Paper tigers: No 'bad' kids
What makes cultures so interesting is viewpoint. Sometimes, a word in one language offers a different perspective to speakers of another. “Zhi-laohu” is just such a word.
It means paper tiger, a Chinese reference to something that may appear threatening but is in essence ineffectual, lacking force, sapped of strength. Its form unenriched by substance is a sad oxymoron.
And if the paper tiger is a child?
Tuesday, Oct. 27 at the Kroc Center are two free showings, 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., of the acclaimed film “Paper Tigers.” It’s an inspiring story of how a community not far from here answered that question, with uplifting results.
Neuroscientific research and practicing family therapists repeatedly confirm that trauma during childhood not only affects the brain while that trauma is happening, it changes the brain. Those physical changes are often life-long. So while they may be addressed, it’s not simply a matter of “getting over it.”
The stresses of trauma and especially chronic abuse — whether physical, “only” psychological, or both — keep the brain in a fight-or-flight mode that carries through life, well beyond childhood and long after exposure to the trauma has ended. It alters the way that person reacts to the world, affecting self-image, other (non-traumatic) relationships, and future potential.
A Ph.D speaker and author at a North Idaho Violence Prevention Center fundraiser shared research which concluded that simply having witnessed domestic abuse of family members — whether or not suffering abuse or trauma directly — changes children’s brains. The brain scans of youth who had watched domestic violence upon others at home look like those of war veterans suffering from PTSD.
So it should be no surprise if someone in that condition doesn’t seem to behave “normally,” tackle life confidently, do well in school, or be an “easy kid.”
Trauma is not necessarily abuse-related; a kid may have a parent who is an addict, in jail, or perhaps very ill. More often than not, kids don’t talk about it. The tendency is quite the opposite, buried in pain, fear and shame.
But their problems speak volumes, if we listen.
Children who’ve experienced trauma seek comfort or escape from their stress-addled brains in ways that harm themselves and occasionally, others. They may be mislabeled as hyperactive, “delinquents,” or just unruly. The changes trauma brings on mind and body may be long term, but they can be understood and dealt with. Things can turn around - if the approach is to help by first understanding, rather than just punish.
These issues are receiving more attention from health care and mental health professionals, judges, and attorneys. School districts and administrators, less so – something this movement and the film aims to improve as the classroom is where it can be most evident, and teachers are on the front line. At minimum, a stressed brain can’t learn.
“Paper Tigers” tells the story of one school principal who took that nugget of information and turned it into a golden river of healing.
That river is rising, a “movement that sees aberrant behavior in children as a symptom rather than a moral failing.” Principal, parents, and teachers in a low-performing school in Walla Walla implemented that shift in mindset and saw graduation rates increase five-fold, fights reduce 75 percent, and most importantly, children transformed.
The idea is to ask not “What’s wrong with you” but “What happened to you?” Heal, rather than judge. If compassion and happier, more successful kids and adults don’t sufficiently motivate, consider the lower costs of early investment in schools, compared with longer-lasting societal costs of trouble with the law, court proceedings, incarcerations (85 percent of U.S. inmates were traumatized as youth), the effects of drug use, and hospitalizations (27 percent attributed to childhood trauma). Not to mention continuing cycles of abuse – of self, of others.
These paper tigers are worth it.
Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.