Transcript for
Understanding how early childhood educators can support children who have experienced trauma

Narrator (00:02):

Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families podcast.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:05):

Hi, I’m Nadia Rossi and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. Today we are going to be talking about the important role educators can play in supporting children who have experienced trauma. We will be touching on themes of abuse and neglect. So please, if you feel this may cause you distress, perhaps give this episode a miss and join us next fortnight, or you can find resources for support in our show notes. Previously on the show, we have spoken in depth with Dan Moss to help us unpack and understand relational trauma and how it can affect the mental health and wellbeing of children. If you haven’t already listened to this fantastic conversation, you can find it in our list of previous episodes. Today, however, we are speaking with Justin McArthur. He’s an early years educator at Gowrie South Australia with over 20 years experience working with children from early childhood to primary school age. Justin has a special interest in working with children who have experienced trauma and is here to talk with us about that today.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (01:10):

Thanks for having me here.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:11):

No, thanks for coming.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (01:11):

Perfect. Na Marni everyone, which is the Kaurna welcome.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:14):

Justin, can you tell us a bit about how you came to work in childhood education? Tell us your story.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (01:22):

It’s an interesting one. I was volunteering at Edmund Rice Camps and doing would’ve at the time been called mandated notification facilitating. So I was supporting other educators, teachers and stuff in their mandated notification. And so from there, the person I was working with’s mom was a director of childcare centre and said they were looking for people, and I’m like, “I just stepped out of doing junior primary education at uni and was doing a bit of work at an out of school cares service as well,” and so I thought, hey, I’ll give it a go and just immediately fell in love with the space. It was just a different way of exploring learning and education completely different. And so it didn’t have any of those pressures that the school system does and it just suited me really well. And so haven’t really looked back. And so I worked there at that centre for probably about 11 years and then worked at Gowrie from then on. So I’ve been at Gowrie for almost eight years.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:20):

Wow, that’s quite some time.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (02:21):

Yeah, it is quite some time, but I just feel like that work hasn’t finished yet for me. And when you think about it, it never will really, because all children are different and individuals bring a different set of rules or struggles or traumas with them, and so each way you work with the child is very unique.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:41):

And Justin, when we use the word trauma, can you explain to our listeners what are we talking about?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (02:48):

We’re talking about a massive life impact, and this can be many things all the way from witnessing or being a part of a violent act to sexual abuse, neglect, all the way through to medical trauma where you’ve had an operation and something’s not quite right afterwards, or a person in your family’s had a traumatic experience through the hospital system or something like that and witnessing that. So it’s that witnessing or being a part of a very impacting part in your or someone else’s life.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (03:18):

And I know it’s an area of strong interest to you, but how did you get there?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (03:23):

Which is really interesting, I can’t really pinpoint it. There’s a couple of children for me that I go like, “You were the point in time where I went this is really important work, and these children showed me the way through their needs and their struggles, and just I seem to have with them this symbiotic relationship.” And I think a lot of the basis of it is an empathetic lens, like shifting your perspective of who they are and especially their behaviours, because for children, a lot of children with complex traumas, their communication comes through behaviours, and some of these can be violent behaviours, dysregulated really emotional, not being able to control their emotions, and it’s so up and down for them.

(04:09):

And it can go the other way as well, they’re very withdrawn or quiet or constantly sad. It’s a lot of guesswork and it’s finding what sticks and finding out what the triggers are, and trying to minimise those triggers in an environment so that they feel safe. And a lot of it’s based on trust. And that’s the hard one, especially for someone with trauma, is building a space of trust with yourself and the child.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (04:33):

And what does trust look like in a child?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (04:36):

It’s really hard, especially a child with complex traumas because innately they do not trust, because that is a coping mechanism for them. If something’s happened to them from another adult or something else that’s really impacted them, there is a loss of trust. And to then come into a space where you need to work close with adults that you don’t really know, that mistrust comes to the foreground and sort of thing. So inner, I guess like I talked about before, is that change of empathy and being able to empathise with them and understand, and almost, in a way, sometimes I describe it it’s like holding their trauma so they don’t have to, so they can just have a moment in time to be a child. And that’s the important thing I think is alleviating all those things. Not that they’re not going to go away and it’s not a magic pill just to take it away for a few moments. They can actually be a child and then enjoy those things that children do.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (05:35):

And when you talk about taking their trauma or holding their trauma for them in maybe a practical sense to early childhood educators, what is that for them? What are some strategies you can do?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (05:46):

