Emotional triggers
I’m not a psychologist, social worker or psychic, but with a quick read of news stories regarding our most recent mass shooting, the “other trigger” leapt off the page and assaulted me. There is no doubt that we exist in a gun culture with, well, too many readily available machines that kill. There is also something else at work here.
Spending many years working with young people has given me a unique insiders glimpse at how humans cope, or fail to cope with adversity. Anyone who has watched a child throw a temper tantrum knows that there are triggers that set people off. Even when children are raised under ideal circumstances – which so many children are not – seemingly small instances can cause disequilibrium. A small child we can hold onto until the storm subsides, but for older children and adults with child-like tendencies bars often replace arms for support when anger reigns.
We have created a spectrum of institutions, everything from alternative school programs, mental health units, group homes and juvenile lock ups to control and contain adolescent anger. Yet we often fail to realize that for every emotion there is an action. For many young people anger serves as a defense mechanism that allows them to cope with feelings of loss, abandonment and hopelessness.
One of the most powerful activities I have participated in (and later taught) involved a ball of twine. The facilitator took the twine and rolled out, a string at a time, the relationships and connections of a child from their youngest days into early adulthood – an actual case file. I was the volunteer holding the strings. There were many string initially, strong and positive connections. As I stood there the facilitator talked through the child’s history and cut the strings one at a time until I stood holding a handful of broken lines. Each snip of the scissors, each cut connection became a potential trigger.
Although I’ve spent time with angry children in many different settings, my greatest insight comes from working in “lock ups,” minimum to maximum secure juvenile prisons. When each morning you walk through gated corridors and lock yourself physically inside with young people, some of which have committed horrific crimes, you either get to know these kids or you get out.
Staying in without doing more harm than good requires that you live in the moment while focusing on the future – all that any of us can do is move forward from where we are. It is also crucial to understand that everyone has triggers, things that set them off. For some this might be as simple as standing too close or behind them; for others it could be an anniversary of a loss, or a story, word or image that evokes a moment in time. Creating a consistent, supportive structure within the classroom – a micro community – helps. As does being able to react differently to each and every person by understanding their triggers and supporting their strengths.
Understanding what sets people off doesn’t mean tip toeing around or allowing behaviors that are disrespectful or harmful. It is about pushing boundaries compassionately. Avoiding all our triggers condemns us to continually repeating the same mistakes. Learning, growth, change requires teachers to push through destructive patterns, incrementally. For someone who is a bully and has violent tendencies, avoiding triggers serves to reinforce and accept their actions. Likewise, allowing someone who chooses to withdraw to remain withdrawn only serves to increase isolation. The important thing is to be aware, to understand and to not overreact when there is a reaction.
Each morning one of my classes would step off their unit and serenade me with an a cappella tune, complete with background percussion accompaniment on walls and desks. These spoken word entrances provided transition from the more relaxed expectations of the unit – their nighttime home – and the classroom environment. With this action they shared their talents and became students. In many classrooms, these students would be admonished for “misbehaving”. Allowing students this time encouraged creativity and collaboration and gave them some control – once the song was over a different set of rules applied.
Within the classroom constant positioning was required to balance triggers, to push limits strategically while maintaining a productive learning environment, to help student work through anger while still finding ways of directing it meaningfully. For all students this meant classroom work that challenged them, allowed them to feel genuine accomplishments. Rather than a cookie cutter lesson that left some students feeling overwhelmed and others bored and restless, lessons (Regents Global / American History and ELA) introduced concepts and ideas then allowed room for students to explore critically and write or complete written work at their current academic levels. Classrooms must be interactive spaces that are alive, evolving, with opportunity for students to be engaged. Engaged students, and teachers, are better able to understand and adapt to their own triggers.
Two of my students, both of whom had held powerful street roles in their respective neighborhoods, were able to maintain that competitive bravado by reading out loud to each other to increase fluency, sharpen pronunciation, with the listener recording errors to push their opponent to the next level. A young woman, the model student on most days, who used academics as her emotional glue, walked into the classroom, picked up a textbook and flung it at the wall (not too far from my head, I might add) and then quietly sat down ready for class. Moments before she walked in I received a whispered heads up: “She lost her grandmother last night.” Had the unit staff been less communicative, we could have done more harm. I, instead approached her, placed a hand comfortingly on her shoulder (something that might have been a trigger for half of the other students but not for her) and expressed sympathy for her loss.
Which brings me full circle, in regard to triggers. That girl’s grandmother had been her family, had raised her and was the most important person in her life. Alone in the facility, locked in at night with only a friendly spider as company (some of the girls I worked with took to naming spiders that settled into the corners of their rooms), the loss of this person was another cut string, another severed connection.
I got to know these kids, which matters. Teachers are the first and most significant adults in most young people’s lives – they see their students and interact with them more often than the parents in many cases. Teachers need to be armed with more skills (and the academic freedom) to work with all students, not with guns. I certainly do not have all the answers. I do know that the unnamed* young man in Florida was a troubled young man with many cut strings, any one of which could have been the trigger – the loss of a girlfriend, of a school social environment, including possible connections with staff and peers that may have been able to help him maintain, and the loss of first his father and, more recently, his mother. Tragically, he was a troubled young man with access to guns.
D.E. Bentley
Editor, Owl Light News
*I agree BTW with not naming youth assailants – not because they do not matter, but because mass media fosters copycat cases.