Tagged With "childhood development"
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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 Surprising Ways the Father Wound Harms Women [goodmenproject.com]
I’ve been dealing with the father wound for most of my life. When I was five years old my mid-life father became increasingly depressed because he couldn’t make a living supporting me and my mother. He took an overdose of sleeping pills and was committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Many of us grow up without the presence of a loving, engaged, father in our lives. Some of us lose our fathers through illness, others through divorce, death, distance, or dysfunction. Like most losses,...
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9 Signs You Need Better Self-Care and May Be a Trauma Survivor
Self-care is the sum of things you do for your emotional and physical wellbeing. Getting enough sleep, brushing your teeth, and eating well are classic examples of good physical self-care. How to take good care of yourself emotionally may be harder to see from the outside. Your ability to view your inner world with compassion and curiosity is one sign. Noticing your emotions and thoughts with gentle awareness is another inward sign of emotional self-care. Knowing how to find and turn to...
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A Call to Connection: Making Childhood Trauma Personal | Dr. Allison Jackson | TEDxRVA
From: YouTube by TedX Talks: Silence gives consent. Choosing a story of silence raises our chances of mortality rates when ACEs are involved. ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. If silence is a killer then why do we do nothing? How can community help? Dr. Allison Jackson is a Trauma Informed Care Specialist. She makes a compelling case for, “connection as a cure” to counter a lot of damage done by trauma.
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A Few Quotes I Love from The Silenced Child by Claudia M. Gold, MD
This book is so good. I am loving reading it and I have already underlined so many parts that I can't wait to read the whole thing to write a book review. I'm going to start sharing some quotes. First, what I love most is the warm and non-clinical tone. It sounds like it is written by a human being and that's appealing. The author writes about parents (and is one) with kindness and care and as a human being. O.k., at only 50 pages in, here are some of the gems so far : "Listening to parents...
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A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, April 15, 2020 The global response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed daily life in many ways for many people. Yet child development has not paused, and supporting children, families, and care providers of all kinds is as important as ever. In this guide, the Center on the Developing Child has gathered a number of resources and recommendations to help you through this challenging time. This guide pulls together...
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A Lament That Remains (www.psychologytoday.com)
While this article by Kristin Meekhof is geared towards children grieving the loss of a parent who had died, it has a lot of insightful ACE-related advice for parenting with ACEs This leads to the next point- death is very painful. However, resilient people aren't pain free, but they know how to handle it. You can expect there will be painful moments, such as holidays, the deceased parent's birthday, a school graduation. And pretending that pain will not exist during these or other occasions...
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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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Effects of Preterm Birth
A baby born prematurely often spends that crucial time for attachment and development of neural pathways in the NICU
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Empowering Kids In An Anxious World [NPR.org]
Rates of anxiety and depression among teens in the U.S. have been rising for years. According to one study , nearly one in three adolescents (ages 13-18) now meets the criteria for an anxiety disorder, and in the latest results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 32 percent of teens reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. And there's more bad news, grown-ups: The authors of two new parenting books believe you're part of the...
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Every Woman Was Once a Girl: Why We Need to Talk About the Unique Biological Effects of #ToxicChildhoodStress and #FemaleAdversity on Women’s Bodies and Brains
This is Part Two of my Female Adversity: The Female Body and Brain on Toxic Stress series. (CRUCIAL NOTE HERE BEFORE YOU READ: Boys’ immune systems become dysregulated in response to #toxicstress too, and that leads to disease and changes to the brain that we also need to talk about more openly AND compassionately. Today I’m focusing on girls’ unique immune response to #toxicstress.) So, exactly what happens in a girl’s body, in response to #toxicstress, that leads girls to be more likely to...
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EveryDay Strong: Teaching kids about family history helps increase resilience [heraldextra.com]
Resilience, or the ability to overcome challenges in life, is a trait many parents hope their children will develop. Resilient children are more likely to have good emotional and mental health. Research has shown that children who know more about their families and family history are more resilient and tend to do better when facing challenges in life. This may be because seeing patterns of overcoming failures and surviving hard times can help children recognize that people can recover and...
