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Because students enter your classroom with a variety of life experiences and backgrounds, your SEL instruction needs to be varied and versatile. Trauma-informed teaching acknowledges your students’ past experiences and creates a classroom community that welcomes those of all backgrounds. These trauma-informed teaching strategies work for any classroom setting, and, paired with expert tips and high-quality resources for implementation, help turn your classroom into a safe space for all students.
What is trauma-informed teaching?
Trauma-informed teaching is an instructional response to understanding the impact of trauma on students’ learning and behavior. Essentially, it means that teachers know how student responses to standard classroom events may be trauma responses, rather than a typical emotional response.
For example, if a student has a strong or violent reaction to changing seats, a trauma-informed teacher would understand that unexpected changes can trigger a response that kept that child safe in a prior traumatic experience. They’re fighting a battle that isn’t still going on, but that feels enough like their past experience to bring on the same response.
This approach includes standards from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and other SEL best practices. It addresses these core needs of students with traumatic backgrounds:
- Physical and emotional safety
- Trust and transparency
- Empowerment and autonomy
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Connection and relationships
It’s best for teachers to work through these steps in this order. It will be challenging to create relationships with these students before you’ve established safety, trust, empowerment, and collaboration with them. That’s why a student with a traumatic background may look like they’re being defiant, when they’re actually struggling to trust the authority in the room based on their prior experiences.
What does trauma in the classroom look like?
Common trauma responses in the classroom may include:
- Fight: Aggressive behavior toward adults or peers, defiance to doing what’s asked, shouting or excessive arguing; getting upset when something isn’t perfect or others establish boundaries
- Flight: Running away, not doing classroom or homework, skipping class
- Freeze: Becoming completely silent, not answering questions, not participating
Students with traumatic backgrounds may suspect that authorities are not trustworthy, and that includes their teacher. When you use trauma-informed teaching strategies in the classroom, you’re removing common triggers and setting up learning supports to quiet students’ nervous systems. That way, they know they’re safe and can focus their energy on learning instead of reacting.
1. Make expectations extra clear
All students are more successful when they know exactly what’s expected of them, both at home and in the classroom. Making your behavioral and learning expectations very clear from the beginning of the year creates a sense of stability and safety, even if students try to test those boundaries whenever they can.
Teacher Tip
Prioritize consistency by picking two or three non-negotiables that you can follow through on and commit to completely. It’s better to have three routines or expectations that are truly unwavering than ten that you only enforce half the time.
—Kristina from Rooted in Structure
Set expectations from day one with trauma-informed posters
Use posters and mantras to make your classroom a welcoming and structured place from the first day of school. Ideal for classroom calm-down corners or decorations in a counseling office, posters remind students that they are in a safe place with a supportive group of peers.
Trauma Sensitive Classroom Rules & Expectations Poster *In Our Class We……
By WholeHearted School Counseling
Grades: PreK-8th
Subjects: Classroom Community
Instantly build a sense of classroom community with a supportive SEL poster. It uses common trauma-informed mantras to establish class expectations, including “We ask for help when we need it” and “We take slow, deep breaths to calm down.” Choose between four different titles and three printing options to personalize the poster for your space.
2. Monitor emotions throughout the day
Veteran teachers can tell when something isn’t right with one of their students almost immediately. Trauma-informed teaching takes this intuition to a new level, encouraging teachers to check in with students with trauma responses during possible emotional moments. Sensory overwhelm, classroom transitions, stressful challenges, or challenges to their autonomy can trigger their nervous system, so monitoring the way they feel throughout the day can help you manage possible triggers before students become dysregulated.
Teacher Tip
Provide opportunities to have a ‘feelings check.’ Integrate it into the morning meeting, or have older students use a sticky note to write/sketch their mood and anonymously display it on the board.
—Melissa from Chick on the Run
3. Choose restorative justice over punishment
Restorative justice is a common trauma-informed teaching strategy that prioritizes self-reflection and taking accountability over strict punishments and discipline. For students who may have been suspended for their actions in prior years, working through the steps of restorative justice can help them make amends and repair relationships with peers and adults. This cooperation can lead to an improved classroom culture overall, as it makes more connection with their teacher and peers the positive consequence of reactivity.
Help students understand the causes and results of their actions
Restorative justice only works if each party knows how they contributed to the problem. Guide students through the process of reflecting on their behavior with a think sheet that prompts them to consider how they could change their behavior next time.
Trauma-Informed Behavior Reflection Think Sheet w Restorative Justice Practices
By The Fancy Counselor
Grades: 1st-6th
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology
Help students become more aware of their actions and emotions with a reflection sheet focused on restorative justice. As students identify their triggers, reflect on choices, and consider better strategies, they work toward repairing relationships and taking responsibility for their actions.
