Trauma Informed Approach to Family Time and Staying in Touch Adopters as Custodians of Children’s Connections Understanding and Responding to Trauma Expressions Words Matter: Trauma Sensitive Language with Children Keeping Connected with Video Chats 10 Simple Child and Family Friendly Online Games

Understanding and Responding to Trauma Expressions Resource

Understanding and Responding to Trauma Expressions ( PDF, 85.73 KB)
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Understanding and responding to trauma expressions

Understanding trauma expressions

How a safe relationship can support co-regulation

Fight - Activities to help make the body safe to inhabit

  • Blow a feather across a table and see whose travels the furthest
  • Make ribbon circles of different sizes, go quick and then go slow
  • Wrap resistance bands around your own and your child’s waist to see how close or far they can stretch
  • Wrap resistance bands around your own and your child’s feet and see how high or wide they can go
  • Take turns falling into a bean bag and catch your child before they land
  • Get into the garden and plant, dig, sow seeds, weed
  • Be a lava lamp and sway or bob up and down
  • Make shaving cream statues
  • Wash or brush a pet
     

Freeze - Activities to help move out of shut down

  • Play pillow fights
  • Make sandcastles
  • Spin on an office chair
  • Brush teeth with electric toothbrush
  • Lay on lambswool and make snow angels
  • Hold a heat/cool pack and talk about places and things that match the temperature
  • Sway your child gently in a hammock or hold them on either side by their arms and legs
  • Take a big breath in then let it out with a big roar
  • Wrap child in a blanket and gently pull them around the floor

Flight - Activities to help ground in the present

  • Place string on the ground and pretend to ‘walk the tightrope’
  • Sit opposite each other and twist to the right and left together
  • Count steps as you walk backwards to an agreed spot
  • Make a thick smoothie together and drink it through a straw
  • Use a torch to spotlight objects in the dark
  • Chew strong chewing gum or suck a strong mint
  • Light candles and blow them out – try all at once, one at a time
  • Wrap each other up in toilet paper like a mummy and then bust out!
     

Fawn - Activities to build confidence to reduce need to appease

  • Look in a mirror at each other and make the same facial expressions
  • Plan a menu together for the week
  • Award a ‘Medal of the Day’ to each other and say what you noticed to warrant this
  • Ask each other to choose a favourite from two similar things: apple/pear, painting/drawing, bath/shower, etc.
  • Move into yoga warrior pose and keep body strong and still
  • Why not come up with your own ideas? You could try karaoke, have a sing-along, do the Hokey Cokey, play dress-ups or do line-dancing!

This resource has been produced by Adoption England. This resource is based on a series developed by the research Centre for Children & Families, Sydney School of Education & Social Work and the ARC Linkage Project Fostering Lifelong Connections for Children in Permanent Care. This resource was co-designed with expert-by-experience, Jacqui Kaelle.