Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak talk to Dr. Jodi Quas about children dealing with chronic stress. When helping children who are under chronic stress, we need to realize that many of their behavioral problems are symptoms of the stress, not just because they are poorly disciplined.
Key Points

Acute stress is normal, and humans can deal with it and recover quickly. Chronic stress leads to long-term health and behavioral issues.
Chronic stress causes many problems in children, and can manifest itself in apparent behavioral issues like inattention.
Some of the stress responses that cause problems outside of the home are actually beneficial to surviving in a high-stress home.
Children who suffer trauma are more likely to interpret people’s expressions as anger.

Resources

Jodi Quas - UCI Faculty Site
UCI Center for Psychology and Law
Email: jodiquas@uci.edu

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Transcript
Dave: [00:00:00] You're listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast, this is episode number 169, Dr. Jodi Quas: Communicating with Child Victims of Trauma.

Production Credits: [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave: [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: [00:00:36] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: [00:00:38] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, one of the things I'm most grateful for over the years of knowing you, is just the wonderful lessons you bring in connecting me and us with so many experts out there. And as I mentioned in the introduction, studying the issues is a huge mission of the Global Center for Women and Justice and particularly around the issue. And today we have an expert from her own backyard, here at the University of California Irvine, that I know is going to really challenge us with some new thinking. And I'm so excited for our conversation today.

Sandie: [00:01:18] I'm looking forward to it.

Dave: [00:01:21] We're glad to welcome Dr. Jodi Quas to the show today. She is a professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California Irvine. Her work focuses on children's eyewitness capabilities, consequences of legal involvement on child victims, witnesses, and defendants, and children's and adolescents coping with stress maltreatment and trauma. She teaches and conducts training for academic and professional audiences worldwide on these topics. She has received numerous awards for her research and student training, including the scientific early career contributions in developmental psychology from the APA, and the outstanding mentoring award from the American Psychology and Law Society. Dr. Quas, we're so glad to welcome you to the show today.

Jodi: [00:02:05] Thank you so much. I'm absolutely delighted to be able to speak with you and to hopefully learn from you, while also sharing some of my thoughts.

Sandie: [00:02:13] Well Jodi, you and I have known each other for a few years. I think Judge Maria Hernandez introduced us, and every year I grow to appreciate more the expertise that you bring on how we can use your knowledge, your expertise, your research when we work with youth who are at risk for trafficking or have been trafficked, because communicating with victims of trauma has some minefields in it. For those of us who just want to go in, we want to help you and we've got stuff for you, and then we're really disappointed when they don't respond well. Because we think our motivation is fantastic and they s...