When we discuss school trauma, we often confine it to the child, a single incident or outburst filed away. Yet, this trauma rarely stays contained. It spreads, infiltrating the family’s entire world: the home, the marriage, the siblings, the finances, and the very identity of the parents. I learned this painful truth firsthand.

My autistic son is observant, brilliant, and deeply sensitive. He once loved school. But when the environment shifted, so did he. What started as subtle staff dismissiveness—sarcasm, eye rolls, and punishment for uncontrollable autistic traits—rapidly escalated.

We later discovered the full extent of the abuse. He had been repeatedly left alone in a closet, isolated from his classmates, and left without explanation or support. While he cried for help, adults stood by and watched. School staff even exchanged texts debating whether to call 911 because he had stopped breathing. They never called 911.

Seclusion is frequently defended as a “safety measure,” but for my son, it was profound trauma. It sent him a clear, devastating message: You are a problem. You do not belong. Over time, he internalized it.

By the time we withdrew him from school, the damage was overwhelming. He was eight years old and suffering from daily panic attacks, unable to eat or play, and experiencing suicidal ideation that led to multiple emergency room visits. He was diagnosed with severe PTSD and depression. I was forced to take FMLA leave from my job, a decision we couldn’t afford financially, which led to significant debt.

Eventually, a trauma-informed partial hospitalization program, then a therapeutic day school, helped him begin his recovery. But the scars remain, and our family is still tallying the costs:

• Mental Health: Both my husband and I experienced life-altering trauma, and I am still in therapy for PTSD, almost 2 years later.
• Family Life: Our younger children became anxious, waking at night. Our routines collapsed.
• Support System: Grandparents watched, helpless, as the child they loved suffered so much pain.
• Systemic Trust: Our faith in schools, safety systems, and institutions was fundamentally broken.

This crisis was preventable.

As a former child abuse prosecutor, I believed in the power of policy and consequences. But when my own child was psychologically and emotionally harmed by a school that refused to listen, I learned that justice is not always found in a courtroom. Sometimes, it is found at 2 a.m., holding your child, whispering, “You’re safe now.”

We must state this clearly: Seclusion is a form of institutional violence. It is not therapeutic. It is not trauma-informed. It does not teach self-regulation; it teaches shame and fear.

Seclusion tells neurodivergent children they are “too much.” It punishes vulnerability, erodes the student-teacher relationship, and pushes children into survival mode—and their families into crisis. We must stop disguising harm as “policy.”

This is not just my story; it is the story of too many families. What my son truly needed was connection. He needed educators who understood that dysregulation is a call for help, not an intentional act demanding punishment. He needed staff to look beneath the panic attacks and address the underlying cause, not simply react to the surface. He needed a system that intervened before, not after, a crisis.

Instead, he received seclusion. He received trauma.

If you are an educator, administrator, or policymaker, I urge you to reflect on your systems. Examine your thresholds for removing children and punishing dysregulation. Stop labeling a child’s plea for support as a “choice” for misbehavior.

If you are a parent walking this path, know you are not alone. Your pain is valid. You do not have to minimize your experience to make others comfortable. Justice is often restorative: it is refusing to stay silent, telling your child’s truth, and demanding better for the children who come next.

I speak, write, and advocate because school trauma does not just impact the student. It impacts the siblings, the parents, the caretakers—the entire ecosystem of love that surrounds that child. And we are still counting the costs.