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As reports of the carnage at Monday's Ariana Grande show in Manchester, England, continue to pour in, many teens with tickets to concerts during the coming summer music season may be reluctant to attend an event. But child and adolescent psychiatrists say it's important that parents let their teens follow through on their plans, even if the adults themselves are anxious about their letting kids go out. [For more of this story, written by Dennis Thompson, go to ...

We had our first Parenting with ACEs Group chat a few weeks ago. The full chat transcript is saved online. The topic was talking about tough topics with kids. I can't not think about the tragic world news . As we drove to school I asked my teen if she'd heard about the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert. We'd only been up for an hour. We hadn't been watching the news. But of course she had heard about it already. She learned about it on social media just as I had. Sometimes, I can still...

When her eldest son was in elementary school in the Oakland Unified School District, Ruth Woodruff became alarmed by the meals he was being served at school. A lot of it was frozen, processed foods, packed with preservatives. At home, she was feeding her children locally sourced, organic foods. Woodruff believes that feeding children well is a foundation of good education. “If kids come to school hungry, if they don’t have access to adequate nutrition ... their brains aren’t going to be...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recent directive to federal prosecutors to seek the harshest charges and sentences against defendants drew swift opposition from criminal-justice reform advocates both in and outside of government. The policy contrasts sharply with recent efforts to reduce America’s prison population—a goal that’s made odd bedfellows from across the political spectrum—and effectively rolls back Obama-era sentencing reforms. Not surprisingly, former Attorney General Eric...

For some women, enrolling in an engineering course is like running a psychological gauntlet. If they dodge overt problems like sexual harassment, sexist jokes, or poor treatment from professors , they often still have to evade subtler obstacles like the implicit tendency to see engineering as a male discipline. It’s no wonder women in the U.S. hold just 13 to 22 percent of the doctorates in engineering, compared to an already-low 33 percent in the sciences as a whole. Nilanjana Dasgupta ,...

In a small stucco home in San Leandro, California, eight-year-old Kevin is playing Minecraft at his kitchen table when the phone rings. His little sister hands the phone to their mother, Yibi Heras. "It's my dad," Kevin says casually, returning to his game. The call has come from West County Detention in nearby Richmond, where Kevin's father, Maguiber Filomeno Ramos, has been held since immigration agents arrested him at their home in February. [For more of this story, written by Laura...

“Structural racism” has become a buzzword in white progressive circles. But every time I push a white writer to break down the meaning behind the words without success, or I see a Black Lives Matter sign in an apartment window in a gentrified neighborhood where longtime residents of color are now priced out, I have to ask myself: How much we really know about the theoretically-woke words we’re throwing around? We’re finally starting to call out racial disparities, but do we understand the...

As Baltimore endures record violence, city police and prosecutors are turning to an unlikely source to unlock crime scene clues: children. The Police Department and state's attorney's office will announce Monday that they are partnering with trained interviewers at the Baltimore Child Abuse Center to question children who have witnessed violence or other crimes. The idea is both to help children deal with the trauma and to solve the crimes. [For more of this story, written by Yvonne Wenger,...

A new study suggests using a mindfulness approach helps weight loss. With obesity reaching epidemic proportions, mindful eating — focusing just on what we are eating, not watching television, surfing the Internet, or reading — has become a possible strategy for weight management. The new study, presented at the 2017 European Congress on Obesity (ECO), investigated the relationship between mindful eating and weight loss. [For more of this story, written by Janice Wood, go to ...

Has anyone seen this video posted on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICAMB) blog? "According to Dr. Ruth Lanius, a parent's experience of trauma can impact their ability to form a close, intimate relationship with their child." Ruth Buczynski, PhD Those of us Parenting with ACEs sure know that's the truth. Developmental trauma impacts our ability to form close and intimate relationships with ourselves, other adults and our children. The video was...

Concord, California Police Chief Guy Swanger talks about Domestic Violence, Policing and the Family Justice Center

First 5 Marin Children and Families Commission featured Jane Stevens in a Marin Communications Forum event on Monday, May 15. Thanks to the hard work of host Michelle Fadelli of First 5 Marin, a full Embassy Suites ballroom of up to 180 Marin County service providers, from a variety of agencies, gathered.