg, A. (2009). Theraplay: Helping Parents and
Children Build Better Relationships Through Attachment-Based
Play.
Flannery, M. E. (2016, November 30). How Schools are helping
traumatized students learn again. Retrieved February 03, 2017,
from http://neatoday.org/2016/11/03/schools-helpingtraumatized-students/
Nichols, M. & Lacher, D. (2011). Connecting with Kids Through Stories:
Using Narratives to Facilitate Attachment in Adopted Children
Second Edition.
O'Neill, L., Guenette, F., & Kitchenham, A. (2010). 'Am I safe here and do
you like me?' Understanding complex trauma and attachment
disruption in the classroom. British Journal Of Special
Education, 37(4), 190-197. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8578.2010.00477.x
Contact Me! Tell Me What Works!
 www.AboutChildTrauma.org
 www.LarkEshleman.com
 [email protected]
 Becoming a Family: Promoting healthy
attachments with your adopted child,
Eshleman, 2006