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 help them listen to their children. Listening to children, in turn, has been shown to modify the way a child responds to stress, and protects against long-term negative effects of stress on the brain and on the body."
This includes listening about ACEs. Listening, all by itself, the author writes over and over and over is HELPFUL and HEALTHFUL. It's not passive. It's not nothing. It's essential, useful and promotes health.
It's really nice to hear a doctor say this even though, as patients of any kind, we already know this.
"We learn to listen by being listened to."
Again, this might be common sense but it doesn't seem to be given how listening is often in short supply.
If we've had lots of ACEs, if our basic needs and body cues and emotions were not listened to or heard or responded to, this impacts us. If we don't get this listening in the home, we need to get it at school and everywhere else. How can we possibly come to parenting, if we have rarely if ever been heard, and then know how to hear or listen to our own children?
Listening, tuning in, holding space and all "that stuff" is learned by doing, learned by practicing and so, if we've lacked this as children we need a whole heck of a lot of practice as adults.
SO MUCH of the parenting advice available tells parents what to do and how to do it and what we are doing wrong, and why, or what we are maybe doing right, and why.
There are almost no places to speak about our experiences as parents who are parenting. Let me re-phrase, we can talk casually and conversationally all over the place, when things are adorable, cute or when there are small mishaps.
"Parents who say, 'I don't want to raise Charlie the way I was raised,' do not need "expert" advice. They need to develop confidence in their natural intuition. The goal is to support parents' efforts to find a way of raising their children that is in keeping with themselves, with each other, and with their child."
If there are emotional or behavioral or ACE related issues, in us, as parents... where do we talk about this? Therapy, for many is one place. And it's a great place, for many. But for just as many, it's also not at all appealing, affordable, practical or effective.
We need other places as well.
"Children develop resilience when their struggles are acknowledged - but not erased - through the inevitable stresses of life."
This is true for adults, too. But so often, the acknowledgement part is skipped.
How many of us doing this ACEs work have had been asked about how hard, difficult or dangerous to talk about ACEs in appointments, with families or even at the workshops we're doing.
"Who is really hard for?" I often ask in response.
When my friend Eric's wife died, he was in his early 30's as was she. And I was not the best friend. I avoided asking about his sadness or his grief. I finally asked, "Is it o.k. to ask you about this because sometimes I'm afraid to bring it up in case you didn't want to think about it or talk about it right now."
He said, "I'm always thinking about it. All of the time," and in fact, so few of his peers had experienced the loss of a spouse that he was lonely with his grief.
I realized it was me that didn't want to talk about it or ask or bring it up because it was tender, vulnerable and emotional. I felt uneasy and uncertain and ill-prepared, and also afraid of offending, because I had not been through what he had been through.
Many of us have felt this when loved ones have gone through grief, illness or have dealt with some form of violence or oppression. Is this some of the resistance people feel and why there's avoidance of ACEs talk by some medical professionals?
Someone who has been through or who is emotional pain is rarely hurt by the acknowledgement of this fact. It's easy for all of us to forget this though.
I think doctors are sometimes afraid they have to take an entire life history or go into excruciating detail if ACEs talk comes up.
I'm not sure how often this fear is realized or if it comes from the disease model and the idea that trauma is something that only paid professionals can handle and that people have not lived with trauma for as long as humans have lived. It's in our fiction, poetry and history. We all know trauma and ACEs happen. We are often silent about it but it's not a secret to anyone, least of all people who spent a little or a lot of their lives living with and through it.
But back to this amazing book which directly and indirectly affirms that having the option of talking about our actual lives and experiences has a positive impact our health, mood and parenting.
Gold writes, "Parents are the original neuro-architects. When a child is struggling whether with sadness, anxiety or explosive behavior, a parent's "presence of mind" helps that child to make sense of and manage his own strong emotions. Parents themselves need to be supported so as to recognize what their child is experiencing, and be with their child in a way that promotes healthy emotional development."
Some of us, as parents, didn't get this as children. We didn't get it with our own parents and so, this being present and with feelings may feel intuitive, at the gut level, but that doesn't mean we have a lot of trust or skill.
We need safe places that are non-clinical and don't come with a diagnosis where we can explore, learn and share (which is why I'm just crazy about this book. It's also why I'm THRILLED about the parenting peer program Barb is working on now). It's genius.
"Parents may experience terrible shame about their own behavior. Parents share this kind of information only when they feel safe. Safety comes when there is time and space for nonjudgmental listening. When parents can make sense of their child's behavior, they are in an ideal position to support that child in managing her unique vulnerabilities."
Yes!
"This requires bringing into awareness the way their child's behavior may provoke their own difficult feelings, and in a sense moving these feelings out of the way. They can help their child to name feelings, identify provocative situations, and develop strategies to manage these experiences. It is the responsibility of the parent, not the child, to make sense of and find meaning in the behavior. The experience of anxiety is then incorporated into that child's emerging sense of self in a healthy way."
Yes!
"However, the disease model of biological psychiatry may lead us to try right away to get rid of the symptoms, often with medication alone, without treating the underling cause."
Hell Yes!
O.k., one last one for today because it's especially important for all of us passionate about ACEs science.
"When we place the problem squarely on the mother (parent), without opportunity to explore and understand the social, cultural and relational context, we are in effect communicating, 'There is something wrong with you and I will fix it."
This does not empower people. This does not make people feel seen and heard. This makes many of us wary of professionals and/or it makes us feel fundamentally flawed and broken. Feeling fundamentally flawed and broken, is a hard place to parent from - and feeling that others view as that way is double-whammy awful. What we need our spaces and places to understand context and to deal with reality.
I'm glad we are building that here at Parenting with ACEs. Now, I have to go back to reading.
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