7/31/26- Childhood Trauma is Not Defiance
When a system-impacted youth acts out in a Los Angeles classroom, the administrative paperwork often reads like a criminal rap sheet, stating words like defiant, disruptive, and disrespectful. Despite California’s efforts to decrease out-of-school suspensions for minor behavioral issues, the underlying institutional habit remains unchanged. LA schools are misreading the clinical symptoms of complex trauma as simple bad behavior. By treating the psychological effects of foster care or juvenile justice involvement as a disciplinary problem rather than a mental health emergency, our education system isn’t just failing to help these younger people heal; it is actively pushing them down the school-to-prison pipeline. If Los Angeles County is serious about youth development and mental health equity, our schools must shift from punitive discipline for behavioral infractions to mandated, campus-wide restorative justice frameworks that treat classroom disruptions as clinical crises rather than acts of defiance.
For system-impacted youth, trauma isn’t a past memory, but an active filter through which they view the world. As Dutch Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explains in his book, The Body Keeps the Score, trauma is stored in the body and consistently causes one to be stuck in a fight or flight mode. Because of this, youth who have experienced trauma are almost always in survival mode. According to the National Institute of Health, their actions or emotions can range from physical symptoms such as headaches or stomachaches to throwing tantrums and outbursts in class. Being in a constant state of survival means there are very many opportunities to be triggered, and that comes with feelings of panic, fear, distress, and discomfort. This is why, when a teacher uses a triggering harsh tone or a classroom dynamic changes suddenly, a traumatized student wouldn't register a minor infraction; it registers as a threat to survival. When schools meet this clinical crisis with punitive isolation, they are not teaching healthy mental health practices; they are re-traumatizing a child who is just trying to survive in this hostile world.
Data shows that our current educational framework continues to punish vulnerable students for the consequences of their trauma. According to a statewide study by the National Center for Youth Law, students in the foster care system lose an average of nearly 77 days of school per 100 enrolled due to out-of-school suspensions. This is seven times the state average for all students. In addition, 9.33 percent of all juvenile justice-impacted students were suspended, exceeding the statewide suspension rate of 3.5 percent. We are exiling the very children who are under the direct care of the state, proving that our schools are not operating as sanctuaries for these youth.
Shifting to a mandated, campus-wide restorative justice model does not mean ignoring disruptive behavior; it means responding with a more clinical approach. Instead of treating a classroom outburst as an offense that deserves punishment, we can use a restorative framework and treat it as a mental health emergency. This means investing heavily in on-site psychiatric social workers who can deploy immediate de-escalation tactics and create a dedicated on-campus space where a triggered student can safely regulate their nervous system. These spaces and shifts in attitude of educators will lead to less missed school time and a healthier environment for students who come in with complex trauma. According to the Schott Foundation’s Restorative Practices handbook, restorative practices can be easily integrated into school environments through peer mediation, trauma-informed educators, and restorative justice spaces. These environments are what promote resilience and the true healing of trauma.
Los Angeles County is at an important crossroads in its approach to youth justice and care. We cannot truly claim to be a healing environment for our youth if our classrooms remain the primary cause of distress. Our schools must move from punitive discipline for behavioral infractions to mandated, campus-wide restorative justice frameworks. Students who are already suffering in harsh living environments should see school as a safe space, not as a place of their demise. We must equip schools with the personnel and training to treat “misbehavior” as a mental health crisis, because this is essentially what it is.
