Tagged With "Education Week"
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13 Reasons Why & Talking Points for Families (www.sscps.org - Counseling Department)
The South Shore Charter Pubic School (in MA) emailed a letter to families last week prior to the airing of season two of the Netflix series "!3 Reasons Why." They also shared some questions and talking points I found helpful . I know people have mixed feelings about how the show depicts teens, adults, depression, trauma, sexual assault, and death by suicide. For those that are watching and discussing the series and these issues, it seems like a great time to talk about childhood adversity...
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Two Decades Later, A Mother Writes Back to the WIC Program She Used
One of my best friends, Heidi Aylward, is a high ACE scoring mother of two. She's also a feisty, funny and has a full life balancing work, parenting, friends and all the responsibilities of tending to home and loved ones. And she is a woman who used WIC . WIC defines itself as "The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides Federal grants to States for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant,...
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20 Caregiver Resolutions for 2020
20 Caregiver Resolutions for 2020 Let someone make you a meal at least once a week and that someone can be anyone (including a fast-food chain restaurant Keep a daily Gratitude Journal and start each day with, “ I am grateful that the World has me” Don’t fold any fitted sheets for the entire year, just roll them into a ball Once a month go to a playground with a friend, a neighbor, sibling, spouse, co-worker and ask them to push you on the swing Stay in the shower or tub 5 minutes longer...
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2019 Aspen Forum on Children and Families (livestream) Feb. 26-27
As state and federal lawmakers prepare for the year ahead, there is tremendous momentum for bold ideas that move families toward opportunity. The second Aspen Forum on Children and Families , held this week on February 26-27, will bring together national leaders – policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and philanthropists – to surface big ideas for investing in the full potential of children and families, two generations at a time. While in-person registration for this convening is...
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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5 Tickets to See Wrestling Ghosts, a New Documentary About Breaking the Cycle of Trauma!
Hi ACEs Parenting Community! Wrestling Ghosts , a new documentary about breaking the cycle of trauma, will be premiering at LA Film Festival on September 27th. The Wrestling Ghosts team wants to give away 5 tickets to the ACEs parenting community. We want the film to promote wellness in the ACEs community, and get watched by folks who would really love it. Tickets are first come, first serve; if you'd like to purchase one after the giveaway, try to get them this week; earlybird tickets are...
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7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress
Traumatic stress feels awful. Thankfully, there are small things we can all do to help relax a hyperaroused nervous system.
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A Brief Overview of Post-Partum Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (mathewsopenaccess.com)
Note: Parenting with ACEs can present us with extra challenges. Being pregnant, giving birth and breastfeeding can all be difficult for many of us. The stresses all parents experience can be compounded depending on our own emotional and physical well-being and the support we have (emotional, financial, family, community). In addition, we might have to consider thing such as going on, staying on or going off of drugs for some period of time during and following pregnancy. We don't talk a lot...
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A Reflection of Real Life and the Amazing Influence of People: The Saga of C-PTSD Continues
Cissy Note on Leisa's Amazing Post: This post isn't about parenting, specifically, but it is about C-PTSD which many parents are living with, sorting through and recovering from. I felt so much compassion for and admiration of Leisa reading this. I even felt some compassion for myself. I wonder how many others, while facing our ACEs feel the compassion of others or ourselves? I wonder if anyone, while battling symptoms, feels respected or admired? There can be so much shame. I hope that if...
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A Sherpa Helping Us Scale Mountains of Loss & Fear: The Impact of Sebern Fisher's Work
“You can recover from all that happened to you.” That was the dose of hope I received from Sebern Fisher during a short telephone interview. She is the author of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain. Her book is excellent even if you never plan on using neurofeedback. She helps explain why and how developmental trauma devastates and how it is different than single-incident trauma or traditional post-traumatic stress. Honestly – if you read her...
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A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons [themarshallproject.org]
By The Marshall Project, May 8, 2020 Since March, The Marshall Project has been tracking how many people are being sickened and killed by COVID-19 in prisons and how widely it has spread across the country and within each state. Here, we will regularly update these figures counting the number of people infected and killed nationwide and in each prison system until the crisis abates. Cases By May 6, at least 20,119 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, a 39 percent increase...