I guess those strategies is it’s built on building that trusting relationship, so showing that you’re unwavering, that you’re a solid rock for them, that no matter what they do or say or what behaviours they are trying to communicate through, you are not going to change the way you approach them or the way that you care for them. You’re going to be solid as a rock in that rocky sea that they live in.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (06:10):

And I’m thinking environmentally as well, space wise, what can you, I guess as an educator or even as a centre, show a child that may have experienced trauma that this is a safe environment for them?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (06:23):

We’ve done a lot of work around sensory processing in our environments and what that looks like for a lot of different children, so lots of children who sit on the spectrum or have complex trauma and how sort of things, lots of colours or bright lights or flashing lights and lots of noise can be triggers for them. And so we’ve created safe quiet spaces which they know they can retreat to to escape all those things and normalising their behaviour within the community so that other children understand and know that at this point in time this child needs to retreat and we can give them their space because that’s their right.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (06:58):

That’s amazing.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (06:59):

Yeah, it is actually. That’s the thing that keeps me in this, children are so powerful and amazing beings, their sense of resilience and understanding and of accepting of truth, it blows my mind all the time. I see it every day and I see it in different ways, and sometimes I see it that I didn’t realise even happened or existed. And so it’s quite surprising and makes every day different

Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:22):

And even just creating that space for every child I think in every child to feel safe, but also how you can educate other children to know that this particular child needs this and you may need this at some point.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (07:37):

It’s that idea of equity that some people need more scaffolding and support than others to actually exist at the same level.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:45):

Justin, what would you say to a family that has a child that has experienced trauma? What would you say to them? How would they engage with an early childhood centre or learning service?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (07:58):

That’s a really good question. And I think for us at Gowrie it’s really easy because we’re quite open about it and we put ourselves in a position with open arms that allow families to be in a safe space to talk about these things so we can create best outcomes for their children. For a parent attending another service and curious, it’s just simple questions asking about have they done trauma informed practise training, what’s their understanding of working with children with trauma, so those initial questions, even though it can be tricky and even for them it can be a hard space for them to talk about their child’s trauma, which would also be impacting them and being vulnerable about where they’re sitting in the world. But some of that stuff is really important to talk about with educators so they have a greater understanding and then can have that shift of empathy and understand, and so that they’re not in a space where they’re just dismissing behaviours. They can bread into that behaviour.

(08:55):

Because we know through research that children’s behaviours are a form of communication, so they’re trying to tell us something through their behaviours. And children with complex trauma, that is their biggest language set because they’re in points that they’re feeling so out of control, they can’t articulate what’s happening for them. The behaviour talks for them.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (09:16):

And so that’s where the empathy and holding space for them comes.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (09:21):

Yeah, definitely.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (09:22):

And letting them be in that trauma or in that experience that may be triggering their trauma.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (09:26):

Well, trying to minimise the triggers, but allowing them to be okay with what they’re feeling. You know what I mean? So they can acknowledge that, okay, I’m feeling this way or I’m feeling that way, or reasons why we do this. A really good example of that would be a child that I worked with had complex traumas, he had an oral fixation, so to soothe himself and to bring himself down, everything would go in the mouth, and lots of dangerous stuff as well like stones, bark chips, clay, anything that they could put in their mouth because they needed that to regulate to be in the world. And it was really interesting, one morning mom had dropped him off in the morning and he wasn’t ready for mom to go, but mom needed to go, and it was just one of those things and I said, “Look, I’m ready to support this child.” And so it became out of control. So there was fists flying, kicking, all these sorts of things, but in that moment I was able to stand steadfast for that child and support them through it.

(10:23):

And we got to a point where he was in so dysregulated in the way he was feeling that he bolted. And we’ll talk about those sorts of things a bit later around the fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and what that looks like for children. So he ran and he crawled into this tiny space and just everything was going in his mouth and I’m like, “I need to get in there because this is a safety issue now.” And so I don’t know how I got myself in there, but I crawled in with them and supported them to get the bar chips out of his mouth, and we talked. And this was a really aha moment for me, and I said, “Oh, I wonder what it is about putting things in your mouth.” And he goes, “It makes me feel safe.” And I just went, “Right, I get it. I understand now.”

