Trauma, Tech, and COVID Are Stalling Child Development

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/06/03

Leena Weaver and Traci Glover, child mental health experts behind Healing Children, LLC. Drawing on over fifty years of combined experience, they explain how foundational developmental needs—such as emotional regulation, trust, and safe relationships—are increasingly disrupted by technology and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic and excessive screen time have caused a two-year emotional lag in many children. Weaver and Glover emphasize balancing empathy with accountability, using trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate strategies. Their Healing Environment framework helps children progress through stalled stages of emotional growth, fostering resilience and maturity through consistent boundaries, adult attunement, and meaningful relational support.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are joined by Leena Weaver and Traci Glover, seasoned child mental health professionals with over fifty years of combined experience as school psychologists and counselors. Their organization, Healing Children, LLC, supports children’s emotional, behavioural, and psychological well-being.

They promote children’s mental health by offering practical tools rooted in neuroscience and trauma-informed care. Their Healing Environment framework emphasizes relationships, boundaries, empathy, and adult self-regulation to build resilience and foster healthy development. Leena and Traci are dedicated to equipping parents and educators with practical strategies for supporting children facing trauma, entitlement, and emotional dysregulation. Their expertise is shared through their blogs, podcasts, and professional consultation services.

Thank you so much for joining me today—I truly appreciate it. Drawing on your decades of school experience, what are children’s perennial, fundamental needs? And, with the rise of social media and the Internet, are there any newer needs that must be addressed—either by adding new supports or limiting specific influences?

Leena Weaver: Let’s take the first one and return to the second. Does that sound good? So, what do children need at a foundational level?

One key thing we emphasize with both children and educators is a developmental lens. We often reference models like Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and other frameworks that describe how children build a sense of self and social-emotional maturity over time.

For example, children need to develop basic trust in their caregivers in infancy. This depends on consistent, nurturing care that meets physical and emotional needs. That early sense of security becomes the foundation for all later development.

As they move into toddlerhood and early childhood, children explore independence and learn about boundaries, emotional regulation, and develop cause and effect thinking. They start to recognize that while they are loved and valued, there are limits that keep them safe. These lessons are taught through relationships with emotionally attuned adults who model self-regulation and enforce boundaries calmly and consistently.

By the time they reach school age, children should ideally have experienced enough stability and attunement to view the world as a safe and predictable place where adults are trustworthy, and emotions can be named, understood, and managed. This foundation supports the development of resilience, self-control, and social competence.

In short, children need:

• Emotionally available caregivers
• Predictable and safe environments
• Clear, compassionate boundaries
• Adults who model and teach emotional regulation
• Developmentally appropriate expectations

All of this lays the groundwork for healthy development in both school and life.

These are the boundaries: we’re consistent with our follow-through. We have fun with our children. We spend time with them—that whole relational piece. And that relational piece also supports learning how to build relationships with peers.

It helps with language development, supports delayed gratification, and teaches one to wait for things. All of those are critical skills. Now, if you talk about technology entering parenting, these are the areas where we’re seeing concerns. One, kids are not having as many face-to-face interactions.

Children are not making eye contact with their parents because the parents are often on their devices. Eye contact is critical—for dopamine release which is the chemical that aids in bonding. That back-and-forth in relationships, the give-and-take, is missing. With video games, for instance, it’s all instant gratification. You don’t have to share. You don’t have to take turns. 

Scott: Keep going, Leena. You’re doing great. But I’ll add that we also see parents and kids on their devices, which means they’re not interacting with each other or peers.

Weaver: Exactly. And without those peer interactions, kids are not learning essential social skills like compromise, cooperation, and working through conflict.

One of the things we’re seeing in schools with the increased use of technology is that kids—even those coming into kindergarten—do not know how to play with other children. They don’t know how to share or wait their turn.

Their emotional regulation is so underdeveloped that classrooms are being disrupted by extreme temper tantrums—outbursts that, developmentally, they should have been supported through at age two. At that age, with attuned parenting, children typically learn emotional regulation, how to accept the word “no,” and how to follow the rules with growing independence.

