What the developing brain requires before harm ever occurs
After a fight broke out between Mark and Angel, the two students are sent to participate in a restorative circle with one another and others who were involved in egging the fight on, according to the cameras and teachers who broke up the fight. The two students involved are still breathing heavily and will not look at one another. This is the first time they have ever been required to do a circle, however this new initiative is required to be done by the dean of students. This dean of students has been in this role for a year and has not built a relationship with Mark, Angel, or a number of the other students who are present in the circle. Everyone is compliant, checking off the boxes, doing what they are “supposed to do.”
Let’s think about what is missing here… What is being required of these students’ brains at this time? They are being asked to regulate, relate, reflect, and repair. Regulation of themselves and their emotions following an extremely emotional and physically stressful experience. Relate to one another in the circle of their peers, guided by someone who is new to this work. Reflect on their actions and come to some resolution on ways to relate more positively in the future. Finally, repair the harm done to one another and to the school community, specifically their peers in the circle, in an effort to move forward in a positive direction. What is missing is the practice: the relationship building before the harm, the opportunities for connection before correction, and the right brain restorative practices in place within the school community that anticipate and prepare for when harm is done instead of responding and reacting to harm if it comes up.
Too often we are asking students to perform in crisis a skill we never taught them in calm.
The impact of this is that we, the educators, parents/guardians, and practitioners feel that the work of restorative practices do not work, do not hold students accountable, and are unsustainable. The impact of this is that they are not done at all and students are left to navigate how to heal or continue to perpetuate harm in the ways they know best when a crisis arises. In this article we aim to reframe.
The Brain Doesn’t Improvise Under Threat
Dr. Bruce Perry’s research on neurological development articulates that the brain on trauma must first be regulated, then relate, and finally reason (Perry & Winfrey, 2021). If we look at the brain, the brain stem is at the bottom and it is the connector between our spine and the grey matter we reference when we talk about our brains. This part of our brains helps to regulate our nervous system: it is what makes your heart race when you are in front of a large dog that appears to want to bite you and it also makes your heart race when you are about to speak in front of 2,000 people and feel nervous. This part of the brain deals with psychological safety and it makes no difference between if the “danger” is real or perceived. This is where trauma is stored. For example it could be the reason a person moves to violence without thinking, there could be unresolved trauma that the body remembers but the mind has not yet processed.
Moving up in the brain, our limbic system is ruled by relationship development, emotional engagement/investment, and our ability to code switch and assimilate for the purpose of relational or societal safety. When we look at the brain it develops from the bottom up because physical safety is what babies need most and so they will be looking for food, water, warmth, shelter, etc. (Perry & Winfrey, 2021). The relational part of our brain is developing also but there are some intense shifts in that development when young people enter adolescence and start to naturally test the boundaries of the world that has been created for them by caregivers and family members in their early childhood years. The limbic system deals with our understanding of who are the people we can have deep and vulnerable relationships with. It deals heavily on schema and the prior knowledge that we have built over time. Again, this could be real or perceived, the brain does not differentiate.
Finally, we reach the neurocortex of the brain, the highest point. This part of the brain develops last and too often educators refer to adolescence as a time where this part of the brain is underdeveloped. This is a misnomer. This part of the brain is still developing, that is a distinction that we can allow to shift our thinking about the work we do as practitioners. Underdeveloped would imply that their development is faulty in some way, however it is not yet supposed to be developed. It is in its right time process of development, in the mind and body of a typically developing child. This allows us to be active participants in the molding of that part of the brain, sharing strategies to support the students when they encounter a crisis, and providing them with multiple opportunities to experience trial and error with the tools and strategies provided (Cantor et al., 2019).
Think of a baby learning to walk, we wouldn’t give them the directions or guidance to walk and give up on encouraging them after they failed to walk after the first few at bats. In fact, research indicates that it takes the average 12–19 month old 17 falls per hour in order to walk. In fact, new walking babies had more falls per hour than new crawling babies (Adolph et al., 2012). Human beings of all ages benefit from several low stakes opportunities to learn instead of a smaller amount of high stakes opportunities for learning. How many more opportunities would our developing brains need to process the higher level thinking skills happening in the neurocortex?
