In Search of Safe Adults and Compassionate Schools: Part 1 - This is Personal
By Susan DuFresne.
Last year around this time of year, I wrote Beyond the Edge: Climbing Mt. Edreform. This time of year is always a time of reflection for me, because not only is it the end of the year, but you see,
New Year’s Eve is my birthday and it always brings back memories of childhood trauma.
I have vivid bad memories of my dad driving me to the old-school dentist every year on my birthday in his highway patrol car. The drills back in those days must’ve required the dentist to use their body weight to drill through a tooth. He was huge and I can remember him pushing and drilling until I screamed in pain. What kind of parent takes their child to the dentist each year on their birthday?
As the oldest of 4 siblings, I was the built-in caregiver. On New Year’s Eve, I was asked to clean the house and care for the 3 younger siblings while my parents went out to party. Inevitably they came home drunk, fighting and yelling only to wake up my brothers and sisters. It was me who broke up my parents fights, often getting hit in the process. It was me who comforted my siblings back to sleep. There was no protection and little escape from the trauma. There were no safe adults to turn to for help back then.
Three months prior to my birth, my dad married my mom who was 6 months pregnant with another man’s child. My “dad” tried to choke my mom the night of their wedding. Cortisone and adrenaline filled her body and mine. On New Year’s Eve I was born with atopic dermatitis – an allergic response triggered by stress hormones. This stress response continues today along with other immune system and metabolic health issues attributed to trauma. Some days the itching is truly unbearable. But with it comes an unrelenting lifelong itch to search for safe adults – and to be one – for the children in my integrated kindergarten classroom. There were only a few safe adults in my childhood – and like many children from families of abuse In Search of Safe Adults and Compassionate Schools: Part 1 - This is Personal - Living in Dialogue:
In Search for Safe Adults and Compassionate Schools: Part 2: Why We Must Create Compassionate Schools
By Susan DuFresne. In my first post, I tell you why advocacy for children of trauma is personal. Here, while protecting their identities, I tell you their stories and why we must create Compassionate Schools. Childhood trauma has impacted my health across my entire lifetime. This is not uncommon according to the Adverse Childhoold Experiences study [ACES]. Daun Kauffman, a teacher in California
Being the Safe Adult: How Can We Create Compassionate Schools? Part 3
By Susan DuFresne. This is the third post in a series about childhood trauma. In my first post I tell readers how childhood trauma is personal. In the second post, I tell the stories of many voiceless children I have worked to support in my classroom. I question whether school reformers are “safe adults” and introduce the impacts of colonization on children of trauma. I begin to explore new resear
Beautiful Trouble: From Compassionate Schools to a Compassionate Society: Part 4
By Susan DuFresne. This is the 4th and final post in a series on childhood trauma. In the 1st post, I expose my personal reasons for being an example in this struggle to create Compassionate Schools. In the 2nd post, I tell the stories of how children who have walked through my classroom doors have been impacted by trauma. The 3rd post discusses new pathways to creating cultural changes within our