(11:08):

And from that moment, we were able to then redirect that to safe options, like crunchy crackers, frozen fruit, all that sort of thing, to a point where they would get to I’m feeling this way, I need some crackers. And so wouldn’t swallow most of the crackers, it’d just be just crackers everywhere, but that crunching on those crackers were able to bring that child back down out of those moments.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (11:32):

And even that question, the wording, I wonder why the question that you put back to the child, they may never have been even been asked that. Everyone’s trying to keep them safe, don’t swallow the thing, don’t put the thing in your mouth, but no one’s actually sat with them in that moment and asked them why.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (11:47):

And that’s part of that trust space. When you’re in a moment where things are safe, asking questions, I guess reasonable questions for them, stuff that isn’t going to trigger them or push them further, but just wonderings and lots of open-ended questions and what is it about this, or what is it about that, or I wonder what you are feeling. And you’ll find over time, and it takes a long time of just constantly doing that and to build that sense of trust that they’re able to then start to recognise those own things in their body. And that’s part of the key I think for these children is being able to support them, to recognise when they’re about to become highly dysregulated and to actually seek support because that’s what we’re here for.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:30):

I’m wanting to go back to something you mentioned just before about when you said to the child’s mom, “I’m ready to support this child.” As an educator, how do you prepare yourself in that moment or ready yourself in that moment because you know you may be in for an uphill battle?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (12:47):

Yeah, for sure.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:47):

How do you centre yourself and how do you prepare?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (12:51):

To extend on that, at Gowrie we use a script which is based on attachment theory and a few other people’s work, and it talks around, the script goes, “Are you ready for me to take charge and keep your child safe?” So it’s a statement that you’re making to both the child and the family that you as an educator are committed to being with and keeping that child safe no matter what. And it’s a really strong commitment as well. And so in those moments, and sometimes when you say that’s actually a trigger point for some of these children as well, because you know they know that this is the time that we’re going to do this. And so I guess as an educator and speaking about myself, and everyone has different ways of doing it, it’s about those moments of a quick deep breath and then just dive in, it’s like diving into the ocean, into the rocky sea and just holding them, whether it’s holding them physically or whether it’s just being with and holding them that way.

(13:47):

And not just talking through it, because when they’re really heightened, they’re not ready to receive that information. And so it’s about being with them, whether it’s giving them a hug or just being close, and just letting them know that you’re there and stuff like that.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (14:03):

What role do parents play with the child that has experienced trauma? How do parents support their child?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (14:10):

See, that’s really hard because a lot of children are completely different in an educational setting than they are at home. All children are really, parents always get a lot more than we do around emotional regulation and stuff like that. And so especially I’m thinking about a child that I work with at the moment who has complex trauma, who masks their trauma, so will spend all day holding onto it and holds on and holds on, won’t let it show, won’t let it show until he gets into the car, after being at [inaudible 00:14:47] then it’s on, it all comes out. It’s really hard for me as an educator to give advice to those parents about supporting that child.

(14:54):

There’s lots of really good things like circle of security parenting that are really good about ideas of supporting children with their emotional needs and what that looks like, but it’s million times more intense with a child with complex trauma, and each child who sits in that space is completely different because everyone’s trauma is different so it looks different. So it’s really I guess the things I would say is things around that empathetic shift and knowing what the triggers are, which parents would know because they’re going through the process. If you are in a space where you’re really unsure, it’s like reaching out and seeking help from psychologists and things like that who are professionals in unlocking those sorts of things. And so then in that sense, when we get information from those types of professionals, we can implement strategies based around their reports and those sorts of things, and plus, with our past experience. So a lot of this is just on the ground experience with children and what works. So it’s like lots of it’s a guessing game and just finding out what sticks.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:03):

And how do you see trauma informed practice helping children to build resilience and coping mechanisms to help with their trauma?

Justin McArthur (Guest) (16:12):

Yeah, definitely. We’re not a magic pill for that and there’s never going to be a magic pill in supporting someone with their trauma because it’s their trauma. We can only support them with strategies that are safe options that reflect what their needs are. Like I talked before about the oral fixation stuff, it’s like finding safer options and supporting them to understand what their body’s trying to tell them as it gets to that point before it gets to crisis point. And just when it is in crisis point, just being with them, which is really hard and can be really confronting, and I think you have to dig down really deep to sit in that space.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:53):

You mentioned earlier about the fight, flight…

Justin McArthur (Guest) (16:56):

Freeze and fawn.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:57):

Freeze and fawn. I’ve only ever heard of fight or flight response.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (17:02):

Because trauma affects people in different ways, so fight and flight is really easy, someone will just come out and just fight because they’ve flipped their lead and there’s no connection between the cortex and their limbic, and so it’s all on and they’re just fighting to save themselves from a threat that might not even be there. And flight is just running a mile, just running, just running from perceived threat. And so you notice these children as well just constantly scanning the environment, looking for where the next threat is coming from, and you just go like, “That must be such a hard space for them to sit in.”

