Tagged With "unconditional love"
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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 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 Living in a Black Female Body Incites Perpetual Attack [psmag.com]
Before scores of professional athletes brought black Americans' thorny relationship with love of country center stage, did you know that, in 2014, a black girl in Texas had started her own protest ritual of sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance? Much like how today's athletes are citing racial injustice as reasoning to exercise their First Amendment rights, the Houston senior, who has declined to be named, recently stated the following: "We live in a country where there isn't justice and...
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How to Become a Compassionate Parent
There are many benefits to learning how to feel your emotions. One is it helps you become a more compassionate, empathetic parent. The weekend before I flew to Iceland, I pulled my luggage out of our storage room and came across the boxes I’m saving for my girls. These boxes contain all of my daughters’ art, birthday decorations, cards, diaries, etc., from the time they were little girls. It was a family weekend, so we all decided to go through these mementoes together. It was a sweet...
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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 Things a Family of Firefighters Won't Have in Their House (mamamia.com.au)
We had a fire one winter when I was a kid. The roof caught on fire via the chimney. Everyone, including the pets, ended up being fine. It was scary to be sent outside in the snow in pj's and to see the roof burn. I've been a little afraid to use a fireplace ever since. Those of us who lived in unsafe homes growing up aren't always sure what we need to do in order to keep our homes safe. We may lack that thing others call common sense based on good experiences. For that reason, I love lists...
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The Trauma-Sensitive Parenting Summit & Commentary
"Having a history of trauma or loss does not by itself predispose you to have a child with disorganization. It is the lack of resolution that is the essential risk factor. It is never too late to move toward making sense of your experiences and healing your past. Not only you but also your child will benefit." That's a quote from the book Parenting from the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, which was published fifteen freaking years ago. It's...
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Therapeutic Parenting Journal & Attachment Trauma Network
Has anyone else heard of the Therapeutic Parenting Journal put out by the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN)? There are three issues a year and they come as part of the $50. annual membership fee. I've not joined before but am going to because I love virtually everything they post on Facebook. It's a great group if you are parenting kids with ACEs and/or if you are looking to understand how ACEs impact children. Or both. If you work with kids who have had lots of ACEs I have to think the...
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There is Only Rejection (www.beatingtrauma.com)
Another offering from Elisabeth Corey's Beating Trauma blog . Here's an excerpt: As a survivor of childhood trauma, I have spent my life surrounded by “all or nothing” people. And unfortunately, it made me an “all of nothing” person. I have spent years undoing the belief systems that come from a childhood like mine, but sometimes it feels endless (or maybe that’s my “all or nothing thinking again). I have had to unravel beliefs like: “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.” “Nobody will...
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There were no superheroes with Down syndrome. So this dad invented one. (upworthy.com)
Chip Reece was always a huge fan of comic books. But when his son, Ollie, was born with Down syndrome, Reece wondered if that was something they'd ever be able to share. When Reece was young, he looked up to the larger-than-life superheroes in his favorite comics. But there aren't a lot of stories out there that feature a hero with Down syndrome for Ollie to look up to. And that bothered him. So Reece decided to write a comic book of his own. Though not an artist or storyteller by trade,...
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This Is Us Helps People Get Real About Adoption & ACEs
One thing I've learned from adoption expert and social worker, Beth O'Malley , is that talking about hard topics is essential. She knows. She was adopted from foster care as an infant, was an adoption social worker for the Department of Children and Families, in Massachusetts, and is an adoptive mother. O’Malley says that’s it up to us, as parents to initiate conversations about adoption and to make it safe to share thoughts, feelings and experiences about anything. Addiction. Abuse. Loss.
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Thoughts to share
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” Lao Tzu “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Martin Luther King, Jr. “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” Malcolm X “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.” Malcolm X
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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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Title 'How To Stop Disrespecting Your Children' Caught My Eye
This article is written by Darcia Narvaez, PhD and is posted on Kindred Media . It got my attention because the title, 'How To Stop Disrespecting Your Kids' is geared specifically to parents. Many articles are written about parents but not to parents. And sometimes, articles talk about parents in ways that are so condescending they are hard to read. This article gives parents direct access to the ACEs test and the Aces Too High website which is also great to see. It does a decent job of...
