Teach Kids About Trauma: Fight, Flight, or Freeze
About Trauma
For a few years I worked only as a trauma therapist, there are a few concepts I find myself explaining over and over and over and over and over……
One of the most important is the fight, flight, freeze response the body has to survive traumatic events.
Fight, Flight, or Freeze
This response has evolved to help the human race survive over millions or billions of years, or whatever. Essentially, when we are confronted with something scary, like an alligator, our most primal part of the brain kicks into gear, sending adrenaline and other hormones to help our body get ready to either fight, flight, or freeze. The adrenaline and activation of the nervous system increases blood flow to muscles, increases heart rate and respiration, and dilates the eyes to look for ways to escape! As you can imagine, this takes a TON of our energy. To conserve energy, the body significantly slows the functions that are not immediately necessary for survival like digestion, storing memories, etc..
So… we see scary alligator, survival mode activated, and now a quick decision must be made on the best way to survive. Depending on your experience with alligators, I would imagine many of us would avoid the “fight” option. Our brains might choose to run away (flight) or hide until the threat is gone (freeze). After the brain activates this response, it takes an average of 20-30 minutes to return to a full resting state.
Imagine that instead of an alligator, the threat is a parent or caregiver that is physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive. Nearly all of the children I have had the privilege of working with since starting my career have had to endure one of these types of abuse. Child abuse is a more common problem than society realizes.
When you cannot trust your own parents, who can you trust?
When the alligator lives in your home, you learn to be careful, to not upset the alligator, and not get in his/her way. Children never know what the alligator will do next therefore they must keep that ‘survival mode’ ready at all times. Children then adapt and begin to see the world as a place they need to fear.
Remember: When fight, flight, freeze or survival mode is activated the areas of the brain responsible for learning how to become a successful child or young adult is turned off. Kids do not need social skills or algebra when they perceive their safety is threatened.
This has ripple effect that impacts the child’s self-esteem, emotional development, academic performance, ability to focus, follow directions, and engage in meaningful relationships, along with many other difficulties.
When children are raised in environments that are unpredictable and chaotic it creates feelings of chronic stress and trauma inhibits developmental milestones and learning.
This TED Talk about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): This is fantastic, if you have not seen it, watch now. 15 minutes of your time. Have a coffee, take some deep breathes, a moment of self-care while you watch.
Many adults with untreated mental health issues, generational abuse and trauma, and other economic difficulties are also parents. These parents are under major stress and often do not yet have the tools or capabilities to cope. They may get involved with dangerous significant others, furthering the abuse cycle and putting their children at risk. They may turn to substances and parent while intoxicated and behave in unpredictable ways that may activate a fight, flight, or freeze response in their children.
I find that I typically come across 3 types of responses to this information:
“It wasn’t THAT bad, it only happened 1x and the child was too young to remember it.”
“Back in my day, we got whooped/smacked/etc. regularly and we turned out fine.”
“I don’t want to talk about those bad memories, I just want the child to behave in school and stop acting out.”
Children are brand new to the world, they have no context or way to explain why and how these bad things are happening to them. This is part of the reason why many of them are impacted so strongly by these events. It’s important to remember many children are resilient and able to overcome a traumatic event with the support of stable adults in their lives. Few may display some symptoms of PTSD or Acute Stress Disorder, but not all.
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