Anxiety is good!
Well, appropriate anxiety is good!
Anxiety can become overwhelming and debilitating, but it’s an essential part of our internal safeguarding system.
A healthy (appropriate) level of anxiety is what we should all be aiming for, not the complete elimination of it.
As with everything, the good stuff lies in the middle…
If you have no anxiety at all, ever, then that’s probably not great
If you’re anxious all the time, about everything, then that’s probably not great either.
If you’re mostly not anxious, but become anxious when, say, you’re about to get some test results from your doctor, or you’re about to start a new job (or new anything, really) then that’s appropriate anxiety.
Imagine you’re being chased by a tiger.
No, really…. Take a minute to conjure up some ‘appropriate’ responses to being chased by a tiger. What would they look like?
Fear? Terror? Certainly.
Anxiety? Probably.
Raised heart rate and churning stomach? Yep.
Feeling nauseous and unable to escape - trapped? Uh huh.
Sweaty palms, shaky hands, jelly legs? You bet.
Racing, confused thoughts - not knowing what to do for the best; for your own survival? Surely.
Any others you can think of?
Now, are all these responses appropriate if you’re being chased by a tiger?
Hell yes!
If you’re being chased by a tiger and you feel no anxiety at all, you’re probably going to become the tiger’s lunch!
See how anxiety can be a good thing?!
We NEED some level of anxiety to stay safe. It’s the thing that kickstarts our safeguarding brains into action - it stops us from wandering into the road without looking; or it’s our ‘gut feeling’ about someone or something.
We can usually recognise appropriate, positive anxiety - most of us would call it ‘butterflies in our tummies’
We’re less good at being able to separate appropriate ‘negative’ (safeguarding) anxiety from inappropriate (overwhelming) anxiety.
We think that any anxiety is a weakness.
It’s not.
Not learning the difference for yourself, about yourself though, brings the potential for ‘weakness’…
Inside the abused child
A child who is living with abuse, lives in a constant state of anxiety not dissimilar to the tiger-chasing scenario described above.
They live with constant and perpetual fear, anxiety, and a pervasive feeling of not being ‘right’ - after all, if everyone was being chased by a tiger, tiger-chasing would be considered normal, wouldn’t it?! If tiger-chasing was normal, SOMEONE would’ve noticed your tiger by now…
Given that nobody has asked about your tiger, it’s a fair bet that you’ve worked out that tiger-chasing ISN’T ‘normal’ for everyone so how do you let people know about the tiger?!
Usually through what adults describe as ‘behaviour’…
It’s imperative to remember here that whatever the child lives with at home, is their ‘normal’, so it’s often only when the child is among their peers (most of whom AREN’T being chased by tigers all the time) for the first time that their ‘inappropriate behaviour’ stands out.
And often, that’s in a classroom…
So many opportunities for meaningful support and intervention are missed in classrooms because teachers aren’t trained to spot the signs of abuse, they’re trained to teach. Their view is that whilst they may be genuinely concerned about the child, their overall responsibility is to the learning needs of the whole group.
Teachers don’t usually have time to eat lunch or pee, so expecting them to find time for long discussions about things happening outside of school which may or may not be impacting on the child’s ability to learn, is frankly unreasonable!
Happily, I can make some of it much easier with just one simple practice change…
Instead of dealing with and punishing the ‘behaviour’ (the ‘what’), be curious about the reason behind the behaviour (the ‘why’?)
“I wonder why you did that” is a much calmer statement than “What have you done now?!”
It opens a conversation rather than shutting one down.
Anxiety hides
Especially in children, anxiety is exceptional at hiding itself. Anxiety may present itself as:
Anger
Violence
Unkindness
Fear / refusal
Distraction
Anxious children are masters and mistresses of distraction…
If they think you’re going to be cross with them, or they think they can’t do what you’ve asked of them, they’ll distract you by doing something they know will provoke a predictable response, even if that response is ‘undesirable’.
If the child can predict your response to them throwing a chair, but they can’t predict your response to them saying they don’t understand something, the abused child will probably opt for throwing the chair – they KNOW what will happen next, even if that consequence isn’t a good one. It is, at least, predictable.
We ALL thrive on predictability – imagine how upturned your world would be if someone said to you, “Tomorrow, I want you to do your morning routine entirely differently, just because I said so and if you fail at it, there will be a consequence.”
This is effectively what we do to traumatised children every time we only address the effect (the ‘behaviour’) without trying to understand the cause. From the child’s perspective, we’re just giving them another set of context and reason-free rules and expectations to follow or fail at..
Childhood trauma, ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and cognition
Children who’ve lived with trauma or experienced ACEs (see our blog on ACEs for our ACEs questionnaire) have brains that are literally wired differently from those children who haven’t lived with trauma or ACEs.
The human brain processes information in very specific ways; the front part of our brain deals with logic and reason, whilst the back part of our brain deals with safeguarding and threat detection.
In a non-abused child, brain development follows a ‘typical’ pathway – it develops curiosity, logic and reason without hindrance from the safeguarding element. In other words, non-abused children’s brains work ‘front to back’ – logic and reason first, safeguarding second. Their brains have developed this way because they haven’t had to live with the constant threat of the tiger…
In an abused child, the tiger is the most important thing, and the brain develops being eternally mindful of the threat. In other words, an abused child’s brain works ‘back to front’ – safeguarding first, logic and reasoning second. Nothing can happen before the tiger threat has been assessed.
You can see from this helpful diagram the impact of trauma on brain development…
If you’re a teacher, you should also be able to spot the tiger in the room – if the ‘typical’ child leads with curiosity and cognition, and the traumatised child leads with survival, the brain-space left for cognition in the traumatised child is minimal.
Traumatised children CANNOT learn unless they feel safe FIRST.
Safety is not just the absence of threat, it’s also the presence of connection, so building connections – especially with your most challenging children - being interested in them and approaching them without judgement or anger can only serve to improve the child’s scope for learning – you’re giving them the gift of being able to turn off the safeguarding and lean into the logic and reason.
All behaviour is communication and it’s our job - the grownups - to speak the child’s language.If the behaviour doesn’t change, don’t blame the child for not complying, ask yourself,
“What haven’t I understood yet?”
Top Tips
1) Ask yourself what’s behind this ‘behaviour’ or feeling? Am I getting the whole story or simply seeing an effect of something else. This helps you, the adult, to reframe your thinking away from being furious and towards being curious.
2) Healing from trauma requires:
Trusting
Relationships
And
Unconditional,
Meaningful
Acceptance
These are things easily achieved simply by making the child feel seen, heard and valued.
3) Calming the brain of a traumatised child will require a toolbox full of useful strategies. Our latest book, Sometimes I Need my Beanie Buddies shares a whole caboodle of quick and easy to use activities and resources to support co and self-regulation. Modelling the ‘behaviour’ you wish to see is by far and away the easiest route to changing undesirable behaviour – do as I do, not just as I say…
4) Get familiar with the ACEs stuff… There WILL be at least 5 children in a class of thirty who are living with or have lived with ACEs. If you know this about them, it’s much easier to reframe your thinking away from ‘bad behaviour’ and towards ‘unmet need’. One of those things demands punishment, the other requests compassion…
5) Be the adult you needed as a child. This one is exactly what it says on the tin! We all know what we needed but didn’t get, and we’re all capable of being that person for another human.
JLTS has created a unique series of Therapeutic Stories for children, offering a safe and effective way to introduce and explore challenging emotions and experiences. Learn more and buy your copy here:
Image Credits:
From Pixabay
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