How Childhood Trauma From Abuse Affects Behavior: Lessons From A Rescued Child In Yunnan
Rain streaks the fogged classroom windows in our small care center outside of Dali, and I’m passing out crayons for the morning art activity. The other kids are yelling over each other about the sticky rice with brown sugar they ate for breakfast, crumbs still stuck to their uniform collars. When I reach to set a sky-blue crayon down in front of the new 7-year-old, she flinches so hard her elbow knocks over her plastic water cup. Cold water bleeds across her drawing paper, pooling at the edge of the desk, and she doesn’t move to wipe it. She just stares at her lap, shoulders pulled up to her ears.
That was Xiao Mei’s first day with us. She’d been pulled from her home three days earlier, after neighbors reported repeated abuse by her stepfather while her mother worked 12-hour shifts at a garment factory hundreds of miles away. I’m the part-time teacher here, so I get to be with the kids for most of their days while social workers sort out long-term placements. For the first two weeks, she didn’t say a single word to anyone. She ate her entire bowl of rice in two minutes flat every meal, then tucked half a steamed bun into the sleeve of her coat when no one was looking. If any adult raised their voice even a little—even if I was just calling another kid in from the rain—she’d back up until she hit the wall, then slide down to sit on her heels, covering her head with her arms.
Most of us on the team defaulted to the same thing at first. We’d kneel down in front of her and say soft things, “You’re safe here now, no one will hurt you.” We’d offer her extra lollipops, try to hold her hand when we went for walks. She just stared past our shoulders, never responding. One afternoon, I was folding clean laundry by the classroom door after naptime, and she hovered in the doorway watching me. I didn’t say anything, didn’t rush over to talk to her. I just kept folding, stacking the kids’ sweaters and socks on the chair. When I finished, I went to the kitchen to refill my thermos, and when I came back she was running a finger over the frayed rabbit embroidery on the cuff of my old wool sweater. I leaned against the doorframe, didn’t move closer, and said, “That’s something I sewed a long time ago. I’ve got extra thread and a small needle if you want to try stitching something.” I laid the needle and two spools of thread on the empty table between us, then stepped back to wipe a spill off the blackboard.
After a minute, she walked over slowly. She pointed her finger at the brown thread, then looked up at me. I nodded. That was the first choice she’d made with us. She stitched a lopsided little circle on a scrap of cotton for 20 minutes, and never once flinched when I walked past her to get an eraser.
That moment changed how I think about supporting kids who’ve been through abuse, and it’s something any parent or teacher can put into practice, even if you don’t work with kids in residential care. The first thing I learned is that telling a kid they’re safe doesn’t make them feel safe. You have to let them build that feeling themselves, one small interaction at a time. A concrete thing I do now with all kids who’ve had trauma is I always announce what I’m going to do before I do it, never surprise them with touch. If I need to move a paper off their desk, I say “I’m going to reach over and move this for you, okay?” If I want to pat their shoulder to praise their drawing, I say “Can I give you a quick pat on the shoulder for this nice work?” It takes two extra seconds, and it lets them decide if they’re okay with the interaction. I started doing this with all the kids in the class, and even the kids who’ve never been hurt seem more relaxed about casual adult contact now.
Another simple change is to give them one or two tiny, low-stakes choices every single day. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Do you want apple or banana for snack? Do you want to sit by the window or by the door for story time? Do you want to use the blue pen or the black pen? Kids who’ve been abused have almost never gotten to make any choices about their own bodies or their days. Even these tiny choices help them slowly start to feel like they’re in control. I started giving all the kids these small choices, and even the kids who haven’t been through trauma seem less fussy throughout the day. It turns out all kids like having a little say in their routine.
Third, don’t force them to talk about what happened. A lot of well-meaning people will ask what went wrong because they think it’s good to get it out. But that just puts a kid in a position where they have to relive something terrible to please the adult around them. We’ve never asked Xiao Mei anything about her life before she came here. If she ever wants to talk about it, we’ll listen, but until then, we just talk about stitching, and mangoes, and how the stray cat outside had three new kittens.
It’s been three months now. Last week, I passed her a pair of safety scissors for cutting paper, and she didn’t flinch. Yesterday, when I gave her a ripe mango I’d bought at the market down the road, she looked up at me and said “thank you” clear enough for me to hear. She still hides a steamed bun in her sleeve most days, and she still freezes when a motorcycle backfires loudly on the main road outside. We don’t know yet if her mom will be able to take her back, or what her long-term placement will look like. Some days are better than others, and that’s enough right now. What I keep telling other parents who ask me about working with kids who’ve been hurt is this: you don’t have to fix them all at once. You just have to give them small bits of control, let them move at their own speed, and wait.
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