Nadia Rossi (Host) (17:42):

And tiring, exhausting.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (17:44):

Yeah, exhausting. It was really interesting, a child that I talked about before with oral fixation, I remember Lindsay, my programme leader, coming out and actually speaking about that child because we’d done a lot of work and going, “There’s a child who’s not scanning the environment.” And I went, “Oh, he’s not either.” And it’s so obvious, you just see their eyes just looking, looking, looking, and they’re in a safe space and we are there to keep them safe, but they’re scanning because they just can’t stop. They’re worried about where that next event is going to come from, So I guess comes back to freeze is just they shut down, they just internalise, don’t move, just go really quiet, limp, and just don’t engage in anything. And fawning is making sure that people are happy, because if people are happy, they’re not going to get angry, you’re not going to get hurt, just pleasing everyone so no one gets into a space where they’re worried that the next experience is going to happen for them.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (18:42):

Wow. I did not think that that’s what fawn was. Okay.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (18:47):

And that one kind of really took me by surprise. It’s like, “Oh wow, it’s like children really trying to please people so that they can feel safe.”

Nadia Rossi (Host) (18:55):

I’m wondering, Justin, if you can leave our audience with any important points from our conversation or any final thoughts you would leave.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (19:03):

I guess there’s a couple of things like it’s really around that empathetic shift. Parents have that naturally anyway with their children, but with children with trauma it’s about really sticking to that because some of the behaviours can be very confronting. And I think a really important thing that I would suggest and do suggest to a lot of families who sit in that space is filial therapy, which is play therapy, so it’s a therapy that’s based on play, obviously, but it uses the language that children know, which is play ,to explore the world, but it actually gives them space to process that traumatic experience or event. So I was lucky enough to do a filial therapy project at work because we noticed we had a real overload of children with complex trauma, and our CEO at the time had been doing some research into it, and we were lucky enough they engaged a filial therapist to come on board and they trained us to be the facilitator of the sessions, which is what they would do for a parent.

(20:06):

And there’s some really good things around that because it builds a stronger connection with the caregiver, parent, and the child because lots of it’s based on relationship, but then it allows the children to go through all these modes of play to be able to process that traumatic event. So in a situation, there’d be a mat on the floor that you’d sit on to play and you’d be surrounded by many toys. There’d be nurturing toys, there’d be violent toys, there’d be all sorts of stuff, writing tools, playing cards, and stuff like that. And they’re really specifically set out to go along that process of processing the trauma. So for this child that I did the project with, their trauma came from abuse in utero. So the mother faced lots of domestic violence and drug abuse and stuff like that, and that for that child was in utero.

(20:57):

So the play was very chaotic and destructive at first and wasn’t really what you would expect a child to play and engage in. And we weren’t there to direct the play, but to just follow the play and be involved in the play. And I suspected that this is where it would go, but we went straight for the guns and the swords, and for weeks and weeks during this process I was shot and had to die so many times. That can be really confronting for people as well to actually go through that process, but I knew that this is what that child needed to do, and so you could see this massive shift in them when they would shoot me, but then go and grab the doctor’s bag and fix me. And there was a shift in empathy, and that shows the process of them processing those bits and stuff. It’s a lot deeper than that, but that’s just a real… But I can’t sing praises high enough for filial therapy, especially for children with trauma.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:54):

And I guess that goes back to them not necessarily being able to vocalise their emotions and their experience, and so that is the play-based…

Justin McArthur (Guest) (22:03):

100%, because we know as early childhood educators that’s one of the languages of children is play. They explore the world that way, they project their theories about the world that way, they connect with people that way. There’s so much that’s so important about play. This therapy just marries up so well with that for children.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (22:22):

I liked what you said about families and parents just having to dig deep. I think as a mom myself you have those moments where you have to really pull yourself out of it and just having those words digging deep and being with your child in that moment.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (22:37):

Just having that resolve, because we know through ideas of attachment theory and stuff like that, when we stay in those moments with children they become less and less over time because we are co-regulating with them emotionally, but also allowing them to realise that this is a safe space and it’s okay to feel this way.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (22:59):

Because it can be confronting for you as an adult as well, especially if your child has experienced trauma.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (23:05):

Yeah, for sure.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:06):

But to really stick with them and have that empathy and…

Justin McArthur (Guest) (23:09):

Yeah, definitely.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:10):

Thank you so much, Justin.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (23:12):

That’s my pleasure.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:14):

It’s been so great talking to you. Thank you so much, Justin.

Justin McArthur (Guest) (23:15):

My pleasure, Nadia.

Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:15):

Thank you.

Narrator (23:17):

Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The Centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.