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Exposure to Household Pet Cats and Dogs in Childhood and Risk of Subsequent Diagnosis of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder [journals.plos.org]
By Robert Yolken, Cassie Stallings, Andrea Origoni, et al., Plos One, December 2, 2019 Abstract Background Serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been associated with environmental exposures in early life. Contact with household pets such as cats and dogs can serve as a source of environmental exposure during these time periods. Methods We investigated the relationship between exposure to a household pet cat or dog during the first 12 years of life and...
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Family Media Plan helps parents set boundaries for kids [AAPPublications.org]
It can be overwhelming for parents to manage all of the media options available to children and adolescents around the clock and sort out the pros and cons of screen time. While media use can help build kids’ social skills, it also can put them at risk of obesity, lost sleep, bullying, addiction and violence, according to new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). To help families navigate the digital world, the AAP has developed a Family Media Plan. Parents and children can...
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#Female Adversity: Growing Up With Female Adversity: The Female Body and Brain on Toxic Stress Series
One thing readers know about the work I do and the books I write, including Childhood Disrupted , The Autoimmune Epidemic , and The Last Best Cure , is that I focus on the intersection of neuroscience, immunology and emotion – while shining a spotlight on WOMEN’s experiences. Connecting these dots is always an underlying theme in my work. Women, girls, toxic stress, the female brain and immune system, autoimmune disease and chronic physical and mental illness — if you care about any of...
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Five Things You Wish Your Community’s Early Childhood Programs Knew [CitiesSpeak.org]
By NLC Staff on May 10, 2019 Cities, towns, and villages are places of innovation and solution finding. If you want to improve early childhood wellbeing—local leaders are key partners. The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Learning Community is a program of Boston Medical Center’s Vital Village. The learning community’s goal is to support local early childhood coalitions and build their capacity to work together with the broader community to improve the wellbeing of our...
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For Kids, Regular Exercise Seems to Put Depression on the Run [Consumer.Healthday.com]
For generations, parents have told kids to go outside and play. Now, a new study suggests an added benefit to that advice -- physical activity may lower children's risk of depression. The researchers assessed about 700 children at ages 6, 8 and 10. Kids who got regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise were less likely to develop depression over those four years, the investigators found. Previous studies have found that physically active teens and adults seem to have a lower risk of depression.
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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 play is great for kids. Now pediatricians say so (sacbee.com)
The award for best line ever in a medical report: “Play is not frivolous.” It’s not new, the idea that free play helps children develop in remarkable ways. Multiple studies have found that play builds social skills and creativity and develops the ability to solve problems and to collaborate. What is new is that a clinical report published in August by the American Academy of Pediatrics specifically calls on pediatricians and family doctors to start taking play, well, seriously – in fact to...
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From Trauma-Informed to Asset-Informed Care in Early Childhood [brookings.edu]
By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...
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Going beyond asking what happened: building beloved community
“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” –bell hooks One of the most notable descriptors of trauma-informed care is shifting the question of what is wrong...
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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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Growth through Trauma-Informed Strategies: Coaching and Consultation with Rick Griffin
There is a Chinese proverb that states, “If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people." The benefits are evident, yet the real question becomes, “how do you grow people?” This Big Idea Session, CRI’s Trauma Coaching and Trauma Consultation Training, answers this question. Schools, organizations, and parents are discovering that the traditional “command and control” style of working with...
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Healing in place: Game on to flip the COVID19 threat into a positive experience for our children
As I was considering the children sheltering-in-place this morning and reflecting on lessons from my own childhood, I wondered: Can we heal-in-place too? I was born after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, another collective trauma affecting everyone. Yet, it was nevertheless passed on to me by the adults in my life in the form of constant reminders that the U.S. could be blown into bits any second. When I started school, there were constant “hide under the chair” earthquake drills I took to be...
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Helping Children in Emergencies: Keep Your Child’s Developmental Stage and Temperament in Mind
By Karissa Luckett, RN, BSN, MSW Common reactions to stress will fade over time for most children. Let’s be honest: Your exploring, tactile toddler won’t suddenly start keeping their hands to themselves. Your continually forgetful preschooler won’t suddenly start hand-washing properly just because you’ve told them it’s important. Depending on their ages, stages and temperaments, some children will require more reassurance or more time to shift than others. This situation is unique, and so is...