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To Zoe’s Mom: I See You
I am not even sure where to start. But, I know I need to write about this. I need to give this to the world. Perhaps to another mother who is facing the darkness and can’t see her way out. Perhaps she is watching her children caught in the cyclone that is her life. I think she is who I am writing this for. And maybe for me too. I am doing some amazing work with a community that is fast becoming dear to my heart. I look at the people who keep showing up that are trying to wrap their heads...
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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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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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Trauma, Attachment, and Relationships
Interventions in the Attachment and Relationship Problems Trauma Can Cause Julie De Wilde Alfred Adler Graduate School Abstract Much research has been done on the negative effects of trauma on attachment, which then has negative effects on relationships. Research more recently has focused on the positive post traumatic growth that can happen when clients receive safe, healthy attachment to a therapist they can trust. Research also includes the benefits to the client when a therapist includes...
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Trauma-Informed Lens Podcast: Talking about Trauma of Divorce with Dr. Angela Cusimano
In this episode, Matt discusses the trauma of divorce with Dr. Angela Cusimano. On the list of Adverse Childhood Experience, Divorce is a unique type of family disruption. Dr. Cusimano shares her expertise in working with divorce survivors. https://connectingparadigms.org/blog/podcast/interview-with-dr-angela-cusimano-trauma-of-divorce/ Angela Cusimano is a psychologist and personal coach with decades of experience working with kids, families, and trauma survivors. She is a childhood divorce...
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Trauma Informed Parenting during the COVID-19 Pandemic
If your child has a traumatic history, what can you do to help them cope during this very uncertain and chaotic time?
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Trauma-Informed Parenting: Share Your Ideas, Questions, Insights & Plans
Hi Everyone: Sometimes it feels like we're building structures out of nothing and we're not sure if they will work, hold up or even be seen. That's true in our personal lives, at times, and our professional lives as well. This is a place to share. i get A LOT of great emails and they are often filled with questions and comments. Please post to the larger group as you are comfortable. Please share YOUR work and expertise, your personal experiences or observations. There are programs and plans...
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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 Parenting: What Adoptive & Foster Parents Can Help Teach, Part 1
People sometimes feel bad for adoptive parents. They think maybe our kids say, "You're not my real parents" on a daily basis and that we go to bed crying each night because we can't have kids of our "own." Do they think we had to "settle" for adoption or fostering? Do they worry we feel less than as parents? We don't. It's true that some of us have fertility issues. And maybe have grief about that. It's true that our children may love us and their birth parents, foster family members. It's...
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Trauma-Informed Parenting: What Adoptive & Foster Parents Can Teach, Part 2
I wonder how we can better support all parents so they (we) get enough support to be the reliable rocks our children require? And where can we get assistance when that's not possible?
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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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Two Texts to Show One Difference Between a High and Low ACE Score
I was leaving the house on the way to do something brand new and scary a few weeks ago. My two close friends, Heidi and Kathy, both sent me a text. One has an ACE score of 10. One has a below 4 score. The text from Kathy reminded me that I am loved and safe. She sent me a sticky note with affirmations and attempted to calm my nerves by reminding me that humans are caring and curious and want to know what others have to say. The other text was from Heidi. It said, "Beast mode today." That was...
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Understanding This Theory is Essential to Being Trauma-Informed
My typically happy, well-adjusted 11-year old daughter was having a melt downs of all melt downs. She was crying hysterically. I could hear her wailing downstairs as she was upstairs. I could feel my heart rate rising as her distress increased. I called up to my husband; “What is going on with Hannah?” Granted, the night before was a late Halloween night fueled by massive amounts of sugar. That right there renders a dire state in the body – little sleep, ample sugar. My gut twisted as I...