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Families in Limbo: Coronavirus Hobbles Reunifications from Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback and John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 16, 2020 This week was supposed to be a triumphant one for a Northern California mother of two, a 39-year-old home health aide. Soon after a long-scheduled court date at the Sonoma County Hall of Justice this week, she imagined she would soon be able to gather her 1-year-old daughter in her arms at last and end what has been the most terrifying experience of her life: the seven months her toddler has spent in foster...
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Family Anxiety Challenge - Changing the Neural Pathways In Our Brains
I am a therapist who has to make an effort each day to manage my anxiety and negative emotions. Therapists are not usually open about their mental health in our culture; we are looked to as the expert and someone who has it "all together." But I became a therapist for two reasons, to help understand my brain, and to use what I learned to help others. I find that being transparent about my mental health inspires others to share their truths. Human beings are a work in progress. We know this...
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France's Early Learning / Positive Parenting Train set to launch tomorrow
"I'm not sure I like that metaphor!" Nathalie exclaimed. "I don't want to be burned at the stake!" I had just compared Nathalie to Joan of Arc, the symbol - for me - of the person willing to trust their inspired vision "against all odds," the person not fazed by the prospect of being considered crazy if it can just help to advance awareness of a new reality about which the general population is only dimly aware. Nathalie Casso-Vicarini is the creative genius behind France's Early...
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Free Mind Matters Online Series -- Build skills to overcome anxiety and increase resilience
In appreciation of and support for the tremendous work you are doing under challenging circumstances, Dibble will be hosting a free, 12-week Mind Matters online series with Dr. Carolyn Curtis and Dixie Zittlow. Unprecedented times, such as these, are stressful and call for everyone to think about ways to help others and themselves. Thus, we see this as an opportunity to offer free, professional development and help you and your staff practice self-care. Join us as we teach the Mind Matters...
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FREE WEBINAR 3/28/19: The Power of Play: Theraplay's Approach to Trauma-Informed Intervention
Join the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative and Andrea Bushala from the Theraplay Institute for a free webinar as she discusses the role of everyday play in preventing and responding to trauma. Andrea will highlight how the Theraplay Institute has utilized coaching parents, educators, and clinicians in the simple games of childhood to forge connections and resilience building in the children they support. Theraplay is a child and family therapy for building and enhancing attachment,...
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From One Survivor to Another, Helping Survivors of Human Trafficking Escape and Stay Safe [sandiegotribune.com]
By Lisa Deaderick, The San Diego Tribune, December 22, 2019 Marjorie Saylor remembers a woman who was looking for help leaving her trafficker. The woman was pregnant and waiting for a bed at a shelter to open up, but she had to wait on the street, alone and in the cold. Her trafficker found her and took her with him. “I never heard from her again. She only had a week left to go before her bed opened up, but the two weeks she toughed it out waiting on the street kept her in harm’s reach,”...
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GEAR Up for Co-Parenting (Generational Education Aiding Resiliency)
We are very excited to introduce this new program at the Wexford / Missaukee Friend of the Court as our part of a larger scale initiative to build resilience in families and our community as a whole. As it relates to our clients here at FOC, our Gear Up program helps parents to identify separation and divorce as a common adverse childhood experience which can have lifelong negative affects throughout the lifespan. We hope parents will take away from it real tools they can use to minimize...
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Girls From Low-Income Backgrounds Are Truanting Because They Can’t Afford Sanitary Products (www.buzzfeed.com) & Commentary
Girls from lower-income backgrounds are missing days of school because they can’t afford sanitary products. A campaigner with Freedom4Girls, a organisation that provides women and girls in Kenya with sanitary products, told BuzzFeed News they were contacted by a concerned police officer working in a school in Leeds who had noticed a pattern in some girls’ truancy. “There is a problem, but we just don’t know how big,” campaigner Tina Leslie told BuzzFeed News. She was told by the officer,...
