Blog

If you haven't heard about this yet, this is an amazing opportunity to lift up and support the resilience of foster youth by publishing a book of their stories! Here is a link to a video explaining the book project and their kickstarter campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMGATnMOTVw&feature=youtu.be

Community is the anti-trauma. Children who grow up in trauma are wired for trauma -- it is the lens through which they see the world -- unless that trauma is disrupted by a love of peace. That peace comes from quiet moments reading, time in nature, time when there is no fear or expectation. It takes a lot for a parent with high ACEs to learn how to calm the mind and body enough to provide that calm space for children. ACEs are crafty. Their impact pops up across the lifespan, and for women,...

We are excited to share two flyers which can be downloaded, distributed, or used freely. One is brand new and the other is a revision. They are titled as follows (and attached below): Parenting to prevent and heal ACEs Understanding ACEs 1. Parenting to prevent and heal ACEs This brand new flyer us based on the work of Donna Jackson Nakazawa who worked with us and generously allowed us to paraphrase content from her book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology & How...

Stressful times push people to the limits. For many young people, stress comes from tuition bills, roommates who are late on rent, and job interviews that might have gone better with the right degree or certificate in hand. For new parents, it’s daycare bills, diapers and work days that might have gone better with more than three hours of sleep. Now imagine going through both sets of experiences at the same time. Combining young adulthood with parenthood is not easy, but nearly 3 million...

Much has been written about what happens to mothers hormonally during pregnancy and after, but what about fathers? In a first-of-its-kind study, University of Notre Dame Assistant Professor of Anthropology Lee Gettler and lead author Patty Kuo, visiting assistant professor of psychology, focused on how dads' biology around the birth of their children relates to their parenting down the road. They partnered with Notre Dame psychologists and Memorial Hospital of South Bend to analyze...

Many blog readers know that my niece Carly is a survivor of the Parkland shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You may know that my father also survived a mass murder, and like Carly, hid in a closet until the police arrived. Almost 70 years separated the two tragedies. Our guest blogger this week is my sister Merri, Carly's mom. Merri shares her first-hand account of what happened the afternoon of February 14, 2018, when Carly sent this text, “Mom don’t freak out but we are on...

Fred Rogers, in his 1969 testimony before the Senate subcommittee on communications in defense of public television, transforms a clearly skeptical Senator Pastore from, "Alright Rogers you've got the floor" to, "Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars." How does he accomplish this transformation? One line from Senator Pastore gives us some insight. Several minutes into Mr. Rogers testimony he says, "This is the first time I've had goosebumps in the last two days," to which Rogers...

The Blind Willie Johnson blues song “Motherless Children” highlights the maternal bonds that we all know are critical to emotional and cognitive development. Authors of previous work looking at infant stress response have found that these bonds begin in utero and can be influenced by both maternal and paternal influences and across multiple generations. 1 The observations of Barker et al 2 on the Dutch famine birth cohort of World War II were perhaps the first published observations of this...

Christine “Cissy” White is leading a movement to make sure that parents with high Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores have the resources and support they need to end the trend of generational trauma that so many have i nherited and unknowingly passed on to their children. The voice of the parent is first and foremost in Cissy’s plan of action. To reach this goal, Cissy had to first find her own voice, which she has done brilliantly through writing, speaking and leading workshops.

Within three days of starting high school this year, my ninth-grader could not get into bed before 11 p.m. or wake up by 6 a.m. He complained he couldn't fall asleep but felt foggy during the school day and had to reread lessons a few times at night to finish his homework. And forget morning activities on the weekends — he was in bed. We're not the only family struggling to get restful shut-eye. "What parents are sharing with us is that the 'normal life' of a typical American high schooler...

Here is a great website from the Five for Families public awareness campaign that explains the Strengthening Families 5 Protective Factors to parents. It has parent-friendly language, videos, questions to consider, and parenting ideas. https://fiveforfamilies.org/

Here's a link to an infographic and downloadable flyer on ACEs from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.