 Hello, today we're going to think about toxic stress. This is a super helpful concept to kind of get your head around because it comes up all the time and it's helpful for you to know what you might be seeing in the children you're observing because sometimes it can be a little bit surprising. I teach you about it a lot so I've just pulled together a few of my recent slides to share with you. I hope that they're helpful. So first of all, what actually is toxic stress? So toxic stress is stress that comes in many different flavours. We've got a positive stress that's normal, that's healthy, we see that quite frequently. We manage, it's fine, makes our bodies feel a little bit different for a while but it's kind of how we cope with the challenges of the day to day. We might get bigger stresses sometimes like a slightly longer term stress response but that's tolerable because we've got what we need in order to help us, namely supportive relationships. We've got that network around us that means that even though we're facing some really really tough stuff we're able to cope and continue to thrive or go back to thriving and then there's negative stress. So this is when we've got like long-term challenging stressful stuff making all those hormones go haywire but actually we haven't got that supportive network and those important relationships around us that enable us to cope with that negative stress and so that can result in toxic stress. So this is when our children they've got those prolonged experiences of adversity but with no supporting adults. Then we end up with toxic stress which means their bodies remain in that fight, flight, freeze, fawn type mode, what we call activation mode. So what we're thinking about this morning is what do we mean by fight, flight, freeze, fawn and don't worry if you've never heard of fawn before. Many people but not all and that's fine. I've heard of fight, flight, freeze but fawn is new on a lot of folks so you'll know all about it within the next few minutes. So fight, flight, freeze, fawn they all look quite different but the underpinnings are kind of similar. So it's all about this. We've got that prolonged exposure to stress. We don't have the support we need in order to make that tolerable and so we end up in these activation modes are fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Okay. So we'll start with fight. This one you might be familiar with. This is where we're going to square up to the threat. We're going to get ready to fight. We're going to try and beat it. This is one of the ways that we can overcome challenge evolutionarily is to fight it. So this in your kids, in your class, in the children that you're working with can look a whole bunch of different ways. So you might be seeing your clenched fists, your aggression including slamming and throwing and all that kind of big stuff. You might be seeing your angry outbursts and sudden kind of explosions like the child is like a volcano. You might get your defiant kids, the ones who are on seeing back, you might be seeing your yelling, you're hitting, provoking of other people and sometimes it comes out of kind of just silliness and loudness. So fight is big essentially. We tend to see big noisy type responses for fight and it's basically we're getting ready. We're going to fight off this thing that is causing us some challenge. So that's fight. Next we have flight. This is about getting away from the threat. So we want to get as far away as we can from that threat as quickly as possible. This is another way that evolutionarily we can protect ourselves. We're going to run, run, run, run, run away, get away from the threat. So what does this look like in your kids that you might be supporting? Because we're not all living out in the wild like we did as we were evolving anymore. So they might literally get up and walk or run away. You might have a runner as we often refer to them in schools. They might kind of flee but without going anywhere. So this is where they might put their head down on the desk and the hoodie right up sort of running away but more in their mind if you like. They might do stuff to specifically get kicked out of your class so they might do things that have repeatedly in the past got them kicked out. They might do this consciously or they might do it subconsciously. So don't assume that this kid is manipulating the situation. It could be a learned response that somewhere deep inside their brain they know, hey, you know what, when I throw all the paint pots around, Miss Jones chucks me out of the classroom and things feel a bit better for me because I need to get away from this trigger. You might find they withdraw that they day dream that they put the headphones in and kind of ignore they're fleeing, flighting away from the situation but without being actually able to leave. Sometimes kids can't physically leave the situation and so we see that withdrawal that running away happen kind of mentally rather than physically. So that's something just to be aware of. And then finally what you might see are kids that hide. They might run away and go find somewhere safe to hide. And again, if you just think about it evolutionarily, if something has triggered you and it's terrifying, it's scary, if you can't fight it, run away and hide is actually a pretty good evolutionary response. May have kept many people alive in the past, hence it has been bred into us. Next, we have got freeze. Now this is the one that doesn't tend to cause too many challenges in the classroom, but this is a child who's really, really, really struggling right now. So freeze. This is going to try and trick the threat into thinking we're not there. This is the deer in headlights, which not necessarily that helpful when you're driving a car, but again, going back to the evolution of it, some predators can't see stuff that's not moving. So sometimes freeze is a great response and it can make the thing that we're scared of just kind of carry on on it's day and go away. So that's why we have the freeze response, not so helpful when you're trying to learn algebra. So what does this look like in the kids in your cat? So you might be getting that kind of blank stares, it's kind of zoning out, dissociation, so just not quite feeling like they're here, not really with it anymore, not quite in the zone. You might find that they can't or won't respond. The reason I've crossed