These are all good points. Toxic stress is indeed less loaded than child abuse, Chris. As you point out, that's what Jack Shonkoff (Harvard Center on the Developing Child) is using as an easy way to understand all this.
Laura, your points made me realize that we have a lot of educating to do about what trauma is, especially since verbal abuse is right up there with sexual abuse by a family member has causing the most damage, according to Martin Teicher and Vincent Felitti.
Richard -- have you identified any words besides peace, safety and non-violence?
The more reporting I do on this, the more I see how we're stuck in blaming/punitive language, as you mention, Chris, which practically causes a knee-jerk reaction to rely on punishment rather than taking the time to think through a solution. It's nice to see organizations taking a different approach, such as the LA City Council in changing its policy on ticketing truant kids (that's in today's news roundup).