Tagged With "Kids Are Fighting"
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Meet Your Child’s Needs For Improved Behavior
Understanding WHY a child behaves as he/she does provides you with the answer as to what the child needs to willingly and capably improve his/her behavior. Communication is a behavior, and all forms of behavior are ways of communicating. The child who resists bedtime is communicating something, and the message goes beyond merely saying, “I don’t want to.” The same is true for the child who refuses to turn off the TV or turn away from the video game. The child who speaks to you...
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Mindful Parenting: How to Respond Instead of React (www.parent.co) by Jill Ceder
Note: I usually despise parenting advice and how-to-anything for parents. Often, it's "tap the brakes" advice as though all parents have double digit stress they need to dial back a bit to be more effective. As though tapping the brakes when going 25 m.p.h. is anything like tapping the brakes when going 100 m.p.h. When it's not. Many parents have stress that started at 100 m.p.h. in childhood and arrived to parenting having gone through life at high speeds, and not by choice. So, parenting...
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Mommy Mentors Help Fight The Stigma Of Postpartum Mood Disorder (npr.org)
Becoming a mother is often portrayed as a magical and glorious life event. But many women don't feel joyful after giving birth. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association , almost 15 percent of moms suffer from a postpartum mood disorder like anxiety or depression, making maternal mental health concerns the most common complication of childbirth in the U.S. And even though these mental illnesses affect millions of women each year, new research shows 20 percent of mothers...
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Mothering at the Edge
Life has been so sweet of late and that, for me, has been emotional. I feel a mixture of joy and disbelief. This time of mothering a teen as a parent with ACEs. I sit the edge of my bed sorting socks and memories. A middle-aged mother in so many kinds of transition. Some mornings, I hear her feet soft on carpeted stairs, see her long hair rolling down her back almost touching the hips. I remember when she did not have hips. The years I gathered her up each morning, carrying her down the...
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My Encounter With Harvey Weinstein and What it Tells Us About Trauma
I have been watching the scandal about Harvey Weinstein emerge with great interest – in the early ‘90s, I too was one of the young women he preyed upon.
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My son was hospitalized and now he has PTSD
“Grant, do you remember when you were in the hospital?” “Yes… they came to take the blood and I turned into a werewolf.” Original Post It happened quickly. A year ago my three year old had a collarbone fracture, it became infected and within 24 hours the situation was emergent. A week long hospital stay, one month with a PICC line and two months on oral antibiotics. Finally, the labs finally came back normal. The X-Ray was clean. Gillette Children’s Hospital closed our case. But the healing...
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The CDC and WHO are teaming up to end the ‘contagious disease’ of child violence [WashingtonPost.com]
The world can be a dark place for many children: the "lost boys" from Sudan, refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, child sex workers in Brazil, baby girls abandoned in China, kids pulled into gang drug wars in the United States. Such suffering by children is more common than most people might think and represents what some believe to be one of our biggest public-health crises of all time. A study published in January in the journal Pediatrics puts that violence into stark perspective by...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The "F" Words: Fear & Forgiveness
“If your parent is the bear in the living room, it is biologically impossible to run to that parent when they are either over or under reacting. If your parent is scary you can’t run to them. And you also can’t run away from them because you are a child, you can’t function in the world on your own. You can’t make it out there." Donna Jackson Nakazawa We can get so lost in theory, data and facts that our language about trauma, abuse and adverse childhood experiences can become clinical and...
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The Healing Place Podcast: Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, D.A.A.E.T.S. - How to Help Suicide Loss Survivors & the Traumatic Impact of Suicide
Barbara Rubel is a suicide loss survivor and leading thanatologist. Thanatology is the scientific study of death. As a thanatologist, Barbara Rubel specializes in suicide loss survivor grief and educating professionals about traumatic loss. The third updated and revised edition of her book, But I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Helping families after a suicide, just launched on Amazon.
