10 Therapeutic Approaches to Trauma Rages

When I asked for ideas of what topics they would most like me to cover on this new blog, trauma rages came out as the most popular option.  This isn’t surprising.  The most popular post from my old blog was one in which I discussed this very topic.

So today I bring you an updated version of that post.

I am commonly asked how to handle a situation in which your child becomes enraged.  And I get why.  Rages are certainly up there among the most difficult behaviours to manage in fostering and adoption.  They can leave parents and professionals scratching their heads as to what to do next.

Throughout my career I have supported many children with their rages.  This was especially true when working in residential care as a lot of our young people had experienced foster placement breakdowns due to their anger and aggression issues.

While every situation and every child is different, I can be sure that the following 10 recommendations do work for all.

1. Know What A Trauma Rage Is.

A trauma rage is where one of two things is going on for the child.

• The current situation feels very scary and the child is completely overwhelmed and unable to control their emotions or behaviour.
• The current situation reminds them of a time when they were really scared. They are acting now as though their present is their past.  They feel completely overwhelmed and unable to control their emotions or behaviours.

Rages often appear like a child’s way of manipulating the adult around them.  They aren’t.  More posts in the future will follow on this subject but for now it’s important to recognise that your child is out of control.  They are in a rage because they cannot contain themselves and need you to provide containment for them.  This is not easy but it is usually possible.  The only way a child will end a rage on their own is either because the situation changes and is no longer scary for them or because they rage to the point of exhaustion and then switch off.  The latter is rarely good for the child.

To reduce the number of rages in the first place we can reduce the number of times a young person’s trauma history is triggered.  As you get to know your child more it will become clear what their triggers may be.  I found it helpful to write down the different occasions rages happened and then be curious about what the similarities were.  Once I worked out what some of the triggers were I was able to avoid those situations, prepare the child for them or prepare myself.

2. Keep Safety As The Number One Priority.

Rages are all about safety and yet the child is usually behaving in a way that feels very unsafe to those around them.  It is worth remembering that

Safety has to be the focus when managing such a situation.  The child’s safety, your safety, and the safety of those around you both.  You must do whatever is needed to maintain this.  This may mean recruiting someone else to help you.  At the extreme it may mean calling the police.  If you don’t feel confident to handle the situation and keep everyone safe then there is no shame in getting help.  It is vital.

3. Self-Awareness and Self-Care.

In situations like these there is a tendency to put all our focus on the child.  However it is so important that first and foremost you are aware of yourself.  When a child gets scared and behaves in a scary way it can be all too easy for the parent to become scared and also behave in a scary way in return.  Their anger is met by your anger and so the situation begins to escalate to the point that neither of you are in control.

I speak here from experience.

When I first started fostering I would often say that the hardest part was managing the children’s behaviours.  I now know that is not true.  The hardest behaviour to manage by far is my own.  To remain calm in chaos is not easy.  My children’s rages did trigger difficulties in my own history and did make me feel unsafe.  Learning to control my own thoughts, feelings and behaviours was one of the biggest ways for me to succeed in working alongside their trauma rages.

4. Assess Your Surroundings.

When a rage begins one of the first things I do is to scan my environment and look for anything that might make this situation more unsafe.  If I can I will encourage the child to move to areas that are soft.  In residential I had countless items thrown at me and let me tell you, a beanbag hurts a lot less than a chair!

I will also think about the people in the area.  Are they going to be helpful or are they going to cause this situation to escalate.  If I can I will try to remove people as I find an audience is not usually helpful.  I do often find though that people are not keen to leave – they are drawn to the drama of it all or think that they can help when actually they can’t.  If a child regularly rages I will have discussed my approach with close friends and family and I might tell them that the most helpful thing they can do is leave me to it.

5. Use safety language

When a child feels unsafe one of the easiest and quickest ways to reduce the raging is to give ‘safety messages’.  These are short, clear sentences that you can repeat as a way of letting them know that they are not at risk.  Sentences like:

‘You are safe’

‘I’m not going to hurt you’

‘Nothing bad is going to happen’.

I will also briefly acknowledge their feelings – ‘I know this feels really scary at the moment’ and then return to more safety messages.  These sentences, when said in a calm and controlled manner, have a very soothing effect.  It shows that you are seeing beyond the presenting issue to the underlying cause: that something or someone is making them feel unsafe.

6. Use simple language

I have often seen parents and professionals try to discuss behaviour with a child in the middle of a rage.  They make great attempts to reason with the child.  They explain why the behaviour is not acceptable and what the consequences will be if it continues.  Talking like this usually doesn’t work and the adult gets even more frustrated and finds it harder to stay calm themselves.

On a biological level this approach cannot work.  When we are scared our brain goes into survival mode.  The majority of the thinking brain shuts down.  This means that the child cannot rationalise, cannot consider the consequences of their behaviour and is unlikely to have an empathy towards the people they are impacting.  Put simply, they really are not thinking.