When we discuss teenagers and social media, we see even more issues. Teenagers are naturally supposed to take healthy risks—it is part of their developmental role.

Teens grow by taking risks—asking someone out on a date, trying out for a team, joining a play, pursuing an art competition, etc. —and these are all healthy risks. We want to encourage those.

What we want to discourage are unhealthy risks—like substance use or unsafe sexual behaviour. Those can be damaging. However, the overuse of technology and social media can lead kids to withdraw from real-world experiences that teach courage, social skills, and emotional resilience.

What we’re finding with social media is that kids are not getting together in person as much as they used to. It’s more screen time and less face-to-face interaction. They’re not taking the healthy social risks that naturally come with in-person conversations—like speaking spontaneously without being able to type it out, delete it, and rephrase it.

Because so much of communication now is filtered and edited, it removes those opportunities for social growth and confidence-building.

Kids are more hesitant to take healthy risks because everything can be recorded or captured in a photo or video. They fear that anything they do or say could be widely shared or used against them. So, the psychological cost of social interaction has increased.

That’s why, as parents, it’s essential to understand what our kids need emotionally in those early years—to help them build emotional regulation, trust, and a sense of safety. They need to experience healthy parental authority and learn what it means to do what is asked within age-appropriate boundaries. This sets them up to establish healthy boundaries with others later on.

And it starts with the basics: less screen time and more play. Parents must spend real time with their children—playing games, engaging in turn-taking and sharing, and building that relational foundation. That’s where social skills are learned.

Parents must have honest conversations about healthy technology use in the teenage years. I’m reading a book called Boundaries, written by a psychologists Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. It includes an entire chapter on setting healthy boundaries with technology for adults and children.

It’s about teaching kids how to use technology as a tool for connection rather than disconnection. When tech is used to avoid uncomfortable situations or emotions, or as a substitute for authentic interaction, it often leads to more loneliness rather than less.

We’re seeing a rise in suicidal ideation, even among young children. When something goes wrong—social rejection, academic failure, or conflict—they sometimes go straight to the thought: “My life is over.” They lack the emotional skills to ride those waves.

Yes. They don’t realize that those are normal ups and downs of life. Social media portrays everything as perfect—everyone’s smiling, hands in the air, having a great time. So when they experience pain, they think something is wrong with them rather than understanding it as part of the human experience.

Jacobsen: So, if we’re looking at these developmental stages, and we’re seeing increased emotional dysregulation in children—impacting classroom environments—then this is not just an emotional concern, but an educational one. If a child is having a major outburst in the classroom, the entire class can lose a day of learning. That’s not just correlated—it’s directly connected to how much emotional development kids miss.

Especially in North America, where many of these apps, algorithms, and devices were adopted early and widely. How much emotional development are kids losing in these environments? And how much education are we losing simply because students cannot learn due to frequent emotional crises in class?

So how much emotional development are we losing—and then, how much education are we losing—in the children who are especially behind in emotional maturity?

Traci Glover: That’s such an interesting question. 

Weaver: Children are about two years behind developmentally. And when you talk with teachers—and even in our work doing training with educators—that’s a consistent observation. I did a book study with my teachers, and the consensus was that kids are around two years behind, both academically and emotionally, but especially emotionally.

And that emotional delay has a direct impact on academics. You see five-year-olds acting like three-year-olds and fifth-graders behaving like third-graders. So, instead of fifth graders developing mature peer relationships and resolving conflicts, they’re still tattling, struggling to solve social problems, and lacking the self-regulation expected at that age.

From what we see in classrooms—and in the data we gather in our practice—there’s a strong pattern of emotional delay.

Some of that, of course, is due to COVID, but during the pandemic, most children were also immersed in electronic devices rather than social environments. That lack of real-world interaction stalled their emotional growth.

Academically, the picture is more complicated. COVID disrupted formal education in significant ways. We clearly lost several academic years depending on the age group and access to consistent learning. However, emotional development is a strong predictor of academic recovery.