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Great Basic Parenting Tips & Why I Have Such a Hard Time Sharing Them
At least once a week I struggle about what to share here. This is my most recent example. It's a series of tips on the U.S. Department of Education . These are great hand-outs with comprehensive information about child development that's not too long, abstract or hard to read. Here's the list (also attached below). I especially like the flyer for talking about feelings which has the tag line "Talking is teaching." And the short summary of milestones at different ages and stages from birth to...
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Great pandemic resilience building activities for youth by ITRC CA steering committee member Lil Milagro Henriquez
I hope everyone is staying safe during these perilous times. I wanted to share some of the resources that Mycelium Youth Network is putting together. I'm extremely proud of the programming that we've put together and the community partners that we're working with for these projects. We've put together comprehensive youth and adult programming all designed with mental, socio-emotional, and physical resilience in mind. A full listing of classes can be accessed on our website . All of our youth...
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Great Resource for Educators and Parents - New Online training from CDC
CDC has launched a new free online training to prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It includes information about the risk and protective factors and outcomes associated with ACEs and evidence-based prevention strategies. Module 1 is an ACEs overview. Module 2 is a public health approach to preventing ACEs. Additional modules for specific professions such as mental health providers and medical providers are coming soon. No cost CEs are available. ...
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Growing Up in Today's World is NOT Easy: One Student's Story
Growing up in today's world is NOT easy. I have heard hundreds of students tell me this. Despite this fact, many of them have also told me that many of the adults in their lives don't seem to understand this, including parents, teachers, and society. Adults who are disconnected from the reality of the lives of the youth that they are around will not be able to completely understand how to provide the support that might be needed for those youth needing it most. I recently met a young woman...
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Healing Developmental Trauma
Last week I posted an article about the Harvard study on happiness, which found that strong social connections are the primary driver of happiness. No surprise there. What struck me, however, is how these findings relate to ACEs. I had just finished reading Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship , which addresses this very issue. From the back cover: “Although it may seem that people suffer from an endless number...
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HOPE, Engagement, and COVID19
As children grow and develop, engaging with the larger community around them provides a sense of “mattering” — a sense that their participation in the community really does matter. The emergency conditions now in effect provide numerous opportunities to children and teens to pitch in. Here are a few ideas . . .
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HOPE in the time of Coronavirus: Inequities and Supporting Children
Today's blog is reposted from https: positiveexperience.org/blog/ Link there for the hyperlinks, and for other in this series. Having safe, stable, and equitable environments to live, learn and play forms the second of the 4 Building Blocks of HOPE. Children need homes where they feel safe and secure and have their basic needs met. Children thrive in an environment that encourages curiosity and provides opportunities for learning to play and interact with other children. Today’s blog is...
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How Childhood Stress Can Knock 20 Years Off Your Life (www.theguardian.com)
Note: A friend sent this article to my boyfriend about that "ACE stuff" this weekend. I sense tipping point. Here are some excerpts from the article by Paul Cocozza. T here is a scene in James Redford’s new film, Resilience , in which a paediatrician cites a parental misdeed so outmoded as to seem bizarre. “Parents used to smoke in the car with kids in the back and the windows rolled up,” she says, incredulous. How long ago those days now seem; how wise today’s parents are to the dangers of...
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How do we end the cycle of childhood trauma passed from parents to kids? | Brain Trust [inquirer.com]
By Abraham Gutman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 9, 2019 Growing up in Philadelphia can be a traumatizing experience. Poverty, hunger, gun violence, evictions, and mass incarceration are just some of the difficult experiences that bear down on children here. Over the last couple of decades, public health researchers and policymakers have increasingly recognized that the body "remembers” childhood trauma, and these experiences at a young age can predict illness, risky behavior, and...
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How Much Free Time?
Be There. But Not Too There. My parents worked. A lot. But they made sure they were home every night, and they were there every morning. And they were very diligent about the important stuff. They checked that I did my homework. But in the hours between getting home from school and going to bed, my sister and I were left to our own devices. So, my afternoons could be spent doing any number of things, from bothering my sister to listening to music with her to watching the Diff'rent...