out won't that. It feels like they won't respond, they won't engage, they won't move. Actually, when they're in this freeze state, they can't do those things. It's not about won't, we need not to put the blame on the child. This is about can't. They can't engage, they can't respond, they can't move when they've gone into this freeze state. Their brain has taken over and gone, I'm in danger here. I'm going to make this threat think I'm not here. I'm going offline to try and keep them safe. So it's not about won't, it's about can't. You might find that they lose their words, that they become completely mute. You might find that they seem just kind of numb and unreachable or kind of distant and forgetful and unfamiliar, just generally kind of distant. They're on a bit of another planet right now. So they might look like they're in the room, but they're not really engaging, not really there, not really with it and part of things. They're frozen out. This doesn't necessarily cause a whole ton of disruption to your sessions unless you are particularly trying to actually get them to respond to you. But just know this is a child who is in deep distress right now, just as much distress as the kid who is throwing things and running away, this kid is overwhelmed too. And then finally, I promised that we would talk about fawn. Lots of people are not so familiar with the fawn response. So the fawn response is about befriending the threat. This is about persuading the threat that we are BFF, best friends forever. And sometimes this has worked evolutionarily that if we can get on with our captor, with the thing that threatens us, then maybe we can find our way out of this scenario. We hear very bizarre stories about this every now and then. Someone who's been locked away for years and made friends with the person who's locked them up and eventually they've managed to get away. So we might try, instead of running, instead of fighting, instead of freezing, to try to be really lovely and make the threat realise that we're on their side and they don't need to eat us or harm us. So what might this look like for the children and young people in your care? So you might find that they are very perfectionist, that they're submitting to pressure really easily and they're lacking boundaries. So they're kind of doing what everyone else wants them to do, trying to be a people pleaser, to be honest, rather than doing what perhaps they really want to do. You might find within your classroom, within your groups, that they are over-prepared, that they're overly helpful. They're kind of like your ideal kid, but maybe just a little bit too much, you know? Really, really good, perfect all the time, always aiming to please, always wants to be doing the jobs, always wants to help you, that child. Now, the reason why I think it's really important that we acknowledge this as a trauma response is that often those are just kids who we think are doing great. They get loads of really positive feedback all the time, they're doing all the right things, everything's always on time, it's all lovely. But when it's like to the point where they're not like a kid anymore, they're like some kind of people pleasing automaton that really, really wants to keep you on side all the time, always perfect, never doing childlike things, never being silly, always following the rules and always being helpful, then we've just got to wonder, what's going on for this kid? They're not really acting like a kid. If it's fallen all the time, just be curious, is this perhaps a learned trauma response? And in fact, they're trying really hard to cope. Now, so we've thought here about four different types of responses, and they all look really different. So you've got the kid who's going to square up to the threat, they're going to fight it. You've got the kid who wants to run away, get as far away from the threat as they possibly can. You've got the child who's going to freeze, who's going to dissociate, who's going to kind of disappear and pretend that they're not here. And then you've got the kid who is going to fawn and they are going to befriend the threat, make the threat, love them and stop it from hurting them. That's a bit tricky because then, well, what do you do? And what do we do is, you know, this is stuff for a whole another day and we've taught lots and lots on this in the past, but one tip here, which means actually you'll know exactly what to do, just treat all of those children any of those trauma responses, any of that type of toxic stress like this. If you imagine, just imagine that in front of you, whether this child is running, hiding, whether they are being big and noisy or really withdrawing, whether they feel, you know, old, young, whatever you've got in front of you, just imagine, just imagine you've got a terrified three year old child bawling their eyes out, who feels really scared right now. If you do that, just imagine you've got that really, really scared child. If you do that, imagine them, then actually you'll be able to do the right things. And it means that perhaps you treat that boisterous 15 year old who's squaring up to the threat rather differently than your instinct might say. But at the heart of it, what you've got in all of these instances is a kid who is totally overwhelmed, who's really scared, who's experiencing this toxic stress. And what they need is a kind, calm, curious adult who can try to calm things down for them, make them feel safe. That is the key that you're aiming for here. Make them feel safe. What can you do to make this small scared child, even if they don't look like a small scared child, maybe they look like a big, angry teenager. What can you do to make them feel safe? Now, I hope there were some helpful ideas in here. I would highly, highly recommend this book. So the Building a Trauma-Informed Restorative School is one of my very favorite books when it comes to trauma-informed practice within the school setting. I highly recommend it. And a reminder that this, like all of my work all the time, I'm super, super happy for you to use, adapt, share, as long as you're not making millions of pounds out of it. And if you'd like to support me and my work, then the ways that you can do that are to come along and join me on Patreon for a pound a month, or you can invite me to come and speak within your setting or at your next event. Okay, until next time, over and out.