Children with strong emotional regulation tend to have better frustration tolerance—they understand that learning involves effort and discomfort. They can work through setbacks and persevere. Those are the kids who tend to make better academic gains.

Glover: By contrast, in our emotionally disturbed programs, we often see kids who are two to three years behind academically because their emotional dysregulation disrupts their ability to engage in learning at all.

Many of those children have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and are classified as having emotional or behavioural disabilities. Some are placed in special programs, while others remain in general education with support.

What we found in one of our internal studies was that many of these kids had experienced trauma, and emotionally, they were stuck at the age when the trauma occurred. So you might have a 10-year-old who, emotionally, is functioning like a two-year-old. That’s the kind of behaviour we’re dealing with.

Weaver: If you zoom out, though, and look across the board—even outside special programs—you’ll see this same two-year developmental lag in most children, especially in schools that rely heavily on technology-based teaching post-COVID.

Jacobsen: So there are nuances in how that developmental gap appears—but you’re suggesting what amounts to a kind of flat emotional tariff—pardon the metaphor—a steady two-year lag across age levels?

And from what you’re saying, that gap starts early and… stays there. So, that raises the following question: at what point does this developmental “freezing” happen?

So, when you say a five-year-old is functioning like a three-year-old, and they’ve lost those two years—does that developmental lag stay unless it’s addressed? Or are there conditions under which kids can catch up?

Glover: Oh yes. Kids can catch up. Emotional development is highly responsive to the right interventions.

It starts with understanding development. You would think that, as educators, we’d all be great at applying developmental psychology—but in practice, we often forget. We teach it in our undergraduate and graduate programs, then enter the world of work and sometimes stop applying it as actively as we should.

Erik Erikson was clear: We all must move through each psychosocial stage. At every stage, we’re supposed to learn something important—we’re meant to develop a key skill or sense of self—and only then do we move on to the next stage.

If we don’t have supportive, caring adults around us—and if we don’t experience appropriate boundaries when we act out or engage in unhealthy behaviours—we stay stuck at that stage. We don’t move forward developmentally until the right supports are in place.

You can see this in adulthood, too. Leena and I have done exercises in our classes where we look at before-and-after interviews of celebrities who went through addiction and recovery. When you watch them during active addiction and then again in sobriety, it’s like watching two different people. There’s real developmental change.

That’s because substance abuse often freezes emotional development at the point when drug use begins. So if someone started using at age 15, they might still be emotionally functioning at that level—even into their 30s—until they start moving through those stages again in recovery.

So yes—people can progress, and they do every day. But if they don’t have boundaries around inappropriate behaviour, and they’re not receiving appropriate support, they’re unlikely to move forward developmentally.

That’s what we see in many of the children we work with—particularly those in emotionally disturbed programs or those receiving intensive behavioural support in schools. They are often developmentally stuck—emotionally operating well below their age.

But once they start receiving the appropriate boundaries and consistent support, you begin to see them move forward—they start progressing through Erikson’s stages again. You really can get stuck at any stage.

Weaver: For example, Erikson’s first stage is Trust vs. Mistrust, which is infancy. The core task is learning whether the world is safe and whether caregivers are reliable. If children don’t develop trust, they remain in mistrust, and their behaviours reflect that.

If I don’t trust the world or the people around me, I feel I have to protect myself—which might mean I lie, steal, or cheat. I’m operating from a mindset of “no one’s going to meet my needs but me.”

But if I learn to trust my caregiver, I move into the next stage: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. That’s toddlerhood. I start learning to care for myself a little—like toileting, choosing clothes, saying “no.” I began to understand that I was separate from my parents.

If autonomy develops within healthy boundaries, the child moves into Initiative vs. Doubt. That’s preschool age. Then later, around school age, it’s Industry vs. Inferiority. At that stage, the child should develop a sense of competence—that they can do things and succeed in the world.

But if they don’t reach that sense of industry, they can feel inferior—and then apathy starts to take hold. They stop trying. They give up. They disengage.

Erikson’s stages cover the lifespan—from birth until death. And yes, a person can get stuck at any stage.