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The Importance of Positive Emotional Communication Starting From Infancy
“Why do some children become sad, withdrawn, insecure, or angry, whereas others become happy, curious, affectionate, and self-confident?” It has something to do with emotions and emotional communication.
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The Relentless School Nurse: The Text Message No Parent Wants to Get - An Active Shooter is at School
Many blog readers know that my niece Carly is a survivor of the Parkland shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You may know that my father also survived a mass murder, and like Carly, hid in a closet until the police arrived. Almost 70 years separated the two tragedies. Our guest blogger this week is my sister Merri, Carly's mom. Merri shares her first-hand account of what happened the afternoon of February 14, 2018, when Carly sent this text, “Mom don’t freak out but we are on...
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How to Make Motherhood Easier in America [psmag.com]
For Kristen R. Ghodsee, it was the moment she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror between two stages of a job interview, bent under the hand dryer at an awkward angle that allowed her to pump breast milk frantically while drying leakage from her jacket. For Amy Westervelt, it was waddling to the mailbox to collect a check, two weeks after the birth of her child, while congratulating herself on "emailing from the recovery room" to make "a big deadline 48 hours after delivery.
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How to Support Someone (Like Me!) Who Has Experienced Trauma
This blog post and infographic is dedicated to the wonderful man (too shy to want to be named) who has had the patience and sheer tenacity to stick around for six years while we have figured out what I needed as a trauma survivor to be able to tolerate a relationship with a romantic partner. (And for him to tolerate me!) If you didn't have a safe, stable nurturing relationship with your primary caregiver as a child, you need and yearn for that kind of connection as you go through life. And...
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How to Talk with Kids About COVID-19 [healthier.stanfordchildrens.org]
By Erin Digitale, Stanford Children's Health, March 10, 2020 As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread, experts at Stanford Children’s Health have advice about how families can prepare their children for the continued news coverage and conversations around the outbreak. Parents and caregivers should communicate in an age-appropriate way that addresses children’s questions without stoking anxiety, says Stanford Children’s Health psychiatrist Victor Carrion, MD , who also directs...
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How Trauma Therapy Cultivated My Recovery
I was 5 years old when I had my first encounter with trauma. Too young to comprehend the magnitude of the situation, my first grade class participated in a “Good Touch/Bad Touch” workshop,centered around educating and recognizing signs of sexual abuse. I found relief in finding a safe place to lay down the burden I had been carrying. I went straight to the school counselor and told her, in vivid description, the intimate details of my unwarranted molestation. I remember the grueling...
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How You and Your Kids Can De-Stress During Coronavirus [pbs.org]
By Deborah Farmer Kris, Public Broadcasting Service, March 13, 2020 A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter made a glitter jar for my students: “Tell them that when their brain has a glitter storm, they can shake this up and take deep breaths as the glitter falls.” We could all use some help settling our glitter right now. If you are feeling stress about the COVID-19 pandemic, your brain isn’t misfiring. Stress is a normal, healthy biological response to perceived threats and challenges.
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“I Like to Move It, Move It!” – How Dance and Rhythm Can Reduce the Impact of ACEs (stresshealth.org)
As it is, more and more researchers studying the healing power of rhythmic movement on people who’ve experienced trauma from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, or parental mental illness or substance abuse issues. Among these researchers is Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist and senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston who advocates dance, drumming, walking and other rhythm-based movements to help kids with trauma. In a book about trauma and the power of...
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I’m not cured, but I am healing
I wanted every individual suffering from chronic illnesses to understand the emerging science on not only how early adversity can lead to adult chronic illness, but how we can heal.
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In honour of my Dad, Remembrance Day 2019
War is most certainly Hell. It is also a source of #ACEs for the children of veterans. Here's a little insight into my story.
