Creating Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms

Creating Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms

The central argument in the article is that early childhood educators should create trauma-sensitive classroom to help kids that experience trauma. Many children suffer from emotional, sexual, and physical trauma daily; therefore, early childhood educators should be sensitive during classroom sessions to identify such cases and provide the necessary help. From the trauma cases given in the article- four-year-old Alex suffering domestic violence and physical abuse from birth and seven-year-old Chiara sexually abuse at the age of two, it is evident that many children experience trauma from home. The author argues that 80% of early trauma cases happen at home from the children’s parents. Based on these statistics, I entirely agree with the idea that early childhood educators should create trauma-sensitive classrooms.

In classrooms, early childhood educators teach children from diverse family backgrounds. Some are total orphans, single parented, adopted while others are brought up in foster care. These children suffer from trauma perpetrated by their parents or guardians. Consequently, early childhood teachers are likely to encounter young kids who experience trauma daily. As forwarded by the author, I believe that schools can be the safest place for such children. This requires early childhood teachers to develop strategies and skills that can help identify traumatized children in classrooms and offer appropriate health care services.

Further, I propose that pre-school settings be safely integrated with trauma-sensitive space that can help educators cultivate positive self-identity. Educators must understand children, listen, and compassionately attend to them, for this will help identify their trauma experiences. From my understanding, early childhood teachers must be open and available to the students at all times to understand what the children are undergoing. Handling kids require that you wear multiple hats and be flexible. Apart from being a teacher, you must nurture and support the young as they grow up. If their parents fail in their parenting responsibilities, early childhood teachers should offer their full support and perform some parenting duties.

Another way of creating a trauma-sensitive classroom is to prioritize relationships with the children. When teachers and the students have a positive relationship, the kids develop trust in the teachers and can easily be honest and open to share their troubling home experiences. Teachers are supposed to use counseling methods to respond to the children. Besides, by letting the children speak freely, it is easy to know the kind of problems they are experiencing back at home and apply the right solution. I firmly believe that early childhood educators can create trauma-sensitive classrooms and help traumatized kids.

Of interest in the article is how early childhood teachers can identify traumatized children. It is evident that for teachers to help such children, they have to be able to identify them. Based on the article, there are different expressions of trauma in early childhood settings. Traumatized children have impairments across developmental elements such as emotional, physical, social behaviors, and cognitive aspects (Naeyc, n.d.). They always have troubles and challenges in classrooms having difficulties in language and communication. Further, they have problems in building relationships as they struggle to interact with their peers and teachers. There are several ways of identifying traumatized children in the classroom, and I think the teacher should undergo proper training to be able to identify and provide appropriate help.

As I conclude, I believe that the essential thing is to create trust between the teachers and the children. This will help children rely on the teachers to provide support, unconditional love, and encouragement. Professional early childhood educators have a powerful influence that can help solve and reduce the effects of trauma in children.

References

Naeyc, (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/may2015/trauma-sensitive-classrooms