We see it all the time. For example, we have children stuck on Trust vs. Mistrust and others stuck on Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt.

You also see adults stuck in the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage—the key developmental task of adolescence. Something may have happened at that point in their lives—trauma, instability, lack of support—and they never fully developed a stable sense of identity. So they stay in that confused, searching place, not knowing who they are or their role.

Some of the celebrities we’ve studied seem to be stuck in Industry vs. Inferiority. They constantly try to prove themselves because they never developed a secure sense of competence. And that drive for validation can sometimes mask deep feelings of inadequacy.

And then you have external factors that interfere with development—technology, drugs and alcohol, trauma, bullying, grief, divorce, even the death of a parent. All of these can cause someone to get stuck on a stage.

Yes, you can get stuck anywhere on the developmental path. Let’s take a child who’s emotionally two years behind. If they were supposed to be learning specific social skills in third grade, but they missed that due to COVID isolation, then they’re still displaying third-grade behaviours by fifth grade. That’s because they never had the chance to practice and internalize those skills when they mattered developmentally.

In Erikson’s model, you must master a stage before moving on to the next one. To give a more concrete example, kids learn basic things like sharing and taking turns in kindergarten and first grade.

Glover: By third and fourth grade, kids understand they can’t control their friends. They realize: “Even if I do everything right, my friends still have their minds and choices.” By reaching fifth and sixth grade, most children have accepted that reality and are working on more complex social skills, like navigating group dynamics, collaboration, and peer influence.

But we’re seeing now that fifth graders are still operating at a third-grade level—trying to control their peers, getting upset when their friends don’t comply, and struggling with basic autonomy in relationships.

Weaver: And that’s mainly due to the lack of social interaction during COVID and the continued reliance on technology, which doesn’t provide kids with face-to-face relational experiences.

Jacobsen: So it’s a delayed developmental effect. Devices are designed to be habit-forming—so even when COVID restrictions were lifted, the behavioural patterns continued.

So would you, as experts, expect a lagging curve? In other words, even though COVID has declined in prominence, the habitual tech use persists—and probably remains above baseline.

The algorithms behind many of these platforms are built to promote compulsive use—dopamine-driven design. So yes, COVID-19 created the context, but the technology created lasting habits.

Glover: We haven’t seen comprehensive data on long-term post-COVID screen use, but from what we observe in schools, kids are still using tech more than they did pre-pandemic—even if not at the same intensity as during lockdown.

That’s precisely what we’re seeing.

I do not hear about it quite as much now, but I think parents have become more aware of the concerns around technology. Do I still have kids who play video games? Sure, but it’s nothing like what it was in the early 2000s.

I’ve noticed some improvement in that area at my school, and part of it is that there’s now much more information available to parents. They’re learning how to set boundaries at home. That’s been my experience with technology. What about yours?

Weaver: I still work with kids who are highly, highly addicted to technology. A lot of it comes down to parent training. I was in a meeting not too long ago where we held a session with parents, and we provided the parent research on the addictive nature of tech. Her son struggles to socialize outside of talking about video games—he doesn’t know how to relate in other contexts.

That said, I’ve seen some hopeful signs recently. Our kindergartners this year came in with stronger social skills than we’ve seen in the past few years. And it’s because they were babies during COVID. So, by the time they reached kindergarten, they had had a couple of years post-lockdown for social development.

Glover: During the height of COVID, those children were infants—and they probably received more direct time with parents, especially if the parents were working from home. That may have resulted in more face-to-face interaction during those crucial early years.

So we might see better emotional regulation in that group—not because COVID had no effect, but because their developmental window overlapped with heightened parental involvement. Yes, but to be clear—we don’t have data on that yet. That’s just an observation and professional hypothesis at this point.

Jacobsen: Right—and even if it is just opinion, it is still expertise-based and, therefore, more likely to be accurate than random speculation.

Glover: We sometimes forget that kids have many needs. They’re a lot of work—but they’re also so much fun. They’re all different. But if we want to see them emotionally regulated, they must go through those developmental stages of maturity. The adults around them must know how to manage their emotions. Parenting is hard. Some kids are just harder than others. Some push buttons more. Temperament plays a role. Abilities vary.

