Tagged With "toxic"

By Kay Lazar, The Boston Globe, October 15, 2019 Traumatic events and toxic relationships during childhood can cast long shadows, often damaging mental health well into adulthood. But a growing body of research suggests sustained, positive relationships with caring adults can help mitigate the harmful effects of childhood trauma. And specialists say pediatricians, social workers, and others who work with kids should take steps to monitor and encourage those healthy relationships — just as...

Toxic stress occurs in children when they experience prolonged episodes of physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness or economic hardship without adult support. This affects children in ways far more detrimental than typical stress. It makes children more likely to develop problems such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, obesity and diabetes later in life. Several organizations received a $1.1 million Bethesda Inc. grant to team up with pediatric...

Educators who look at learning from a developmental perspective know that the trauma and toxic stress associated with poverty can seriously interfere with a child’s brain development and inhibit learning. Children who have been overwhelmed by stress or exposure to violence, and experience lack of security frequently have difficulty controlling impulsive behavior and focusing their attention on tasks at school. While these behaviors are disruptive in classrooms – they are devastating to the...

How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch News Extreme stress and young brains are a bad combination, something that sets in motion feelings and behaviors that can haunt us long into adulthood. And just in time for the school year, a new study may help explain why. The Duke University study used neuro-imaging to look at the biological effect of childhood stress on the adult brain. It's important research, because it parallels existing knowledge...

A quiet, unsmiling little girl with big brown eyes crawls inside a carpeted cubicle, hugs a stuffed teddy bear tight, and turns her head away from the noisy classroom. The safe spaces, quiet times and breathing exercises for her and the other preschoolers at the Verner Center for Early Learning are designed to help kids cope with intense stress so they can learn. But experts hope there's an even bigger benefit — protecting young bodies and brains from stress so persistent that it becomes...

Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...

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...

This is a fabulous new movie about rural education in Bertie NC and the lives of three young men, regularly experiencing toxic stress and trauma. The lives of the people in Bertie -- the prisons, the teen pregnancies, the poor schools, the lack of support both economic and psycho-social is stunning in its presentation of reality. Movie makes you want to cry but it also serves to energize. As this review notes, take action; see the movie as a true call to action. Time is a wasting'.

What is the purpose of having school without power? I work in a small school in a big state. The local school community had the power shut over the weekend as a preventive action for avoiding fires. This morning I was told that there would be school without power and to plan to provide services and teach children without power. My instinct was - this is not safe!

This is an important article and the research is vital. Several things worry me however. I think we must stop using terms like "stress" when children are exposed to abusive adult acts: neglect, addiction etc. Stress is inaccurate in these circumstances and lets adults off the hook for their failure to properly care for children. Another thing that worries me: there is talk of "home" and "neighbourhood" which are important, but a child spends more time at school than in either. There is a...

By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...

There are many ways to become Trauma Informed, but the most efficient and effective way is to do your own self exploration and then understand your students.

A tool to consider in terms of ACEs and Education is the use of Theatre. What if one got a group of people together in a school or even Juvenile Hall and told them they were going to learn how to write a play, today. "Let's write a play about a kid who is growing up in a home where someone is getting hurt." "What's the kid's name? And is the house in town or out in the country? Who lives there? What are their names? What are they like?" etc. Given the anonymity of 'make-believe', people are...

Thank you Dr. Felitti! Wonderful ideas! Will share!

Leslie, Thank you for posting this blog! Just wanted to draw your attention to the toxic stress, abuse, and harm students are subjected to everyday in the name of education. "Poisonous Pedagogy" is a term Alice Miller coined to describe the negative practices adults impose on kids in the name of education. Students experience a range of stressors in the name of learning: test anxiety; curricula and standards that are developmentally inappropriate; bullying by staff, administrators, parents,...

Thank you Leslie for sharing this post! With several positive initiatives presently in our nation denoted in the article, I'm curious if you're aware of any additional knowledge on the umbrella project.... "Several of these initiatives are connected to an umbrella project developed by Ashoka Foundation in Alexandria, VA and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation in Baltimore, MD to improve the Wellbeing of Children." How can we align our comprehensive strategies collectively with policy and...

Congratulations Lee-Anne on your newest book, Self-Compassion for Teens , honored as No. #1 on Amazon's NEW RELEASE! Absolutely fabulous.

Thanks Dana! It was the #1 New Release in 2 categories: Emotional Mental Health AND also in Child Popular Psychology!

No PhD required- Anyone can easily Discern the TRUTH using only a Dictionary: "To pursue a policy of NATURAL IMMUNITY against a Deadly Epidemic is the literal definition of Genocide!" * University Students are even now being used as the modern version of SMALLPOX-BLANKETS! * Google the three words "Corcoran, Hillsdale College" to hear the head of education in FL under Gov. Desantis equate teaching of CRT with support of ANTIFA. At 33 minutes hear the very definition of bigotry & racism,...