Within the neurocortex of an adolescent child is the developing understanding of long-term rewards, critical and analytical thinking, dynamic language, executive functioning skills, and so much more (Cantor et al., 2019). This is what is needed to truly be restorative and in our work we have an opportunity to support the development of our youth in using and mastering these tools and strategies with fidelity so that over time they become second nature instead of a stretch that makes them both uncomfortable and dysregulated. Reasoning (neurocortex) comes last because regulation (brain stem) and relationship (limbic system) have to happen first (Perry & Winfrey, 2021).
When we use restorative practices to react only we invert this process and expect results that are not positively sustainable and often not possible because it is neurologically out of order. It would be as effective as hitting a nail with the wrong side of the hammer. It may work but it would be a lot more effective, and safe, to use the tool correctly. Our work as restorative practitioners is to use the tools of Right Brain Restorative Practices with fidelity so that we are the examples and safe spaces the young people in our lives need in order to master these tools in low stakes high relational spaces and be able to use them with confidence in high stakes high relational spaces.
Let’s return to the cute little baby in your life for a brief moment. When encouraging this infant/toddler to walk you may repeat the same words over and over again, “You can do it,” “Come on, try again,” “Keep going, keep walking.” Clear and concise, encouraging and supportive; your words, your tone, your mindset is evoking neurological safety for the child before they fully understand what the words and phrases mean. You are letting the child experience the same situation many times while responding to their behaviors in the same way, often using the same or similar language. Predictability is essential here and over time, with a lot of practice, an average of 17 falls per hour, and some bumps and bruises, your baby is soon toddling all over your home to the joy of you and your loved ones (Adolph et al., 2012).
Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model includes 6 Rs for Healing Trauma. Those 6 Rs are: relational, relevant, repetitive, rewarding, rhythmic, and respectful (Perry & Winfrey, 2021). For this section we will focus on the repetitive. In our earlier example of the unfortunate fight between Mark and Angel, we learned that they were doing a restorative circle together for the first time with an adult they were not in relationship with. Research shows that when we allow space for the brain to experience the same situational response over several times it is able to develop a healthy pattern of expectation (Perry & Winfrey, 2021). This requires us to have clarity and consistency of our Right Brain Restorative Practices. Building and maintaining these practices is not a preventative measure. It is a part of the human condition to create and experience conflict and harm. These practices are in service of building the foundation of relationship, safety, reward, and respect so that when conflict arises, and it inevitably will, we have the metaphorical foundational ground on which to stand, build, and grow beyond the conflict that we have encountered.
Predictability matters the most to our young people who have encountered relational threats to their safety (unpredictable and/or abusive home lives, gang affiliation/violence, societal oppression/dehumanization) (Cantor et al., 2019). Our brains work on patterns, it is how we make meaning (Cantor et al., 2019). If a restorative practice is only used when conflict arises it is associated with conflict and it is no different than the punitive practices that many of us are working to move away from. It also registers as a threat because it is an anomaly, out of the norm of the way that things are. When operating in crisis, the lower brain is in survival mode and any additional threats (real or perceived) can activate fight, flight, fawn, or freeze response of the amygdala when the brain releases a stress hormone that overrides rational thought and higher level cortical thinking (Perry & Winfrey, 2021). Therefore, Right Brain Restorative Practices that are done 50 times are seen as the norm, a pattern, the way we interact with one another when conflict is present and when it is not. This is when the actual work of repair can come to life and this is what makes the work sustainable for us and survivable for our young people.
The 80/20 rule holds that 80 percent of the work is Tier 1 right brain restorative practices that focus on building relationships, naming clear expectations, and allowing students multiple opportunities to connect within their communities (Merrigan, 2024; Costello et al., 2010). This must be the bulk of the work because it is here that psychological safety is built, relational vulnerability is celebrated, and clarity of the expectations and patterns are maintained. Many schools feel that they have a restorative practices problem, when in truth they have an 80% problem. Schools that have done minimal work in the 80% of proactive restorative practices see a greater number of and more extreme cases of reactive restorative needs within their school communities. Too often this need is far greater than 20% of the work which is an unbalanced way of approaching the work as we talked about in section 2, the brain does not improvise under threat. With that knowledge, as practitioners it is our duty to prepare the foundation of restorative care in the 80% so that relationships are solid and impactful.