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Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
In an unprecedented global shutdown, many of us, especially without the noise and distraction of everyday life, are facing intensified, often destabilizing feelings. And that includes kids—whether they’re able to say so or not.
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Helping New Parents Make Room for Uncertainty
A new program for parents and infants, thanks to generous support from Mill Town Capital , is coming to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Hello It’s Me Project shines a spotlight on these tender new relationships, investing resources around the birth of a baby with the long-term goal of building a healthy community from the bottom up. When world-renowned child development researcher Dr. Ed Tronick spoke in the spring of 2018 for an audience of a wide variety of practitioners in Berkshire County...
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Helping Parents Develop Positive Relationships with their infants to toddlers (National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence,NPEIV).
Zero to Three Resource- extracted from website and with discussion text by Karin Hecht (September 14, 2018) Bonding activities between parent and child can be a great way to help a child’s development and strengthen the relationship. The Zero to Three website has great resources for child-centered activities to help little ones learn and grow. One particularly useful resource for parents and care providers are a collection of stage-by-stage age-based tips and what to expect as your baby...
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Hillary Clinton’s Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health [The Briefing—Fact Sheets]
The first bullet under Early Diagnosis and Intervention of today’s release of Hillary Clinton’s mental health agenda is titled “ Increase public awareness and take action to address maternal depression, infant mental health, and trauma and stress in the lives of young children.” It states “We also know that infant mental health depends on children forming close and secure relationships with the adults in their lives, and that too many children are growing up in environments that cause them...
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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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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 It Feels & How We Heal: Parenting with ACEs Chat Quotes (You Tube, Database, PDFs, Links)
Parenting with ACEs is sharing inspiration, information, and expertise from our chat series in 3 formats. Parenting with ACEs: How It Feels & How We Heal Quote Collection (pdf version below as well) Quotes Database (pdf version below as well) Links to Chat Transcripts and before and after-the-chat blog posts. Thanks to everyone who showed up, who shared, and who is doing the important work that is our mission (prevent ACEs, heal trauma, build resilience). We know that work happens...
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How Neuroscience Can Help Your Kid Make Good Choices (greatergood.berkeley.edu)
Self-regulation may sound like a tall order—but it’s also the best choice, according to Erin Clabough, a neuroscientist, mother of four, and author of the book Second Nature: How Parents Can Use Neuroscience to Help Kids Develop Empathy, Creativity, and Self-Control . Self-regulation is a skill that we need whenever we want to make a good choice or work toward a goal, especially when strong feelings are involved—in ourselves or others. Unfortunately, the qualities that support...
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How Neuroscience Can Help Your Kid Make Good Choices (mindful.org)
Imagine the following scenario: Your eight-year-old son is repeatedly poked with a pencil by his classmate at school. How does he respond? He might endure the pokes without complaint by using willpower, or he might stay silent, succumbing to feelings of fear or powerlessness. He could lose his self-control and act out, attacking his classmate verbally or poking him back. Or does your son “self-regulate” by considering his options and resources, taking stock of his feelings and strengths,...
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The Ten Books That Changed My Life - Healing ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and Building Resilience
Teri Wellbrock offers a list of those books that had a profound impact on her life and helped her create a life filled with tranquility and joy. While she may not have agreed with every word written, she did find powerful answers, delicious little tidbits, and inspirational guidance within each book.
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The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy (Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association)
Grabbe L, Miller-Karas E. The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 2017; 24 (1): 76-84.
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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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Therapy with Neurofeedback
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/04/689747637/if-youre-often-angry-or-irritable-you-may-be-depressed My response to the above article from NPR: Depression is the word people use when they feel bad. What people in this piece are struggling to understand is that depression is not one thing or in fact “a thing” at all. It’s certainly not a useful diagnosis. DSM diagnosis constricts our understanding rather than enhancing it. Here they are struggling to understand states of...