That’s where Leena and I come in—when we’re working in schools—we emphasize that it truly takes a team. It does take a village. When dealing with significant behavioural challenges, we must work collaboratively with parents and school staff to develop the most effective plan.

Weaver: And I’m trying to think more specifically about your question regarding technology’s role in this dynamic. Some kids with the most frequent temper tantrums at school also spend much unsupervised time on technology at home. They haven’t learned emotional regulation, so we teach them those foundational skills at school.

We’re walking them through the temper tantrum stage at age seven or eight because they didn’t learn earlier that those behaviours won’t work to get what they want.

Unfortunately, when they go home, many are handed devices. Parents may not be seeing the tantrums at home because technology is being used as a behaviour management tool—a digital pacifier, in some cases.

Glover: I’m thinking of several current cases. At my school, we have many families where both parents work, or it’s a single-parent household, or the child lives with grandparents—sometimes because the parents are incarcerated or struggling with substance use.

And you see a broad spectrum. Even under challenging circumstances, some of those kids are incredibly sweet and resilient—primarily when the grandparents or guardians are engaged and set clear boundaries.

Others carry deep anger about what they’ve gone through—which is entirely understandable. However, they can still thrive if they have engaged adults at school who care about them and hold them accountable.

I had one student with major behavioural challenges and temper tantrums. He bounced between his parents—each taking turns being in jail—so his home life was precarious. But at school, he had structure, consistency, and adult support. He did well in high school, came back to visit us later, and thanked us for what we did for him.

So it’s not about having a perfect home environment. It’s about having at least one or two adults—at home or school—who genuinely care, set appropriate boundaries, and hold kids accountable for their behaviour.

In our Healing Environment framework, we use the “house” model. It helps us assess what the child already has in place, what’s missing, and what they need to move through these developmental stages.

When we put those pieces in place—consistent relationships, boundaries, empathy, accountability, etc.—we’ve seen kids make incredible progress.

Jacobsen: Would you say that socioeconomic status is a more significant factor? Or is it more about the stability and engagement of the parental unit—whether it’s a single parent, grandparents, or dual-income household?

Glover: You can have families with money; the kids are still a mess. If there’s no accountability, and the child’s every want is fulfilled without expectations, that can lead to profound immaturity. We’ve seen some of the most entitled kids come from high-income households, and they often have more behavioural problems than children from homes experiencing economic hardship.

Weaver: So it depends. Socioeconomic factors can matter if the family is in crisis because the entire system is in survival mode. In those cases, it’s harder for parents to meet emotional needs when they struggle to meet basic needs.

Glover: But as Leena said, we’ve seen just as many issues—or sometimes more—from privileged families, where entitlement, lack of boundaries, and lack of accountability lead to emotional immaturity.

Poverty can be traumatizing. Not knowing if there will be food on the table, not knowing if you’ll be able to stay in your home—those are enormous stressors for a child. And it’s even harder because kids can’t do anything about it. It’s completely out of their hands. Then, on top of that, they’re watching their parents struggle and feel stressed, which adds another emotional burden.

What’s interesting, though, is that sometimes those experiences can mature children. Some kids want to help and contribute, and in doing so, they develop a strong sense of responsibility.

But there’s also a flip side. Those kids can become parentified—meaning they take on adult roles too early. When they do become adults, they sometimes try to reclaim the childhood they missed. That can lead to difficulties like substance use or reckless behaviour.

So you can have parentified children who become incredibly responsible adults, holding jobs, maintaining marriages, and raising families. But you can also have parentified children who grow up with unresolved trauma and fall into destructive coping mechanisms. It depends. It’s complex.

People are complex. It’s never one-size-fits-all. But what’s important is recognizing that poverty is stressful and can profoundly affect children. That’s what schools need to understand so that we can meet those kids with empathy and support and help families access the resources they need.

Weaver: One thing Traci does well—and it’s so powerful—is helping kids find meaning in their struggles. She helps them reflect on their learning from difficult situations, supporting emotional maturity.