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How to Avoid Being Psychologically Destroyed by Your Newsfeed (blog post)
Excerpt from this blog post, which I wrote earlier today: "This past week has been brutal, in terms of what has been coming across my newsfeed. And 2016 wasn't exactly a picnic either. So lately I've been thinking a lot about the mental health impact of a steady avalanche of Really Bad News. Many of us (myself included) deal with mental health challenges on a daily basis and being fed a steady diet of devastating world events only serves to make that harder. So I've decided to share a few...
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Therapy Dogs and Service Dogs: What Are They and Why Are They Important?
Therapy dogs are used in a wide variety of environments and circumstances but, broadly speaking, they are dogs whose presence is designed to help alleviate stress, promote feelings of well-being and sometimes help with a process of rehabilitation or healing in humans other than their owners.
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"They Know My Name": Parents Help Make a Collective Impact
Kimberlee Coronado recalls listening to a presentation of statewide data on children, poverty and trauma, and feeling acutely aware of the survey’s missing piece. It was a meeting on trauma-informed care; around the table were social service providers and representatives of local and county agencies. Coronado felt her anger rising. “I said, ‘What’s not even on your radar are kids with disabilities; you’re missing a whole category of kids who experience daily trauma,’” she recalls. Coronado...
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'They Took My Kid': Rural Docs Help Moms Fight Addiction [medpagetoday.com]
By Ashley Lyles, MedPage Today, November 19, 2019 Patient: I'd gotten pregnant again and I was using through my whole pregnancy, and I didn't receive prenatal care. He was born and he's fine and everything. The [Department of Social Services] let me bring him home. Then a week after I had him, I relapsed really, really bad. Then, I got really messed up and they took my kid. Reporter: The opioid epidemic has taken a toll in rural areas, especially on pregnant women. Doctors and healthcare...
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This Is What Latino Film Critics Are Saying About Pixar’s ‘Coco' (www.remezcla.com)
Excerpt from article by Remezcla staff:
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TIC: News and Notes for the Week of October 21, 2019 [dhs.wisconsin.gov]
ACEs, Adversity's Impact There is only one boat: The myth of normalcy by Dr. Gabor Mate Understanding historical trauma to strengthen community Childhood trauma linked to early, premarital childbirth and poor health for women Early life racial discrimination linked to depression, accelerated aging When mothers are killed by their partners, children often become 'forgotten' victims. It's time they were given a voice Children's language skills may be harmed by social hardship Does racism...
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TIC Take Five: Navigating through Grief: Supports for Ourselves and Others
Here's another in a little series we're posting over on the Lancaster County (PA) ACES & Resilience Connection site to promote a regular practice to "take five" (minutes) for self-care. Sharing with the wider ACES Connection community in case it's helpful. Peace. Be well, everyone. In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of the...
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Tonier Cain Deserves an Evidence-Based Apology
Tonier Cain spoke at the Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence conference last month in North Carolina. If you don't know her name you might recognize her as the woman featured in the Healing Neen documentary ( which is must see). I am just starting to recover from her speech. Seriously. It was hard to stand after she spoke. When I did, I went right to a yoga mat in the self-care calm room for a while. I took off my high heels and curled up in a ball for a bit. I'm still digesting her words.
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Trauma in the Classroom: How Educators Should Approach it and What Parents and Students Should Expect From Schools [newsstand.clemson.edu]
By Michael Staton, Clemson University College of Education, November 18, 2019 When students arrive at school, they don’t check their trauma at the door or ignore it. Considering the effect trauma can have on student learning, teachers can’t choose to ignore it, either. Trauma leads to learning problems, lower grades, suspensions, expulsions and even long-term health problems. Teachers are increasingly expected to identify and work with issues students bring to school, and based on related...
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Trauma-Informed CONVOS during COVID
Thanks to Lara Kain of ACES Connection, I discovered the brilliant Joe Truss of Culturally Responsive Leadership . Joe is a principal, a blogger, a father, and soon to be my second guest in a new free conversation series I am hosting - Trauma-Informed CONVOS during COVID. Joe authored a provocative, hilarious, raw blog that went viral on social media less than three weeks ago. If you haven't read it, it's a must: A School Principal's Pondering During a Pandemic. Join us for what will be a...