20% of the Right Brain Restorative Practices should be Tier 2 (15%) and Tier 3 (5%) interventions that are reactive when harm occurs (Merrigan, 2024). Without the 80% the 20% is the equivalent of putting your aforementioned favorite toddler (who is still falling an average 17 times per hour) on a fast moving treadmill: disastrous. Employing community circles as a Tier 1 component of schoolwide restorative initiatives has decreased aggressive behaviors and increased prosocial behaviors (Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest, 2025). The CALMER method, a de-escalation approach developed by LAIRP, is another Tier 1 tool in this work; utilized with fidelity during times of challenge and conflict, we have seen in our practice that it can de-escalate students in less than one minute. This not only means less Tier 2 and 3 behaviors, and therefore less interventions, it also means more time for teaching and learning. Too often, educators will say there is no time to do the restorative practices that are shared with them, however research indicates that there is no time not to engage in Right Brain Restorative Practices as these are the tools and strategies that will create more space for the academically rigorous, focused tasks that require a regulated nervous system and positive interpersonal relationships.
What This Costs When We Get It Wrong
It feels immeasurable but we see the data of when we get this wrong: chronic absenteeism, fights, high suspension, low and stagnant student academic performance, poor school/community culture, and so much more that can be found on your yearly Panorama Survey data. Every time we fail in our consistent restorative approach, we are teaching youth that these structures do not work, that their nervous systems are not safe using these unreliable and unpredictable tools, and that this work is more punitive than restorative. Down the line, this makes repair more challenging and we decrease our relational capital.
The community is impacted by this being done erratically. The word restorativecomes from the root, restore or re-store. It presumes that there is a state of being worth coming back to. If we shirk the responsibility of the foundational work we build on and return to chaos and confusion there will be nothing to restore.
This is an extreme outcome but many schools are seeing pockets of this coming to life in their communities. Some examples of this can be quantified in high teacher burn out, low teacher attendance, low teacher retention, poor staff culture, and poor camaraderie among school leadership teams and their staff members. This work is not for students exclusively, it is the essential foundation of a restorative school environment for all who enter.
Let’s return to Mark and Angel. But this time, they have had restorative circles every day of the school year. Today they had an exchange of words and came to blows. Instead of encouraging the fight, their peers were trying to stop them and using words to evoke safety and belonging. The dean had been in weekly staff circles led by their school leader and so they felt effective in the practice of leading students in those circles. The dean also had been employing other Right Brain Restorative Practices throughout the school year so there were relationships and co-regulation opportunities with most of the students in that circle. The circle was a familiar space so when everyone sat down, they collectively arrived with a sense of psychological safety and began to self- and co-regulate. The conflict was spoken about openly and honestly and restorative discipline was utilized with right size consequences. Families were collaborated with, students were able to relate to one another, and through cognitive reasoning found ways to navigate their conflict should it arise again. Mark and Angel don’t walk away as best friends, but they do understand they are a part of one community and they have the tools to co-exist in this communal space.
Sounds idyllic? Maybe, but the tools and practices when done with fidelity make this a lot more likely than if they are not done at all. The biggest question is are we creating the conditions for the brain to be regulated enough to process conflict, build relationships, and engage in cognitive reasoning. The tools presented here create spaciousness for this to be built through the foundation of 80% proactive Right Brain Restorative Practices.
These restorative practices are not what happens after conflict — they are what makes what happens after conflict possible.
Sources
Adolph, K. E., Cole, W. G., Komati, M., Garciaguirre, J. S., Badaly, D., Lingeman, J. M., Chan, G., & Sotsky, R. B. (2012). How do you learn to walk? Thousands of steps and dozens of falls per day. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1387–1394. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612446346
Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Science, 23(4), 307–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398649
Costello, B., Wachtel, J., & Wachtel, T. (2010). Restorative circles in schools: Building community and enhancing learning. International Institute for Restorative Practices.
Merrigan, K. (2024, March 7). Connection before content: Operationalizing the 80/20 rule of restorative practices in school. Next Generation Learning Challenges. https://www.nextgenlearning.org/articles/connection-before-content-80-20-rule-of-restorative-practices-in-school
Perry, B. D., & Winfrey, O. (2021). What happened to you? Conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing. Flatiron Books.
Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest. (2025, January). Community-building restorative circles. Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. https://ies.ed.gov/rel-northwest/2025/01/community-building-restorative-circles