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While stress in children and parents can be difficult to identify until it’s too late, a relatively new test seeks to change that. The ACE test, which can reveal the level of emotional duress and what can be done to stabilize it, was the subject of a discussion drawing scores of people to The Colonial Theatre on Main Street in Keene Thursday night. ACE is an acronym for Adverse Childhood Experiences. Audience members first watched a movie, “Resilience: The Biology of Stress & the Science...

The clinic is unassuming, in an office building just blocks from the revitalized downtown strip in Winter Garden, Fla., 30 minutes from Orlando. As you head up to the third floor, you might share the elevator with pregnant women making small talk in Spanish, a grandmother holding a newborn in a carrier, or a white woman with a baby strapped to her chest in an eco-friendly wrap. When you enter the Birth Place, a friendly, bilingual receptionist greets you. After you’ve checked in, you can...

No group is as linked to poverty in the American mind as single mothers. For decades, politicians, journalists and scholars have scrutinized the reasons poor couples fail to use contraception, have children out of wedlock and do not marry. When the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution formed a bipartisan panel of prominent poverty scholars to write a “Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty” in 2015, its first recommendation was to “promote a new cultural norm surrounding...

Children of Addiction (COA) Awareness Week is an annual celebration near and dear to my heart for many reasons, not the least of which are my personal experiences as a child of an alcoholic and as a child with four ACEs - three of which were the result of secondhand drinking (explained below). COA Week is an annual event celebrated during the week of Valentine’s Day - this year it's February 11 - 17. It is sponsored by the National Association for Children of Addiction, NACoA.org . NACoA’s...

On a snowy Saturday morning in January, Selvin, 13, and his mother were in the basement of the First and Summerfield United Methodist Church in New Haven, to support a friend in sanctuary . As they sat there, the boy tried to push away thoughts of how it would be when ICE came to take away his own mother, who is also under a deportation order. “I’m going to be alone with my little brother and my dad,” Selvin said. “Sometimes I feel I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just go to my room, lock...

O.k. this event is happening next week in Boston. Doesn't it look great? I can't wait. But even if you can't make the event, can you share what this topic means or brings up for you? I'd love to have some conversation around that topic. I'll start. Discipline is hard for me. I don't like the word. I associate it with firm, strict, mean, and abusive. I get that firm and abusive are not the same when I'm feeling rational but when emotional, firm and abusive can feel really close to the same...

Children who have lived through traumatic experiences and therefore display “difficult” behaviour need far better support, a charity has stated. YoungMinds is calling for a Government strategy to help these children who are “too often misunderstood by the services that should support them”. The charity’s new report, ‘ Addressing Adversity ’, argues that these kids don’t get the help they need because of this misunderstanding, yet they are the ones who often need it most. [For more on this...

On Sunday, Politico reported that Ivanka Trump , the president's daughter and special adviser, and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) have begun strategizing how best to advance a new paid family leave proposal. The reporting comes on the heels of President Donald Trump 's State of the Union Speech, in which he specifically called for a national paid family leave policy. At the moment, it seems unlikely the issue will get much attention this year. Congress is currently struggling with a number...

A decade of work with children damaged by horrific experiences has shown a Duke researcher that the first step forward is ensuring the child knows that trauma is not destiny. “It’s saying something bad happened to you, not that you’re a bad kid,” says Katie Rosanbalm , research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy . For the past 10 years, Rosanbalm has been working with local school systems and child services agencies in North Carolina to better identify and treat children who...

Part of the fun of being deeply immersed in the world of trauma and resilience is that you get to learn about pioneers around the world doing great work. Better still, sometimes you're able to persuade them to bring their work to LA! Kirstie Seaborne is based in the UK, where she supports parents and professionals in "responding to children under pressure." She does this by helping adults rewrite their embodied response to challenging behaviors. Kirstie already had a career in dance and...

Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...

Sarah Shanley Hope's story is frighteningly common. As a kid, she went over to her neighbor's house one day to play with her best friend. While there, her friend's older brother sexually assaulted both of them. Hope was only 6 years old. Being so young, she didn't know how to verbalize what happened or how to process it. She carried the pain with her for years, until she had daughters of her own. She told her own girls from the beginning, "You're in charge of your body." But at times, the...