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Intermountain Video Podcast: How Kids Navigate a Pandemic
Meegan Bryce, MSW, began her work at Intermountain with children and families as a Direct Care Counselor in 2004. She has since been a Cottage Supervisor, Child and Family Therapist, the Residential Manager and now serves as the Residential Director. Meegan is a Montana native and enjoys all the outdoor activities that Montana has to offer, especially river rafting. In this video podcast, she speaks with Development Officer Tyler Zimmer about how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the...
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Junk Journaling for Resilience (During COVID-19)
This is an activity that came to me during a time of incredible turmoil and hardship for my family, and it quickly became my go-to practice to shift out of fight-or-flight, gain perspective on my situation, find peace in the chaos, and sort through my many colliding thoughts and feelings about the impossible time we were in. It was how I metabolized, sifted, and found my right way through a significant family crisis. It honestly saved me/us, in part because it is so fun, easy and feels good!
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Kids of Color Often Shut Out of High-Quality State Preschool, Research Says [blogs.edweek.org]
By Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week, November 6, 2019 A study of 26 states and their preschool programs finds that as of roughly two years ago, a mere 1 percent of Latino children and just 4 percent of black children in those states were enrolled in "high-quality" state-backed early-learning opportunities. That's one main conclusion from a new report from the Education Trust, an education civil rights advocacy group. "Young Learners, Missed Opportunities: Ensuring That Black and Latino...
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When Your Child Is Your PTSD Trigger
One-third of children experience childhood abuse, and yet the question is never asked: what happens when those children grow up and have families of their own?
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Why Aren’t Trauma Survivors Warned That Parenthood May Be a PTSD Trigger? (themighty.com)
For many survivors of childhood abuse, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may re-occur, or never arise, until they become a parent. A significant number of parenting survivors do not recognize the increased depression , anxiety or onset of flashbacks as symptoms of PTSD, weaving in and out their journey to raise a family. Instead, many will internalize debilitating shame and question their ability, and even their right to parent. According to the National Center for Victims of...
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Why I Put my Drug-Affected Daughter Back on Drugs (www.brainchildmag.com)
Note: This essay is written by Melissa Hart. She is a parent with ACEs parenting a child with ACEs. I look around at the life we’ve created for her—the bedroom full of books and dress-up clothes and musical instruments, the photos on the wall of our family vacations to tropical beaches and wildflower mountains and national parks. I fight an urge to shake her little shoulders and stare into her big brown hostile eyes and yell, “Why can’t you just be happy?” But I don’t . . . because I know...
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Why Kids With ACEs Shouldn't Get a Pass on Chores
Don't worry that chores are too stressful for kids with ACEs, says trauma researcher Bob Sege, MD. “You don’t want to coddle them,” Sege said, “because the message they will get is that they are damaged goods. They need to know that the adversity they suffered is only one part of them; it’s not all of them.”
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Will the Pandemic Have a Lasting Impact on My Kids? [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
By Diana Divecha, Greater Good Magazine, May 18, 2020 Massive unemployment. Stunning loss of life. Disrupted education. An economy in freefall. These are the ingredients for tectonic social shifts that alter the arcs of human lives. Parents are always at the fulcrum of such pressures, protecting their families while trying to hold together a semblance of normalcy. For 100 years, developmental scientists have studied how families and children respond to disasters, manmade and natural. From...
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Women Surround Crying Mom Whose Toddler Was Having A Meltdown At The Airport (sunnyskyz.com)
This wonderful story was posted on Facebook by Beth Bornstein Dunnington who took part in an unforgettable moment at the Los Angeles International Airport. "Something extraordinary at LAX today... (writing this on the plane). I was at the gate, waiting to get on my plane to Portland. Flights to two different cities were boarding on either side of the Portland fight. A toddler who looked to be eighteen or so months old was having a total meltdown, running between the seats, kicking and...
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Writing to Heal, Yoga to Feel & Survivor-Led Resources Online
I love yoga and writing. I need yoga and writing. Both are relatively affordable and can be done alone and at home or in community. Both have been central to my survival, recovery and growth which I write about below. I also love sharing and supporting survivor-led resources created for survivors and others. Here are two links to those if you want to get to those right away. There are more details about each following the essay: Write Your Story, Heal Your Life Summit: Alaura O'Dell...
