TBRI Tip #4: Felt Safety

Think of a time when you didn’t feel safe, that is you felt scared. Maybe it was when you lost your purse, maybe you were just lost or maybe the locks on your door didn’t work and so you felt scared. For some of us we can easily go back to a time in our childhood when we didn’t feel safe. During these times our brains feel like they are going crazy, maybe we’re breathing harder, our hearts are beating fast and it’s hard to think. If someone had told you during those times, ‘you are safe’, would you feel safe? Probably not. It’s a gut level feeling within ourselves to feel safe, not just someone telling us. That’s because feeling safe has a neurobiological component to it. Our brains and bodies are wired with a fear reaction if we have experienced trauma. We need to help our kids feel safe or as TBRI calls it, get Felt Safety, as one of the most important parts of helping them get back to a normal developmental trajectory. Felt Safety or disarming fear is a core component of TBRI. Without disarming fear a child can’t learn because their brain is stuck in fear and so their cognitive brain is offline. Trying to teach them to learn how to do something when you’re mad at them will be impossible. That’s why TBRI Correcting Principles explain that it’s essential to do the things that help a child’s internal systems FEEL safe in the rough times so they can learn what you want and how to do it. 

Teach and Apply Felt Safety

How can we help kids have Felt Safety?

1.     Help them to learn how to regulate themselves (Tips #2 and #3). Learning to self-regulate helps to internally to feel more in control and like we’re not going crazy.

2.     From TBRI Empowering Principles, essential practices to put in your child’s schedule:

·       eat food every two hours

·       drink water every two hours

·       physical activity every two hour

While these seem basic, we need to intentionally provide them to help our kids regulate important brain chemistry that can trigger behavior meltdowns, aggression and other negative behaviors. Providing these basics at regular two hour intervals can help children feel optimal inside.

3.     From TBRI Connecting Principles, your role is to give cues that signal safety since kids from hard places will often look at nonverbal cues to know if they are safe. These include:

·       nurturing touch

·       caring eye contact

·       a voice that is warm and controlled

4.     From TBRI Empowering Principles, provide a predictable schedule. This may feel harder to do now that so much time is spent at home, but kids from hard places need to know ‘what comes next’ for them to feel safe. Make a chart with the new ‘at home’ daily schedule. Or use 3x5 cards to show what comes next by the order of the cards. Pictures -drawn or found online or in magazines, can be used to facilitate understanding.   

Doing these things can make a tremendous difference in how your child feels and therefore acts, and the ability think and therefore, learn. If you do just one thing this week, work to disarm your child’s fear and provide Felt Safety, over and over. 

For further, in-depth information go to www.child.tcu.edu.