A study recently released by Yale University regarding the high number of preschoolers expelled from day care and early child education programs across America is stunning and alarming. Our profession has always prided itself in the nurturing quality of the care we provide young children. Yet we allow this to happen.

So, what's going on? And how can we end these experiences suffered by the most vulnerable members of our society?

In 1996, I wrote Making It Better: Activities for Children Living in a Stressful World, published by Redleaf Press. Since then, the world young children live in has not become less stressful. The children haven't changed; childhood has. And it continues to change with new insecurities for many children.

Young children require a feeling of security in order to commit their energies and internal resources to developmental tasks. Many young children are making adaptations, albeit maladaptations, in order to survive in a world in which they sense that adults cannot guarantee absolute safety.

The continuous flow of neurological research, enhanced by today's sophisticated electronic imaging, offers all educators insights into the root causes of behaviors that can cause classroom chaos and teacher frustration—behaviors that are actually symptoms of stress and anxiety. However, the Yale study on preschool expulsions reveals that this crucial knowledge is not being integrated into teacher trainings or classroom practices.

When I conduct preschool in-services and AEYC workshops, I am told that stress behaviors are often described and interpreted as misbehaviors, ones requiring disciplinary actions. Consider for a moment how differently one might react to behaviors viewed as misbehaviors as opposed to behaviors viewed as fear and stress-induced behaviors.

What might be causing increased stress behaviors in today's preschoolers?

In the last few years, attachment issues have begun to be defined as attachment trauma. Underdeveloped attachments change early brain development. Research by Allan N. Schore (Solomon and Siegel 2003) reveals how profoundly important eye contact, touching, and soothing between newborns and prime caregivers during the third and fourth months are to the attachment process and brain development.

During this period, an infant's prefrontal cortex is building the scaffolding upon which the child will generate his or her capacity for self-regulation, stress management, and empathy. Our national standard of four infants to one caregiver puts this critical attachment process at risk. A single caregiver cannot provide the optimal contact time to each of four infants in her care, despite best intentions.

This year, 2005, there are four-year-olds attending preschools and day care who were infants during the terror strike on 9/11/2001. Literature has declared for decades that new mothers who are grieving and anxious will not be able to bond with their newborns. For this reason, too, there may be youngsters in preschools today who are unable to exercise self-control and effectively cope with new experiences or transitions, especially along our nation's East Coast corridor. These preschoolers are not misbehaving, but instead are presenting stress behaviors caused by underdeveloped attachments over which neither they nor their mothers had control.

Research by Bruce D. Perry MD, PhD offers valid insights into why young children who have experienced or witnessed frightening and scary acts consequently cannot deal with threats, perceived or real. The survival adaptations that prompt alarm and stress responses in these preschoolers cause them to be hyperactive, hypervigilant, and impulsive. Preschoolers who have experienced frightening episodes, personal or national, cannot deal with a teacher's disciplinary actions in the way most adults desire them to or anticipate they will. When stressed and anxious children perceive a threat—which is how they interpret rejection and shame—their survival response of fight or flight is triggered.

Unwittingly, ill-informed teachers can contribute to children's acting-out explosions. When a teacher begins losing control of herself because she does not know how to stop an acting-out preschooler, all the children in that classroom intuitively sense that their teacher is unable to keep them safe and the threat of insecurity catches on. All preschoolers absolutely require their teacher to be a source of security, safety, and comfort.

Our profession of early child education has a responsibility to integrate neurological understandings of stress behaviors into teacher preparation and staff development. A terrific series of videos for staff development by Bruce D. Perry is now available through his Web site at www.childtrauma.org. Another resource, I Love You Rituals (2000) by Becky A. Bailey PhD, offers early child educators compelling activities that strengthen children's self-regulation and ability to connect with others. This is essential for preschoolers who were not afforded an opportunity to complete strong attachments.

As a profession, we must find proactive ways to reach and teach today's children and to reduce preschool expulsions.

Barbara Oehlberg
Child Trauma Consultant

References:
Bailey, Becky A. 2000. I Love You Rituals. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Gilliam, Walter S. 2005. Prekindergarteners Left Behind: Expulsion Rates in State Prekindergarten Systems. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Child Study Center. info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/.
Perry, Bruce D. 2004. Understanding Traumatized and Maltreated Children. Video Series. Houston: The ChildTrauma Academy. www.childtrauma.org
Perry, Bruce D. 2002. Understanding Childhood Trauma. Video Series. Crystal Lake, Ill: Magna Systems. www.magnasystemsvideos.com
Solomon, Marion F. and Daniel J. Siegel. 2003. Healing Trauma Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.