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Trauma-Informed Parenting: Supplemental Resources (www.nctsn.org) & Review
Gail Kennedy , our own Director of Programs here at ACEs, shared this fantastic resource with me last week. It's called: Trauma-Informed Parenting: Supplemental Resources and is available through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) . It was originally called Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma and as part of a workshop for resource parents in the child welfare system. Resource parents, I believe, are are long-term and temporary foster parents as well as adoptive...
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Trauma-Informed Resources Available During COVID-19 Quarantine (www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org)
Cissy's Note: We're not alone and organizations like the Attachment Trauma Network are summarizing resources and offerings and remembering the entire school community - including parents. Below, there's an excerpt from a recent blog post with resources. Also, per Julie Beem, the Executive Director of the Trauma Attachment Network, (she's smart, kind, and wonderful), more resources will be coming this week and next. And they will be shared here as soon as they are available. While these...
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Troubled moms and dads learn how to parent with ACEs
A father in county jail is ordered to take a parenting class, but isn’t too enthusiastic about it. As part of the class, he learns about the ACE Study, and does his own ACE score. “Oh my god!” he announces to the class. “I have 7 ACEs.” His mother’s an alcoholic. His dad’s been in and out of jail. He himself started dealing drugs at age 11, and doing drugs at 14. “I’ve got two kids at home experiencing the same things I did,” he says. The light bulb goes on. A few days after a woman who’s...
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Use Lockdown to Fix Family Dynamics (www.tenpercenthappier.com) Sumi Loundon Kim
Every week day, the Ten Percent Happier team shares a live, half-hour "sanity break" which includes five minutes of meditation practice. Earlier this week one of the topics was on addressing (and maybe changing or resolving) family habits and dynamics coming up more often or with more intensity during the pandemic. The video is below and the link to the Ten Percent Happier Live site is here.
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WEBINAR: Fostering Equity: Creating Shared Understanding for Building Community Resilience
Struggling with how to Foster Equity Conversations in Community? Join the national partners of the Building Community Resilience Networks as we share our lessons learned in fostering equity as a strategy to prevent childhood adversity and build community resilience. Wednesday, February 26th 12pm-1:15pm Eastern More info at go.gwu.edu/EquityWebinar As a nation we have agonized over how to approach conversations on race, racism, inequity and racial justice. Too often we have opted to attempt...
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What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong? (www.motherjones.com)
We're learning so much all of the time and it's exciting to hear about how trauma informed some schools are becoming. My dream is that all parents can become trauma-informed as well, for the sake of our children and for making changes for future generations but also for our healing and recovery as well. It's all related. Most of this article is geared towards school systems but it's relevant to anyone who loves and cares about children. It was first published last summer. It's still...
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What is Neglect? (www.risemagazine.com)
We use the word "neglect" a lot but not everyone is clear on how that is defined. Here's a piece posted by Rise Magazine last week. What is neglect? The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) defines child neglect and abuse as: “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Full piece.
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What it's not (www.inotherswords.com)
Here's some writing by Laura Parrott Perry on that whole forgiveness thing. It's clear, honest and helpful. Excerpted from her blog: “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” Khaled Hosseini Recently, I’ve found myself part of many conversations around the topic of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something I think many people fundamentally...
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What Your Teen Wishes You Knew About Sex Education [npr.org]
By Cory Turner and Anya Kamenetz, National Public Radio, February 11, 2020 Cora Breuner was sitting at home one day about to do a little work on her laptop. "I remember, when I opened my computer, I looked at my son — who shall remain nameless — and I said, 'Why is this porn site on my laptop?'" "I'm an adolescent male, Mom." It would have been an awkward moment for just about any parent. Then again, Breuner isn't just any parent. She's Doctor Cora Breuner, and she works in the adolescent...
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When Hidden Grief Gets Triggered During COVID-19 Confinement
first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...
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