Finding purpose in adversity is a big part of resilience. If a child has a parent who is abusive or dealing with addiction, and the situation isn’t severe enough to trigger child protection services, we can still help that child learn something from it. What are you learning from this? How can you become a stronger, wiser, more self-aware adult?

Or, if a child is growing up in poverty, we can help them reflect on the strengths they’re building—resourcefulness, compassion, grit. When they start to see that what they’re going through now might help them later in life, it changes their narrative from hopelessness to growth.

To help them find meaning in their struggle, we adults must understand that the struggle is real. We must name, acknowledge, and help them process it.

Glover: I’ve worked with students whose parents struggled with addiction. When they go home, they don’t know what version of their parent they’ll get: someone angry and volatile or calm and affectionate. And sometimes the situation isn’t “bad enough” for CPS to intervene—it’s not overt abuse, but it’s precarious.

So these kids are learning how to navigate unpredictable relationships. And what they often don’t realize is that they’re gaining a skill that many of their peers won’t have to learn until adulthood.

We help them understand: Yes, what you’re going through is hard. But you’re also developing emotional tools that will serve you in the future. And that can be transformative. Because when you’re in that moment—when you’re just trying to survive—it’s easy for a child to believe: “My life is always going to be like this.”

And it’s not just about learning coping skills—it’s also about helping them see that they’re developing strengths that many of their peers, who grew up in more stable environments, might not even understand. That gives kids a sense of hope.

Yes, and that hope helps them mature. It gets them thinking: What am I going to do for myself? What kind of life do I want? How will I create that?

Because ultimately, kids are their own person. Regardless of their background, they will grow up and have to make decisions. They’ll make mistakes, and they’ll make some great choices, too. Our goal is for them to honestly know their strengths and weaknesses and how to navigate life effectively.

That way, they can hold a job, maintain healthy relationships, and build the kind of life they want. As a counselor, that’s what I’m aiming for.

Jacobsen: So, let’s say a child has been diagnosed with something, or you understand there’s an environmental trauma at play—like substance misuse, absentee parenting, or aggression. I grew up in a home with alcoholism. Eventually, my father left, and it became a single-parent household. There were moments of instability and conflict. 

Yes, we see these types of developmental arcs all the time—how childhood experiences impact stress regulation, emotional responses, and even physiological patterns, like elevated cortisol levels.

These things often register below conscious awareness, but they still shape a child’s ability to handle stress. And I want to distinguish something: it’s one thing to understand a child’s trauma, but quite another to have that understanding harden into an identity. It can become a “trauma anchoring,” where the past becomes a perpetual excuse for current behaviour.

So how do you strike that balance—between acknowledging trauma and providing support, while still teaching accountability and consequences for behavior?

Weaver: One of the key things we teach in our classrooms is the difference between empathy and sympathy.

Because what you’ve described—where trauma becomes a blanket excuse—can happen when people mistake sympathy for empathy. Sympathy says: “Poor you, let me let this slide because you’ve suffered.” Empathy says: “What you’ve been through is awful, and I see you—but I still expect you to be accountable for your choices.”

Empathy says: “What you’ve been through is horrible and unfair—but I believe in you. I believe you can overcome it.” Sympathy, on the other hand, says: “It’s awful. I feel sorry for you so I will lower my expectations.”

One of the most important things we emphasize with educators and parents is maintaining expectations with understanding. Yes, they might need more support—like counseling or accommodations—but there still has to be accountability for behaviour. Support and accountability are not mutually exclusive.

Let me give you an example. I worked with a first-grade student whose story is heartbreaking. She was born while her mother was in jail, lived with her father until age four, and then was placed with her mother once she was released. Later, it came to light that the father had been sexually abusing her from infancy.

That child experienced extensive trauma—being removed from the only caregiver she knew, then sent to live with someone who was essentially a stranger, albeit her mother. She’s now in a more stable home with her mother and her mother’s partner, but the psychological impact of those early years was profound.

