Lois Letchford describes how her son Nicholas experienced trauma in first grade: withdrawal, physical symptoms, and emotional dissociation that made him disconnect from his own history. Adults must recognize these signs before learning trauma becomes locked away and difficult to address.
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Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reversed: A Memoir and literacy problem solver, talking to you this week about when learning is trauma and how I came up with this particular topic. I said yesterday about my son, asking him after he'd received his PhD, thinking everything's fine. He and I talked on a podcast with Shay Wessel from Dear Dyslexia Australia. And I told my story of Nicholas going into grade 1 and failing, you know, his wetting of his pants, his biting his fingernails, my dressing him for school every day, and every day he sat there and just withdrew. And Shay said to Nicholas, Nicholas, how does this make you feel? And Nicholas responded with quite simply, oh, that didn't happen to me, that could have happened to someone else. That wasn't my history. When a child says that, that's when you know that it's a trauma experience and he's disconnected from his own life. This is something that we will have to deal with one day, that Nicholas will have to deal with, because it's like that memory has been locked in a box and he's thrown away the key and it's never something that he wants to return to. And even as I talk— ask him to talk with other people and share his experience, he's really reluctant to share his early learning. And I say, focus on what you loved. That was quite different. And he can do that. But I think still going back for him is still a time of just, I don't want to go there. I don't want to face it. I don't want to see what happened in the past. Mm-hmm. It's all too hard, and that's why we're doing this series. When learning is trauma, I want parents to be aware when we traumatize children or put children in situations where they cannot do what is being asked, and there's no give and there's no take. It's just the child is being naughty or disobedient. The child is withdrawing. The child cannot do anything. We, the teachers and the adults in the room, have to say. This cannot go on. We cannot have a child traumatised by this experience. So that's the reason for me doing it, and I want to explore other reasons tomorrow. So hit like, hit subscribe, and join me tomorrow as I talk about when learning is trauma. Thank you.
