In this blog, we explore what developmental trauma looks like and what parents, carers and professionals can do to help. Our experience working with children who have experienced early trauma shows that they are often misdiagnosed and misunderstood by professionals, family and friends.
These children are often labelled as naughty, autistic, ADHD or having behavioral problems. The purpose of this article is to help the adults around the child understand their behavior and hidden needs from a trauma-informed perspective. Research shows that trauma can affect an unborn child, and toxic stress in the early years can have a similar effect.
Developmental trauma can result from situations such as abusive relationships, divorce, medical procedures, and emotional and physical neglect. A baby's first eight weeks have the greatest impact on its later well-being. Research shows that children who have experienced significant trauma do not feel safe and appear to fight, flight, freeze, or collapse to deal with the real and imagined threats they face. Even when they move to a safe environment, their survival responses do not shut down.
Children stay in survival mode and interpret even small everyday things as signals of life or death.
Why is this happening?
Babies work primarily from their brainstem memories before language develops, which means children cannot recall or discuss those memories later. Instead, their bodies store these memories in their sensory systems. When traumatised children grow up, they remain stuck in a state of fear. They are hyper-vigilant for signs of danger, which impairs their ability to filter out irrelevant sensory experiences such as background images, sounds and textures.
This sensory overload makes them feel in imminent danger even though they are completely safe. Children at this stage may show strong aversions to certain foods and textures, or strong aversions to touching, sucking, biting and chewing. Early trauma can also lead to avoidance of routines such as brushing teeth. They feel restless, anxious and alert even when they are safe and may not recognize hunger or fullness or when they need the toilet. Children may experience dissociation, a separation of thoughts, feelings, behavior and mind from the body.
In developmental trauma, separation continues, even when the child is no longer in danger. The brain cannot shut down because memories are broken as a result of dissociation. Children often experience memories, feelings, behaviors or physical pain without understanding why or what triggers them. As a result, they may seem unresponsive to requests, age-appropriate behavior quickly deteriorates, and standard punishments and consequences for bad behavior often do not work.
All children can act avoidant, feeling scared, vulnerable, worthless, sad and hopeless inside, but outside bright, calm, cool or more competent and often the class clown.
Emotion Regulation Challenges
In these situations, angry episodes may last much longer than expected and they may experience anxiety without obvious triggers. They may have difficulty regulating their emotions. Babies and toddlers depend on their parents to help them regulate their emotions. This means that the parents' reactions to the child's emotions train the child's brain to respond to those emotions in the future. Through co-regulation, babies learn that their emotions are okay, manageable, and won’t push others away.
Children who have difficulty regulating their emotions may suffer from anxiety, frequent arguments and limited empathy for others. They may show frequent aggression, crying, clinging and difficulty with bedtime routines. During adolescence, they may exhibit self-harming behavior, drug use and aggression, as well as lying, stealing, overeating or malnutrition, and not responding to daily requests.
Chronically traumatised children often struggle with underdeveloped cognitive skills, which makes it difficult to anticipate, solve problems, organise, and learn from mistakes. They often live with a deep sense of "bad and unwanted" that becomes their self-view and how they believe others see them. Despite being told they are wanted and loved, their hearts are stuck in a time of trauma. Accepting them as lovable and safe can take a very long time.
Long-term effects
As adults, people with significant developmental trauma may still struggle with relationships and find it difficult to trust and feel close. They may feel guilty and hopeless, experience chronic guilt, constant shame and a negative self-image. They may also have difficulty regulating anger, lack calming strategies, self-harm, and experience dissociation and depersonalization.
Solutions
The good news is that intellectual disabilities can be treated through adjustments in relationships. Recognizing developmental disabilities and providing the right support can help children develop resilience and adaptability. Neuroscience shows that the brain is flexible and can be reshaped when given the chance. The most important thing for parents is to take care of themselves and each other. It may sound simple, but in practice it can be difficult. Reducing demand and increasing resources can help any therapeutic parenting strategy.
For therapeutic parenting strategies to work, there has to be some connection in the relationship. But attachment can be difficult, and children with early experiences of inconsistent and insecure relationships tend to reject it. Therefore, developing the bond in a way that feels bearable for both the child and the adult is essential. This connection can begin at a distance and grow over time as trust and interest develop.
The Geniuslane Approach
At Geniuslane, we tailor our work to improve parents understanding of their children's difficulties and to address traumatic behaviors. We use strategies to improve connection, self-image, emotional regulation and behavior.
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