So when we communicate with a child during a rage most of our communication will be non-verbal.  It’s more about the tone we use and the way we stand than the words we say.  We must keep our language simple.  The child is already overwhelmed by trying to make sense of the situation so our words need to be clear and easy to understand.

When children rage they are displaying a developmental stage usually seen in toddlers.  I find it helpful to think of the child as a big toddler.  This is not to patronise them but to help me think about how best to support them.  I will speak to a raging 14yr old in the same way I might speak to a raging 3 years old.  I find this not only helps me to remember the little child inside them that I am trying to communicate with but also it reduces my sense of being unsafe – the 14yr old feels a lot less scary to me when I think of her as a 3yr old.

7. Meet Their Basic Needs.

The child is raging because their brain is telling them they are unsafe.  A great way to connect with the survival part of the child is by meeting the child’s basic needs.  By far the most effective way I have found to do this is in providing them with food.  Food immediately let’s their brain know that they are ok, that they aren’t about to die.  It makes us feel good and for a child who might be locked in a traumatic memories from the past it will engage them with what is going on in the moment.

Also, in being the provider of this comfort I am letting the child know that I am there for them and I am safe.

The only time I wouldn’t use food is if I knew the child had a history of food being linked to their previous experiences of abuse.  In these cases the other option is to provide them with a blanket.  The warmth and containment a child feels from being wrapped up can be very soothing.  Heavier blankets tend to work very well.  You can buy specially designed weighted blankets online.  They tend to be expensive but may be worth the investment if raging is a common behaviour in your child.

8. Challenge Only When Unsafe

When dealing with rages we need to be as much on side with the child as possible.  Challenging them will only increase their feelings of being unsafe.  Unless you need to act to prevent serious harm to the child or another person then it is vital to keep all challenges to a minimum.  To be honest they are unlikely to be able to take it on board anyway.

9. Use or Don’t Use Touch

On most training courses I have been on about managing difficult behaviours I have been told to avoid touching the child.  There are good reasons for this.  For many children in trauma rages being touched is likely to increase their rage – they will fight more to get you off them.

However touch can also be very healing.  I have used touched many times with enraged young people.  I will tell them that I am going to touch them and where.  I will then touch them gently and see how they respond.  If the response is good then I often find myself giving them a hug.  This helps them to feel contained so long as they know they can leave the hug if they want to.

So I’m not going to tell you either way what is best.  I don’t think there is one clear answer for every child.  But I do think there will be one clear answer for your child…… and you are a better judge of that than me.

10. Repair, Repair, Repair

Anyone who has been on training with me or read my books will know that for me the relationship between you and your child is everything.  It will be the place of the greatest struggle but also the place where healing happens.

Trauma rages cause a disconnection between the child and the parent.  After the rage both sides feel many difficult emotions.  I know that my children always felt a lot of shame.  They thought they were ‘bad’ for how they had behaved, especially if they had been hurting me physically.  They didn’t know how to handle the situation and feared they would be in ‘big trouble’ or that I might reject them.

My feelings were varied.  I often felt exhausted, particularly following the longer raging spells or when rages could happen several times a day.  I would feel hurt, sometimes physically and sometimes because of what had been said or done.  Anger was also a common emotion because I knew I hadn’t been treated well and there was also a sadness that this was my parenting experience.

What I have learnt is that after such a disconnection it is vital for me and my children to reconnect.  For many reasons I would need to be the one to initiate this.  Once the child was calm we would be able to talk about what had happened but it was really important that I did not shame them further.  Discussions about the raging focused once again on safety.  This time we would talk about the importance of everyone being safe, not just them.

When it comes to consequences I often find that these don’t help.  The child was triggered and felt unsafe.  They behaved according to how their brain was functioning in this time of survival.  They had very little control over what happened.  If I consequence them for this I risk them interpreting it as a punishment and increasing the shame they already may feel.

I do however talk about doing ‘something nice’ for anyone who has been impacted.  I generally find that the child is willing to engage with this if they are asked to think of something they could do.  We all need to be in relationships with other people and children will seek to reconnect if it feels safe enough for them to do so.

Conclusion.

I hope that you found some points here that might be helpful for your situation.  Trauma rages are never easy for the child or the adult who cares for them.  Looking after yourself is vital.

If it helps, I also have published a number of books aimed at helping children to understand why they behave the way they do.  ‘Sometimes I Run’ and ‘Sometimes I Fight’ help them understand the brain’s fight and flight mechanisms.  ‘Sometimes I Get Things Wrong’ is about understanding the shame they might feel after engaging in difficult behaviour.  My first book for parents.  ‘I Can’t Do This – When Fostering and Adoption Feels Too Hard’ explains in detail my 3B’s parenting approach and offers hope for parents who might be struggling.  It is based on my story and learning as a parent.  

If you have any comments please do write them below, I’d love to hear your experiences and questions.

And if you want some further reading then these books might help.  I particularly recommend the first book which gives an excellent introduction to the principles of Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) which has been shown to be very effective with aggressive behaviours when inplemented in a way that increases safety and reduces shame.