Ask the Community
Can Trauma-Informed Mermaids Help Children & Families? (New Kids Book Series)
Dear Parenting with ACEs Community, We just launched a new trauma-informed children's book series called Venus and Her Fly Trip . The series has been developed in collaboration with therapists, educators, parents and healers and is designed to promote mental/social/emotional health, body positivity and imaginative play in kids 4-10 , with the ultimate goal of preventing self-hatred. I would greatly value hearing the feedback of the ACEs community on this endeavor, and welcome your ideas for...
Ask the Community
Need opinions about parenting and self-care blog!
Hi everyone! I've made a blog (not yet launched) called A Resilient Parent (aresilientparent.com). I have a few goals in mind for this blog. First i want to help parents with ACEs heal, so they can thrive themselves. I also believe that whereas the focus is so strongly on this generations kids (for good reason, of course), I feel that outside help can be most effective when the parents are healing as well. Our children look up to their parents/guardians most of all! And it's not to late for...
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New Hampshire Mothers Struggling With Opioid Addiction Fight To Keep Their Children [npr.org]
Jillian Broomstein starts to cry when she talks about the day her newborn son Jeremy was taken from her by New Hampshire's child welfare agency. He was 2 weeks old. "They came into the house and said they would have to place him in foster care and I would get a call and we would set up visits," she says. "It was scary." Broomstein, who was 26 at the time, had not used heroin for months and was on methadone treatment. The clinic social worker told her that since Jeremy would test positive for...
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 23, 2020 — Education Upended, continued
Please join us for the ongoing discussion of 'A Better Normal- Education Upended'. Last time we just scratched the surface!! Our current capacity is 100 participants, so please join us on time and we will enter people until we reach capacity. These will be recorded and available on the ACEsConnection website. Zoom meeting info below.
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 24, 2020: Using the Community Resiliency Model to self-regulate during the pandemic
Dave Granlund Friday, April 24, 2020 — Elaine Miller-Karas is founder of the Trauma Resources Institute and one of the key creators of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM). CRM is an ACES-science based model to help people become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. She will join ACEs Connection SE regional community facilitator Carey Sipp in an informal conversation with the ACEsConnection community. Elaine will discuss how to use the CRM for...
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Parent Coaching is a Valuable Investment!
My response is often: "Parents are often living and parenting in a manner which is very similar to the way they (couple) were parented and sometimes because they have experienced adversity in childhood, in a fight, flight or freeze mode that has not been addressed." You don’t know what you don’t know.
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Parents: Put your own oxygen mask on first [Centerforyouthwellness.org]
We all need support, no matter who we are. As a pediatrician, CEO and a mom, I am constantly juggling priorities, schedules and child care. Some days are just plain hard and I’ve learned that the only way to get through the tough days and weeks is to practice self care. Self care is about how we can be our best selves in order to be of support to those around us. For children to lead healthier lives, they need a healthy adult who can act as an emotional buffer to...
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Partnering for Excellence Model: Walking the Trauma-Informed Talk (www.healwritenow.com)
I wrote about my personal experience at the Partnering for Excellence conference earlier this month. Here, I write as an activist observing attempts at system change utilizing ACEs science and trauma-informed approaches. Please share your ideas, brainstorms and observations about what you see happening (or not happening) in organizations or agencies you rely on, work at or run. I’ll admit, as an activist, I’m often in fight the system mode. I approach even do-gooders with defensiveness. Why?