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Unique's Story (www.changingmindsnow.org)
I watched this video three times this morning. It's stunning and beautiful and emotional. It honors pain. "I just felt like I"m invisible. Maybe I should give up." Unique It offers hope. "It's hard to speak of Miss Daniels. She saved my life. Unique. It touches those of us who watch but it does more than that. It teaches. "If you can get to that pain. Because a lot of these children. My goodness. They just have something to say. They are crying out. They are acting out as their way of saying...
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Vacancy: Self-Worth in the Mind of a Childhood Abuse Survivor
The feeling of having a healthy supply of self-worth is something I can only imagine might have been more readily available, natural and automatic if I was able to see that in myself as a child. As an adult survivor of childhood abuse, self-worth was not supplied in healthy doses while growing up.
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Vision and Hearing Issues in Children who were Adopted from Other Countries, Article Abstract & Commentary from Mom who Adopted
I don't share many details about my daughter's health history or health issues because she, to date, is far more private than I am. Plus, she's still in her childhood. But, I am continually learning about early adversity, loss, transition, trauma, malnutrition through first-hand experiences and through research because stuff that happened fifteen and sixteen years ago when she was in utero, in another country as well as in an orphanage. All of those things still impact her and our family as...
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We need to start spoiling our black children (www.washingtonpost.com)
Note: I love this article by A.Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez as it speaks to race and parenting and addresses how racism makes parenting harder. How does one prepare and protect a child from a world where there is injustice? We talk a lot about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and that's crucial. Kids deserve to be safe at home. But the world isn't safe for all children even when children are without adverse childhood experiences the way we talk about them most, That's why we need to talk...
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WEBINAR: Addressing Attachment During the COVID Crisis
A risk of the household isolation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that constant parent-child conflict will lead to what is called interactional trauma that will cause lost or damaged attachment. This lost attachment can cause deep trauma that can last long after this crisis is over. To lower this risk and heal these wounds, Dr. Sells illustrates the use of the child’s love language and being unpredictable in an online counseling session with a single parent mom in crisis due to...
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WEBINAR: Surviving Family Trauma in Unusual Times - A Live Parent Interview
Dr. Scott Sells, the Founder of the Family Trauma Institute and an expert with families, interviews Sarah, a single parent mom, with four children. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought sudden change and stress to an already traumatized family. Sarah discusses the challenges and how the practical tools on knowing her children's love language combined with a clear written plan is a game-changer to help stabilize her family. If you are a parent or professional who wants concrete tools to help your...
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What Happens When Old and Young Connect (dailygood.org)
This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. has more people over 60 than under 18. That milestone has brought with it little celebration. Indeed, there are abundant concerns that America will soon be awash in a gray wave, spelling increased health care costs for an aging population, greater housing and transportation needs, and fewer young workers contributing to Social Security. Some fear a generational conflict over shrinking resources, a looming tension between kids and “canes.” As I...
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What is Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)?
Most people have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder that afflicts many men and women returning from a war zone. It is characterized by flashbacks, unstable moods, and survivor’s remorse. However, many have never heard of a condition that often develops in childhood and changes the course of the child’s life forever, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). For a good definition of CPTSD, we turned to Beauty After Bruises, an organization that offers outreach focused on adult...
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What Nobody Tells You About Parenting A Child With A History Of Extreme Trauma (www.huffingtonpost.com) & Commentary
Thank you to ACEs Connection member @Emily Read Daniels for sharing this essay written by Chris Prange-Morgan . It's a great read even if you are not a parent, have never adopted, or worked with families formed through adoption who deal with the complications of trauma and loss. I love this piece for so many reasons. I t's beautiful and heart-opening personal memoir. It's honest about parenting, still a rare thing. It speaks about the difference between studying trauma and living...
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What's Right with US!
