How to create safe spaces for children who experienced trauma: A guide for educators, parents and caregivers

Many parents, caregivers or educators navigating this reality wonder: How can I help a child heal from their trauma?

With these three essential tips, you can create safe, welcoming spaces that support a child’s healing process and help them build lifelong skills so they can thrive for years to come.

1. Rebuild trust with consistent routines 

For children who’ve experienced trauma, routines are essential for healing. 

Our brains don’t just passively receive information—they filter through memories, past experiences and other stimuli to make predictions about what to expect.

But when someone has experienced trauma, these predictions are wired to expect danger, negative situations or continual trauma.

That’s why safe, consistent routines are vital.

A regular schedule helps rewire a child’s brain to expect safety by:  

— Teaching children what to expect from certain situations, helping reduce stress, reduce hypervigilance and restore a sense of autonomy.  

— Reducing mental energy spent on worrying about what will happen next, freeing up energy to self-regulate their emotions.  

— Providing structure that helps children understand and fulfill expectations, growing their self-confidence and building resilience for future stressors. 

Learn more about how trauma changes a child’s brain.   

Tips on building a consistent routine for children affected by trauma:  

— Make a schedule—and stick to it. By implementing a consistent schedule, you can show a child that their environment is safe. Plus, when you follow through on communicated expectations, you can help rebuild a child’s trust in caring adults, which data shows facilitates their healing and future resilience. 

— Use visual reminders. Hanging calendars on the wall, giving a child a printed schedule or using timers can help a child see and understand what to expect.  

— Give them time to plan for change. For a child who has experienced trauma, unpredictability and change feel dangerous. You can avoid triggering a trauma response and cultivate their continued healing by communicating clearly. Even something as simple as, “In five minutes, playtime will be over, so we’ll clean up our toys and get ready for lunch,” can be incredibly helpful in making sure a child feels safe.  

— Create a designated safe zone. Because of trauma’s impact on their developing brain, children can struggle with feeling and regulating intense emotions. They can easily become overwhelmed when triggered. That’s why having a safe space to calm down is critical. With a dedicated, private space with calming tools, children have resources to regain a sense of safety and process emotions.  

• Bonus tip: Involving the child in creating this safe space, picking items to include or even building their own Calm Down Kit can nurture their autonomy and help facilitate a sense of control over their environment and healing journey.  

Read more about helping a child develop healthy emotional regulation skills.  

2. Promote healthy autonomy with choices and control 

Trauma often robs children of their sense of control and autonomy.  

But, by providing age-appropriate choices, you can help rebuild a child’s self-esteem, sense of safety and reduce their anxiety.  

Tips on how to give children healthy choices:   

— Offer “this-or-that” choices. To avoid overwhelming a child (or you) with too many options, give two clear choices. For example: “It’s chilly outside today. Would you rather wear this blue coat or that green jacket?” 

— Involve them in problem-solving. Children who have experienced trauma often go unheard. With problem-solving inclusion, you can remind them that their voice, preferences and boundaries matter and should be respected, rebuilding their confidence and trust in adults. For example: “It’s time to clean up. Do you think we should put away the stuffed animals or blocks first?” 

— Encourage them to exert control over their routine. This rebuilds a sense of safety and agency that children feel they may have lost during a traumatic event. For example: “Do you want cereal or waffles for breakfast?” or “It’s time for story time. Which book should we read: this one or that one?”  

3. Help soothe their emotions by managing yours 

Children who have experienced trauma suffer from toxic stress—the prolonged activation of the body’s stress response—and live in a constant state of “fight or flight.”  

Their bodies and brains are flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, disrupting their ability to regulate their feelings and making them prone to emotional outbursts, hypervigilance, poor memory and other cognitive challenges. 

Children aren’t born knowing how to regulate their emotions. But they are born with “copycat cells” (also known as mirror neurons) that allow them to mimic the behavior they learn from adults, which slowly builds the neural pathways they need to handle stress on their own as they grow up.  

Tips on teaching a child healthy emotional regulation:  

Practice co-regulation.  

Co-regulation happens when a calm adult uses their regulated emotions to soothe a child’s dysregulated nervous system. This process is essential in helping a child feel safe now and building the brain infrastructure they need to self-soothe in the future.   

— Four steps to co-regulate:  

1. Take a deep breath to ensure you’re calm. 

2. Kneel or sit so that you and the child are eye level, which communicates safety and respect. 

3. Validate their feelings. For example, speaking softly, you might say:  “I see you are feeling very angry right now. I know it’s really frustrating when…” 

4. Practice breathing together. Model slow deep breaths to help release stress. 

Learn how to implement a self-care routine that teaches children how to grow into emotionally healthy adults.  

Teach (and practice) grounding techniques. 

Grounding techniques help a child feel safe by interrupting their body’s “fight or flight” response and anchoring them to the present moment rather than the memory of their trauma.  

— Two of the most effective grounding techniques:  

1. The  5-4-3-2-1 Sensory Method. Instruct the child to look around and name:  

• Five things they can see (ex.: their sneakers, a red lunchbox) 

• One thing they can taste (ex.: the orange juice they drank for breakfast) 

• Two things they can smell (ex.: laundry detergent on their clothes; a candle 

• Three things they can hear (ex.: a dog barking outside, your voice) 

• Four things they can feel (ex.: cool air from the fan, a stuffed animal’s soft fur) 

2. Box Breathing:   

Deep breathing can regulate a child’s heartbeat and soothe their nervous system. Teach them how to breathe deeply by using Box Breathing:  

• Hold up a piece of paper. 

• Complete the remaining edges and repeat as many times as necessary.  

• Pause at the corner of the paper, praise their effort, then tell them to hold it for a count of four, as long as it takes you to run your finger vertically down the edge of the paper. 

• Instruct the child to inhale for a count of four, as long as it takes you to run your finger horizontally on the edge of the paper. 

Name and normalize their feelings.  

Research shows that labeling an emotion decreases stress and calms a child’s brain. Plus, every time you help a child name an emotion, you’re helping build their emotional vocabulary—empowering them with the knowledge they need to communicate overwhelming feelings rather than suffering in shame or attempting to communicate through aggressive or withdrawn behaviors.  

To help a child name and normalize their feelings:  

— Guide children to learn and recognize different emotions through intentional conversations or even with tools such as feeling wheels. With this vocabulary, you can also help them learn to recognize how certain emotions feel in their head and in their body.  

— By identifying physical cues and using feeling vocabulary, you can help your child recognize emotional triggers and manage their responses before they escalate. 

— Remind them that what they are feeling in response to the situation is normal.   

How you can help more children feel safe 

At SOS Children’s Villages, we believe every child deserves to grow up safe, loved and healthy.   

We believe that children are not defined by their trauma. With loving relationships and therapeutic support, children can heal and build resilient, bright futures beyond their traumatic experiences. 

When you support SOS Children’s Villages, you deliver the trauma-informed care, loving, trusted relationships and support a child needs to heal and grow—now and for years to come.  

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