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This Isn’t Real Life, This Isn’t Fantasy – To Those Who Think We Aren’t Preparing Them For the Real World (by Sarah Neal) (heysigmund.com)
In 2013, my husband won custody of his children (my stepson, “Little,” age six; my stepdaughter, “Middle,” age 7). Before they came to live with us, they endured a lot of early-childhood trauma and neglect, and they were soon diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) . The most important part of their treatment plan involves therapeutic parenting. We use the SPACE model, which stands for “safety, supervision, structure, support … playful, accepting, curious, and empathetic.” We do...
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Through a Trauma Lens: The Need for Doulas
Trigger warning: trauma, doctors, hospital, birth, sex It is very important to me to approach all of the work that I do from a trauma-informed perspective. Whether it is asking for consent before touching a student in yoga class, offering self-regulation skills to those I work with, or preparing clients for potential triggers*, I do my best to incorporate my on-going learning in the field of trauma into my professional practices. Recently, I began taking trauma classes for professionals...
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TIC: News and Notes for February 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 1) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 2) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 3) Family dynamics may influence suicidal thoughts in children Fawning: The fourth trauma response we don't talk about FPs are best equipped to tackle adverse childhood experiences New study reveals annual cost of childhood adversity in California is approximately $113 billion Signs your child may be struggling from an adverse childhood experience...
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TIC: News and Notes for March 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Lessons learned integrating ACEs science into health clinics: Staff first, THEN patients Launching a revolution Stress is a key to understanding many social determinants of health Is trauma driving some eating disorders? Adverse childhood experiences: What we know, what we don't know, and what should happen next Childhood maltreatment initiates a developmental cascade that leads to relationship dysfunction in emerging adulthood Report reveals link between poverty,...
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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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To ask or not to ask? That shouldn’t be a question
Russell Wilson, an ACEsConnection.com member from New Zealand, posted a question to the community in which he noted that a “heck of a lot of people” with ACEs who enter treatment are often never asked about those histories, and that this approach is not honoring their right to appropriate and adequate treatment. It’s an issue that’s come up often in many ways and in many settings besides mental health. Some trauma-informed training never mentions the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood...
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To Build a "Trauma-Informed Community" Start With Babies (www.psychologytoday.com) & Dr. Claudia Gold
Cissy's note: This article was written by the same @Claudia Gold who was the featured guest in one of our Parenting with ACEs chats . Here are excerpts from her article published in Psychology Today.
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Toolkit on Domestic Violence and ACEs Now Available
This blog post is to share our toolkit, "A Resilience Framework for Domestic Violence and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)." The toolkit is a PowerPoint that can be downloaded here and is free to share. This project started nearly 24 months ago with support from the Arctic Fulbright Initiative to examine the intersections between domestic violence and ACEs and create an open access resource. A statewide survey in Alaska and focus groups in Finland provided recommendations on information...
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Tracing One’s Family ACEs Tree to Break the Familial Cycles of Alcohol Misuse
My marrying an alcoholic never made sense to me. My mother developing the disease of alcoholism never made sense to me, either. And why my loved ones couldn’t get it together to stop or wrest control of their drinking was equally confusing. Yet I churned around and in and through this muck for almost four decades before my world was split wide open. It was 2003 and one of my loved ones entered a residential treatment program for alcoholism. I remember experiencing a giddy – “I knew it, I...
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Transforming NJ Child-Care Centers into Nurturing, Trauma Informed & Trauma Sensitive Environments: One non-profit’s successful pilot
With a lot of discussion nationally surrounding the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES), trauma and resilience it is certainly a topic that still needs to reach educators and parents alike. A recent survey showed that only 10% of early childhood educators had ever heard of ACES, yet 100% reported wanting more information about how trauma impacts children’s behaviors. While teachers certainly notice behaviors in the classroom, they often feel overwhelmed or unsure of the best way to...
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Transforming Trauma Podcast: The Blind Spots of Privilege and Complex Trauma in Marginalized Communities
Transforming Trauma Podcast: The Blind Spots of Privilege and Complex Trauma in Marginalized Communities Claude Cayemitte, a clinical social worker and NARM Therapist, joins the Transforming Trauma podcast to examine how complex trauma impacts individuals from marginalized communities and how unrecognized cultural trauma can lead to misattunement in the therapeutic relationship. Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model as a foundation, and his own background as a Haitian-American male...