Effects of toxic stress

The video above pointed to the impact of toxic stress on a child’s developing brain. Let's breakdown what you have just watched in the video in more detail to fully explore this impact.

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There are neurons in different parts of the brain. Neurons form connections as the child’s brain develops, helping him or her perform different functions like behavioural control, motor skills, language, visual, memory and emotion. The neural connections related to the behaviours that children practice are strengthened. The more time you spend teaching and showing children kindness and respect, the stronger the connections between the cells (neurons) in their brains become! It is these strong connections that enable children to be healthy, happy and responsible family and community members. With a safe and predictable environment, supportive and consistent adult relationships and an overall nurturing environment, the brain develops in a healthy manner, strengthening the connections between neurons. When children experience severe adversity for a prolonged period, their brain development gets affected by this toxic stress. Toxic stress can cause brain connections to deteriorate. This can cause short-term issues like having trouble learning and focusing, struggling to make friends and interact with peers, misbehaving, or even giving up hope for the future. It can also have a negative effect on their health and wellbeing in the long term. But there is hope! The harmful effects of toxic stress can be stopped or reversed when children have a safe and predictable environment to play and learn, and have loving and nurturing adult relationships. Explicit activities that help build children’s executive function, emotion regulation, social relationships, conflict resolution strategies, and perseverance strategies also help to undo the impact of toxic stress.

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Combating toxic stress

What happens if you don't try to combat toxic stress?

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Toxic stress. Arrows to. Affects children's brain development. Arrows to. Reduced cognitive and social processes, impulse control and self-regulation. Arrows to. Immediate effects are decreased wellbeing and development. Decreased ability to learn. Arrows to. Long-term effects are on health, education, substance abuse and relationships.

The potential future consequences of not dealing with toxic stress indicate the importance of providing appropriate support to students now.

Over the five units of this course, you will be reviewing key strategies to provide this support.

You will now look at specific impacts caused by toxic stress on young people’s behaviour in the classroom.

Impacts of toxic stress

Look at the impacts associated with toxic stress in the table below.

Reflect on your students and their behaviour in class. Do you see any of these in your daily work? Consider how you might respond differently to these behaviours knowing they could be indications of toxic stress.

Impacts associated with trauma and toxic stress in refugee children
Cognitive impactPhysiological impactEmotional impactBehavioural impact
  • Trouble concentrating and filtering distractions.
  • Persistent thoughts about traumatic events.
  • Memory impairment.
  • Sleeping problems.
  • Stomach or headaches.
  • Pains that don't seem to have a physical cause.
  • Fear or anxiety.
  • Agitation or irritability.
  • Hopelessness.
  • Apathy.
  • Trouble managing emotions.
  • Trouble managing behaviour.
  • Avoidance of social contact.
  • Engagement in risky behaviour.

What is trauma?

The window of tolerance