Leslie Footman struggles with her weight.
“It’s a constant battle, especially during the school year,” says the first-grade teacher from Wilmington, Del. It’s a common refrain, but there are some complicating circumstances for teachers— especially those who teach in urban schools with high rates of poverty and trauma, like Elbert-Palmer Elementary School where Footman teaches.
“Every teacher I know has a snack drawer, and it’s not filled with carrots and celery,” says Footman. “We have candy and chips—sweet and salty treats, not healthy options.”
Footman and her colleagues reach into those drawers a lot throughout the school day because they need a way to relieve stress.
A candy bar is a quick, easy escape that can bring a moment of calm and pleasure. Stress runs high at Elbert-Palmer, where students are dealing with major issues at home: drug addiction, violence, homelessness, abuse, and hunger.
Last year, six of her students were homeless. Another experienced crushing loss over the course of just a few weeks, says Footman. His father was murdered in the streets of Wilmington, and his stepdad was murdered soon after. On top of that, his grandfather died.
The young boy kept coming into school every day. When he needed a break, Footman allowed him to get out of his desk and go for a walk. He seemed to be coping, but when there was a class party and his mother brought a fruit salad rather than the chocolate covered straw- berries he’d asked for, he erupted in a violent rage. The student ran through the halls ripping things down. He threw himself on the ground, writhed in a tantrum, and couldn’t be consoled or controlled until Footman just picked him up and hugged him tightly without letting go.
She gets emotional talking about the moment that he finally calmed down in her arms, and how “all of his energy just melted into me,” she says. “I was done. Spent. It started because he wanted chocolate covered strawberries, but it was about the trauma of losing all of the adult males in his life—two in violent deaths."
Trauma affects the brain, research tells us, and also height- ens student reactions to even the slightest challenges as they struggle to work out very difficult emotions. Footman’s traumatized students throw desks, scream, and rage. It’s terrifying for the other students and for Footman. She absorbs the fear and the anger and the trauma swirling around the room. After she’s handled it and restored order, she reaches for her snack drawer to self-medicate.
“It would be nice to take a walk, but I still have the other 15 kids in the room and I still have to teach, so I eat half a Snickers bar right there in the moment.”
A child gets angry and throws a desk and pushes others towards her and the other students, and Foot- man’s adrenaline rockets. She can diffuse the situation, but she’s still tied to that room, exhausted and stressed. The candy provides relief. But she’s watched her weight steadily creeping up.
Secondary Traumatic Stress
What Footman is experiencing is called secondary traumatic stress— the emotional duress that results when someone hears about the trauma experiences of another. Each year more than 10 million children
in the United States endure trauma, according to the National Child Trau- matic Stress Network (NCTSN).
These experiences can give rise to significant emotional and behavioral problems that can profoundly disrupt the children’s
lives. For those who work with them, like educators, the essential act of listening to trauma stories may take an emotional toll that compromises professional functioning and diminishes quality of life.
NCTSN advises that individual and supervisory awareness of theeffects of this indirect trauma exposure is a basic part of protecting the health of those who work with traumatized children. It's also a basic part of ensuring that children con- sistently receive the best possible care from those who are committed to helping them.
Footman has NCTSN resources at her school to help address secondary traumatic stress. In the meantime, she’s come up with some immediate classroom strategies.
“It was like an epiphany when I realized the trauma of the students
was having a major impact on me. I was stress eating to cope,” Footman says. “Now that I recognize it, I see that I’m experiencing secondary trauma, I can figure out ways to better cope.”
She’ll try stocking her snack drawer with lower calorie, more nutritious snacks like popcorn, salted nuts, and granola bars—with chocolate chips, of course. She’ll also try to head off situations before they escalate.
“There are 'tells' with most kids.
For example, one student’s leg starts to twitch,” she says. That’s when she’ll remember to take a brain break with students. (She likes GoNoodle.com.)
Most importantly, she’s going to be mindful. When caught up in the stress of the moment and reaching for the snack, she’ll just breathe and take a moment to be quiet.
“I’m not hungry. It’s just my body’s emotional reaction to what I’m feeling. That’s real. That’s what’s happening. And I can find a healthier way to respond.”