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Passive/Public Parenting Education
It seems to me that if we want to reduce adverse childhood experiences we must work to improve the quality of parenting in communities. Visit advancingparenting.org to learn about a small nonprofit organization pioneering passive/public parenting education. Our plan is to 1) employ increasingly impactful media to display the parenting tips (appealing school age spokespersons presenting them on conventional and electronic billboards and semi trailers), and 2) expand geographically until...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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PTSD in Love (www.healwritenow.com)
I went to the fireworks the other night. I was thinking about how fireworks can be hard for veterans and how it's good people know and respect that. Relationships are my fireworks. Relationships are where it's hard for me to stay present without being sent in to sensory overload. ACEs and interpersonal violence can be so messy and complex. It's hard to find language and even when we have words there aren't always ways to prevent all triggers. Relationships offer the space and place for the...
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Puzzle Pieces
A 5000 piece puzzle that was thrown up in the air and scattered amongst the fall leaves. That is how I imagined my life looked liked 6+ years ago. I was struggling with flashbacks, body memories, brain fog, panic attacks, insomnia and dissociation. My trauma history was coming crashing in on me and impacting EVERY area of my life. I no longer could pull myself up, dusting myself off and with head down barreling though life. I had to face my past and put together the pieces of that puzzle one...
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Re: Tell Me About You
A piece of my personal journey... I recall being stunned by how much my own history and past kept rearing its ugly head as parent of 3 children under the age of 1. I so desperately wanted to be a "great" parent. I read A LOT of parenting and self-help books and worked hard to put into practice what I learned. It was so frustrating to not understand why I had to constantly re-frame and fight urges to react in the ways that didn't align with the parent or person that I wanted to be. Through my...
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Re: Tell Me About You
Robin: Thank you for this post. I have met so many parents (and I am one as well) that was incredible relieved and frightened by finding out about ACEs. To me, it's a motivating fear not a paralyzing one. And it's SO MUCH work to reframe. I so get that. There's effort in shaping behaviors and feelings and impulses. And that's why I think self-care comes in or meditation or all the things that give support for that work. Change can't happen just because we hope or wish for it - though that's...
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ACE-Aha Moments & Parenting: Meet Aprel Phelps Downey
Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...
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ACEs Aware Webinar: Trauma-informed practices to address stress from COVID19
How can health care providers take care of themselves, their colleagues and their patients during this COVID-19 pandemic? First and foremost is recognizing how the pandemic can stir up trauma from the past, said Dr. Alicia Lieberman, a psychologist specializing in trauma. “COVID19 is reawakening traumatic reminders in many of us and in the families we work with. And that often makes it difficult for parents to protect themselves and their children,” she noted. Lieberman, the director of the...
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ACEs Connection Parent Handouts
Great resources to accompany ACEs screening efforts, presentations, and community awareness building. Please share how you plan to use the handouts in the comments section below!
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Annabelle Timset: We’ve been ignoring the problem of dads and depression for decades—at a huge cost to kids
Just as dads who take an active role in their children’s lives can help kids reach their full potential, less engaged dads can harm their kids’ development. In some cases, the underlying cause of that lack of engagement may be undiagnosed depression. Depressed dads are more likely to spank their kids . They’re also less likely to read to them, which may hamper their child’s cognitive development and literacy skills. And prior studies have shown that the children of depressed fathers have an...
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Arts-Based Activities Boost Emotion Regulation, Study Finds (www.psychologytoday.com)
Here's an excerpt from an article by Christopher Bergland. Genevieve Dingle of the University of Queensland School of Psychiatry , who is the lead author of this study, described the findings in a statement: "People with chronic mental health conditions tend to experience difficulties with emotion perception and regulation, which can have a big impact on their social relationships. These symptoms are not well treated with medication or psychotherapy . The findings of this study are exciting...
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CA pediatrician develops, tests, gets state OK for whole-child assessment tool that includes ACEs
Over the last dozen years or so, many pediatricians, astounded by the ramifications of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the children they care for, began integrating this science into their practices. The most common approach has been to ask parents about ACEs using a questionnaire, and to use this information to counsel parents and identify resources for the family. Different practices have been using different questionnaires: Some ask parents for their ACE scores...