Getting started with trigger warnings

• Tip 1: be specific in your description

  A trigger warning consists of a concrete, specific description of the topic, for example 'sexual violence' rather than 'sensitive content', and the format it is in, such as video, text or image. This allows students to judge for themselves whether the topic will affect them. Say you're teaching a class on the persecution of Jewish people during the Second World War. 'Sensitive content' tells a student nothing, 'archive footage of deportations' does. Because it isn't always possible to predict exactly what will trigger someone, researchers nowadays also use the term 'content warning' rather than 'trigger warning' (Charles et al., 2022).

• Tip 2: give the trigger warning well in advance

  A warning given a few seconds before a distressing video or text gives students no time to prepare or make a choice. This can actually increase anxiety, argues linguistics student Mirjam Brouwer (2026) in her article (in Dutch) Ga zorgvuldig om met trigger warnings in Ad Valvas. Announce sensitive content ahead of the class and in the syllabus or on Canvas, so students have ample time to prepare mentally or make an informed decision about their participation.

• Tip 3: give students a choice, not a free pass

  Give students the option to miss a single class or text when the topic is genuinely too difficult for them. At the same time, be clear that structurally avoiding the topic isn't the intention. Take a student who has personally experienced a car accident, in a class where a road accident is discussed in detail. That student may miss that one class, without this meaning he can skip the entire course on road safety. It may good to know that research shows, incidentally, that trigger warnings have no measurable effect on avoidance on average (Bridgland et al., 2023). Bruce and Roberts (2020) even found that people more often chose to read an article they'd been warned about.

• Tip 4: explain why the topic matters

  Students appreciate it when you explicitly explain why a story or topic matters, what they can learn from it, and how it connects to the rest of the course and the wider scholarly debate. This gives students a sense of meaning, even when they're confronted with emotionally charged material (Weerdesteijn & Luitjens, in VU Centre for Teaching & Learning).

• Tip 5: be a rolemodel yourself

  After a distressing video or text, ask students about their emotional response first, before analyzing the material through a scholarly lens. This normalizes sharing emotions and gives students the mental space to return to an analytical perspective afterward. As a lecturer, be open about how the topic affects you (Weerdesteijn & Luitjens, in VU Centre for Teaching & Learning). After showing footage of a natural disaster, for example, you could tell students that you still find the images distressing to watch, before moving on to analyze its causes.

• Tip 6: provide space for aftercare

  A trigger warning works best as part of a broader sense of safety and community. After a difficult class, for example, one covering a court case involving a minor victim, encourage students to seek each other out during the break rather than heading straight into the next lecture alone. This helps not only individual students, but also builds stronger collective resilience. Dealing with intense emotions is itself a skill you can help students develop (Weerdesteijn, 2024).