Thoughts on the shift from, "What's wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?" Dear Monadnock Thrives & ACEs Connection: I have to admit, it has taken me some time to understand the value of shifting from, “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” As a person with high ACEs, I realize I have been absolutely conditioned by our culture to resist the victim label (I resist thinking about what happened to me) and to ‘own’ my response to whatever has happened to me (I must pursue...
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What to Do When You Lose Your Cool at Your Daughter (www.motheringanddaughtering.com)
The mother mentor in my life told me about this mother-daughter duo a few years ago. I checked out Sil and Eliza Roberts but their written words didn't resonate with me at the time. They seemed too wealthy or healthy or happy or capable. I just couldn't relate to them. I couldn't imagine mothers and daughters speaking this way, at all, never mind with one another.Plus, they weren't talking about trauma, loss or adversity or the struggles of people with addiction, disease or ACEs in the past...
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When a Mother Loves an Alcoholic - Parenting With ACEs
I was such a mother. I was also the daughter of an alcoholic. My mom died earlier this year. When a mother loves an alcoholic or is raised by an alcoholic, she is changed in profound ways - ways she has no idea are even present, yet ways that make her a confounding figure in her children's lives. At the root of these "ways" is her adverse childhood experiences. As I shared recently in my post, The Legacy of Untreated Secondhand Drinking ACEs , "[My] Mom and I talked about my realization that...
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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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When Is It Sex, and When Is It Sexual Abuse or Assault?
By understanding the difference between sex and sexual abuse, trauma survivors can understand that unwanted touching they experienced in the past was not sex. Sex is always consensual in a way that feels safe and pleasurable. Abuse occurs without your consent, and is never your fault.
Ask the Community
We are the We
Cissy White and I were talking about the Parenting with ACEs (this group as well as the process of parenting with ACEs). We got animated, excited and went on and on and on (as we often do when we get to talking!) We decided to write a joint blog post to tell you about our conversation and ask you to weigh in on what you want. Read on our attempt at a combined post: Gail's voice - I called to ask if Cissy thought there was need for a place on the Parenting with ACEs group site for parents to...
Ask the Community
What Do You Think Parents Need Most When Parenting with ACEs?
Hi Everyone: I'm building out the resources for this group. I'd love to know what you have needed in your own parenting or in the work you have done/are doing with parents parenting with ACEs. If there are any good books, videos, handouts or anything you've heard are helpful, please share. If you have any comments or insights that you've said or heard people talking about needing, like more community or places to learn how to parent differently, etc., please share those as well. Thanks so...
Calendar Event
Free Trauma Webinar: How to Engage Parents
Calendar Event
Parenting Weekend Intensive
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She Strived to Be the Perfect Mom and Landed in the Psych Ward [KQED]
Lisa Abramson says that even after all she’s been through – the helicopters circling her house, the snipers on the roof, and the car ride to jail – she still wants to have a second child. Because, in the beginning, when her daughter was born, Lisa was smitten, just like the mom she’d imagined she would be. She’d look into her baby’s round, alert eyes and feel the adrenaline rush through her. She had so much energy. She was so excited. “I actually was thinking like, ‘I don’t get why other...
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Sheltering in Place: ACEs-Informed Tips for Self-Care During a Pandemic
Millions of lives have been affected in unprecedented ways by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We are all grappling with uncertainty—our daily routines interrupted, not knowing what is to come. For those of us who have Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), these times can be particularly distressing. At the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), we know that childhood trauma can have a significant impact on an individual’s health and well-being – both physiologically and psychologically. Since the...
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Sherman Alexie’s incredible openness in two articles & audios (www.KUOW.org) & Commentary
"It all blends together. It's the way in which cruelty can be everyday ordinary to spectacular - but that it's a constant possibility. So that her unpredictable nature, her amazing beauty, and magic combined with her ability to be so mean." Sherman Alexie These articles , Facebook posts and audio clips and interviews with Sherman Alexie are so moving, beautiful and painful. It's like poetry, song, prayer or listening to birds in the trees. I may not get every message being shared but can...