Naturally, she began lying, stealing, and cheating—because, from her perspective, she had to survive. That was how she protected herself. But shaming her wasn’t going to change anything. So we used a team-based approach to support her.

We read our children’s book with her (Raising Babies by Traci Glover and Leena Weaver). It uses animal characters to explore the difference between cared-for and neglected animals. That helped her begin to externalize her experience and reflect.

I told her, “For a child who has gone through what you’ve been through, lying, stealing, and cheating are normal behaviours. That’s how kids survive trauma. But if you continue to do these things, it will hurt your heart.”

And we explained that to her in a developmentally appropriate way—because she was in first grade. That language helped her understand that her actions, while once protective, were now hurting her emotionally.

She still believed that what her father did to her was her fault. She said, “I shouldn’t have let him do that to me.”

Glover: And that’s so common. Children almost always internalize blame for abuse or trauma.

Jacobsen: Is that partly due to ego diffusion or a lack of self-other differentiation? Does the child see the parent as an extension of themselves?

Weaver: It’s also what Bessel van der Kolk and others refer to when discussing the body keeping the score. The nervous system absorbs and mimics other people’s emotions. And developmentally, if you believe it’s your fault, then you can control it. That creates a kind of psychological safety—even if it’s not rational.

Glover: It’s also tied to the development of conscience. Kids are learning to internalize behaviour, which is necessary for moral and emotional growth. Taking responsibility is how we mature. But trauma, divorce, instability—these experiences can cause kids to over-internalize, meaning they take responsibility for things they shouldn’t.

That’s where counseling plays a key role. It helps kids learn what is their responsibility and what is someone else’s. That’s the boundary work we do in therapy.

Weaver: We worked on that exact concept with this particular child. I told her, “You were a baby. It wasn’t your fault.” That truth is going to take time to sink in.

Meanwhile, we set up her environment for success. We reduced opportunities to lie, steal, and cheat by structuring her world more tightly. And we paired that structure with clear, consistent consequences—not punishments, but natural and logical consequences.

It didn’t take long for her to progress. First, we increased communication with home so she knew that school and home talked daily. You can set up simple systems with schools to make this happen. The key was that she knew her parents and the school staff were aware of her behaviour and working together.

That added structure and boundaries were essential for her. She wasn’t ready for the same freedom as other first graders. For example, we ensured she wasn’t alone in the cubby area because, in those moments of isolation, she was more likely to steal.

We didn’t frame it as punishment. We framed it as: “What do you need to feel safe?” When she did steal—let’s say an eraser—her consequence was to bring back two erasers or to do something kind for the person. There was accountability, but it was done in a way that aligned with her trauma history.

Glover: That’s how we work with children who have trauma-based behaviours: we don’t lower expectations, but we tailor the support. Because here’s the key—she can’t heal from trauma if she’s allowed to engage in harmful behaviour without accountability.

If she learns she can manipulate the adults—even subconsciously—it sends a message that if her abuser returns, we wouldn’t be strong enough to protect her from the abuser because she was able to manipulate us. That’s not safe. She needs the adults in her life to be wise enough to set boundaries and sensitive enough to recognize that her behaviours stem from a painful experience. It’s that balance of empathy and accountability.

Weaver: When she sees that the adults around her are strong enough to keep her safe and that they believe she can meet appropriate expectations, she begins to feel secure. That’s when maturity and growth happen.

Glover: What we don’t want—and this is a growing concern—is for children to take on trauma as an identity. We’re hearing this more often from teenagers: “I’m depressed,” “I’m anxious,”—not, “I’m experiencing depression or anxiety.”That distinction matters.

Weaver: Yes, we want them to recognize their struggles, but we don’t want them to become the struggle. Because if that identity takes hold, they stay stuck.

Jacobsen: And that extends beyond youth. You see this in public life, too—when someone behaves poorly, and it becomes public discourse, the diagnosis gets used to excuse the behaviour. It’s not limited to first-person experiences.

Glover: It’s a societal pattern.

Jacobsen: Thank you both.

Weaver: Thank you—take care!

Glover: Have a great day!

Jacobsen: Excellent. Thank you so much. You too.

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