4. Model students’ coping skills for stressful moments
Students who have the tools to work through stressful moments are better equipped to keep from feeling dysregulated. A perfect teaching opportunity is to share your own experiences with your students. By being open about how you’re experiencing the world, you can model for students how they can identify their feelings and openly communicate about them.
Teacher Tip
Model for your students how to breathe slowly, take a break from the task at hand, look out the window and be present with nature — all coping skills that help de-escalate anxiety and stress.
—Laura from The Fancy Counselor
Have students assess their own comfort and discomfort zones
A situation that feels exciting and fun to one student may feel threatening and scary to another. Encourage students of all ages to determine what takes them out of their own comfort zones and into the zone of dysregulation with resources focused on individual self-reflection.
Window of Tolerance Toolkit for Kids and Teens, Trauma Therapy
By My Balanced Brain
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology, Social Emotional Learning
A window of tolerance is the amount of time a person can remain in their emotional comfort zone before becoming dysregulated and hyper-aroused (or hypo-aroused). Images and printable tool sheets guide students into understanding their own coping skills and triggers.
5. Help students understand the way their brains work
Appeal to your students’ natural sense of curiosity by teaching them about emotions, reactive responses, and triggers in their environment. Helpful both in one-on-one settings and as a whole class, this approach helps when building relationships with students and guiding them through their own learning and behavioral needs. Younger students can work on more basic SEL emotional identification, while older students can learn more about the psychology of trauma and reactivity.
Identify emotions, triggers, and functional responses
Students who have experienced trauma may have a more difficult time identifying their emotions and triggers than their peers. Use SEL resources that incorporate trauma therapy practices to help students determine how they are feeling and what makes them feel that way.
Behavior Reflection Think Sheet – Trauma Informed – Understanding your Brain
By Behavior Consulting Services
Subjects: Psychology, School Counseling
If your students struggle with self-reflection after difficult moments, this trauma-informed reflection activity may be just what they need. Students report on what they experienced during a stressful interaction and choose from a toolbox of strategies and supports.
6. Limit surprises and unexpected changes
A predictable classroom is a calm classroom. For students with traumatic backgrounds, surprises and changes can be alarming — even when those surprises are supposed to be fun. Keep your classroom routine as predictable as possible, adhering to your classroom expectations and ensuring the day-to-day practices involve as few unknown factors as possible.
Trauma-informed teaching includes an understanding that students thrive in environments where they are accepted. That may be more difficult for students who have experienced trauma or whose reactive responses may alienate them from peers or create a negative reputation throughout the school. If inclusion in the classroom is a priority in your instruction, your students will understand why some reactions look bigger than others, why they may need to be patient with their friends’ actions, and how they can help their friends when they’re feeling dysregulated.
8. Create safe spaces within the learning area
Let students know that they have a safe space within your larger space. Students in need of sensory relief or isolation from their peers may appreciate a quiet, darkened physical calm corner, while those with a negative concept of themselves may need a chance to prove their abilities outside the standard setup of a classroom (known as islands of competence). Either way, you can establish their school setting as a place where they can always seek and find a safe moment.
9. Stay informed on new trauma-informed teaching practices
Just as your students are learning to be flexible and mindful of changes, the field of SEL and trauma-informed teaching offers opportunities for teachers to adapt their instructional approach. Professional development, independent education, and high-quality classroom resources are all ways for teachers to learn more about this approach and to challenge their previously held perspectives on learning and behavior.
Expand a trauma-informed approach to the whole school
Teachers and administrators seeking to add trauma-informed instruction to their school can find resources with everything they need for effective implementation. From behavioral approaches to SEL instruction tips, these resources make excellent additions to your next professional development seminar.
Trauma-Sensitive Schools | Professional Development PowerPoint Bundle
By Social Workings
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology, Social Emotional Learning
This thorough SEL resource includes everything you need for professional development on trauma-informed instruction and behavioral approaches, including PowerPoint presentations and informational videos on the impact of trauma, behavioral aftermath of trauma, and available school-based interventions.
Make school a safe place with trauma-informed teaching
When you bring trauma-informed teaching practices into your classroom, you’re giving students a safe place to identify, process, and manage their emotions. Picking your battles and eliminating black-and-white punishments from the classroom is a strong way to build community in the classroom for everyone, including your most vulnerable learners. Use additional resources for trauma-informed lessons to address learning and behavioral needs for students, and to make your classroom a safe place for them to succeed.
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