Intergenerational Trauma Impacts Students in our Classes

As we – educators, parents, doctors, etc. – dig more into trauma and its impacts on our health and wellness, we learn about the nuanced impacts traumatic experiences have on us, and the people around us. 

As educators, we’re trained to consider our students’ experiences as we develop the classroom norms and routines designed to best serve them. We often consider heavy factors like abuse, neglect, loss of a loved one, exposure to violence. But, it’s also important to remember that not all trauma necessarily begins with the student in your classroom. Sometimes, the effects of trauma have been carried across generations.

This is known as intergenerational trauma, and understanding it can help us better understand behaviors that otherwise seem confusing or unexpected.

What is Intergenerational Trauma?

Intergenerational trauma refers to the ways that the effects of trauma experienced by one generation can influence the health, relationships, and well-being of future generations. Put simply, the original traumatic event may have happened to a parent, grandparent, or even earlier ancestor, but its effects can still shape the experiences of today's children.

Understanding the complex impact of trauma on an individual, and their loved ones – even over generations – helps explain why some students may arrive at school with nervous systems that are already working overtime.

How is Trauma Passed Between Generations? 

Research suggests that there are two main ways trauma could influence future generations:

1. Through Relationships & Parenting

Trauma changes people. Those who have directly experienced trauma are likely to change their behaviors as a result of the trauma and stress. Our nervous systems adapt in order to survive. Those adaptations, while incredibly helpful during the traumatic experience, can linger after danger passes, and have a lasting impact on our everyday interactions. 

For example, imagine someone who lived through war during adolescence. Years later, they may still experience intense anxiety around crowds, loud noises, or sudden conflict. When they become a parent, those fears may influence the way they raise their children. They may become highly protective, limiting independence or closely monitoring their child's activities – not because they want to control their child, but because their nervous system has learned that the world is dangerous. That hypervigilance, though well-intentioned, has a lasting impact on the children involved.

Consider another example: A person who grew up in a violent neighborhood may have learned to cope through emotional numbing or even substance use. If that coping strategy develops into addiction, it can affect a parent’s ability to provide consistent care and emotional availability for their children.

In both situations, the children are experiencing the effects of trauma even if they do not know about and have never experienced the original traumatic event themselves. The trauma or stress shapes the environment in which kids grow up.

2. Through Epigenetics

A second proposed mechanism for intergenerational trauma involves epigenetics, an area of research that studies how our experiences can influence the way our genes are expressed.

While our DNA sequence does not change throughout our lives, certain changes in gene expression can occur in the wake of stress or trauma. Those changes, then, can be passed to future generations, which could increase a child’s vulnerability to anxiety, heightened stress responses, or other mental health challenges.

This could mean that even if teachers have a student in class who has never experienced any identifiable trauma, their bodies may be responding as if they have. This may look like increased sensitivity to stimuli, reactivity, inattention, challenges around executive functioning and self-regulation, etc.

What Does this Mean for Schools?

As a community, our brains and bodies respond to the world based on the histories from which we come. Supporting students, with this fact in mind, means we should be aware and mindful of behaviors common in those who’ve experienced trauma – firsthand, or intergenerationally.

Students may demonstrate:

• Heightened sensitivity to sounds, movement, or other sensory input
• Increased emotional reactivity
• Difficulty regulating emotions
• Challenges with executive functioning, including planning, organization, and impulse control
• Inattention or difficulty sustaining focus
• A tendency to perceive situations as threatening more quickly than their peers

These behaviors can often be interpreted as defiance, laziness, or a lack of motivation. But that perspective lacks nuance. Through a trauma-informed lens, we recognize that these behaviors may instead reflect a nervous system that has become highly efficient at detecting potential danger.

What Can We Do?

Supporting students affected by intergenerational trauma looks remarkably similar to supporting students who have experienced trauma directly. It also looks similar to supporting neurodiverse students and students with disabilities. Ultimately, taking an inclusive approach ensures we’re supporting all students. 

The goal is to create a classroom where students' nervous systems have opportunities to experience safety, predictability, and connection. The reason for the initial nervous system dysregulation is less significant than the need for supports.

We can support nervous system regulation by:

• Building consistent routines and predictable expectations
• Developing trusting relationships with students
• Responding to behavior with curiosity before punishment
• Teaching emotional regulation and self-regulation skills
• Providing sensory supports when appropriate
• Offering choices that increase students' sense of control
• Helping students experience frequent success and competence throughout the school day

These strategies benefit all students, but they can be especially powerful for children whose nervous systems are carrying the weight of experiences that began long before they entered your classroom. For students who have not experienced traumatic events firsthand, their dysregulation could feel confusing; normalizing the need for nervous system regulation is a powerful tool for empowering students to regulate.

Final Thoughts

We can’t always understand a student's behavior by looking only at the student. As educators, we sometimes know information about context that helps us better understand their behavior; sometimes, we do not have that context. 

Every child enters school with a family history, a community history, and experiences that began before they were born. Some of those experiences build resilience. Others create vulnerability. We may never know which students are carrying the effects of intergenerational trauma, and we don't need to.

When we create classrooms that prioritize emotional safety, predictable relationships, and nervous system regulation, we support not only the students whose trauma we know about, but also those whose stories have been carried quietly – maybe even unknowingly – across generations.

But if trauma is carried across generations, so can healing. Every safe relationship, predictable classroom, and trustworthy adult who responds with compassion rather than judgment has the potential to interrupt the cycle and help write a different story for the future.