Fun Fact of the Day

I'm learning so much these days, and I've decided that I'd like to share some of these learnings with all of you. So from time to time you can expect these "Fun Fact of the Day" (FFOTD) posts. Since social work involves a lot of trauma and psychopathology and other sadness, these "fun" facts might not really be that fun. For that I apologize. But hopefully they'll always be interesting!

My first FFOTD involves the effects that trauma has on the body's stress response system. Normally when we undergo a great deal of stress or anxiety, our body's stress response system releases hormones (such as adrenaline, cortisol, etc.) that create a number of physiological changes. This is typically known as the "fight or flight" response, in which the body prepares itself for action. One of these changes is an increase in heart rate. Now the interesting fact has to do with a study done on a group of Branch Davidian children -- survivors of the infamous incident that occurred in Waco, Texas. It was discovered that the group average for resting heart rate was 134. An adult's resting heart rate can be expected to be between 60-80 (even lower for those who are very physically active). In children it is higher, but a group average could be expected to fall between 80 and 90. Again, the group average for the traumatized children was 134. Think about how "at rest" you would feel if your heart rate was 50 beats per minute higher than normal.

Here's the "take away" message from this fun fact: Children under chronic stress have a good reason to act agitated or aggressive. Their bodies are in constant states of arousal, which makes it difficult for them to behave in manners that we would consider "appropriate." Many times children living in poverty or in violent communities or other stressful situations can be aggressive, poorly behaved, etc. Is it really any surprise? They are in a constant state of "fight or flight". But what is our natural reaction to their behavior? Punishment and words such as "You know better than that!" Really, they don't know better. They're doing the best that they can to survive. I'm not saying that the solution is to allow poor behavior to continue, but we can't just punish it and expect it to go away. What needs to happen is that traumatized children have to be taught different strategies. For example, a clinical social worker who is working with a traumatized kiddo who hits when another child gets into their personal space might say, "It seems like you were trying to tell Susie that she was getting too close to you. That was a good try, but that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's not okay to hit other people. Let's think of some different ways that you could have communicated that to Susie." Now this isn't going to automatically fix things. It takes training and practice. The child literally needs to learn new responses, responses that don't come naturally to him.

I wanted to start out by sharing this particular subject because it relates really well to some of the work that I will be doing this year. A lot of the kids I will be working with at Wellstone have poor emotional regulation and get very easily aroused. One of our jobs is to work with those students to teach them strategies for regulating themselves and for being successful in the school environment. At different points in time I'll try to write some entries with case examples, so you can understand some of what I'm doing. But first I wanted to give you all some rationale for our intervention methods. So I hope you enjoyed the first ever FFOTD! I'll try to throw in some less depressing ones from time to time as well :)