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We had our first Parenting with ACEs Group chat a few weeks ago. The full chat transcript is saved online. For those who want highlights only and follow-up from our featured guest, Beth O'Malley, please find the following: Beth O'Malley: Talking Tough Topics as Social Worker, Parent & Adoptee How Lived Experience Can Be a Professional Asset Sharing Our Questions, Issues & Experiences How to Start Having Hard Conversations How to Talk with Teens ACEs as an AHA or Conversation Starter...

The juvenile justice system as originally conceived was based on the idea that young people who came into conflict with the law should be given the opportunity for reflection and reform. The earliest places of juvenile confinement were intended to rehabilitate young people, and help them become productive members of society. Over time, particularly in the 1990s, juvenile justice came to focus more on retribution and punishment. Kids were placed out of home for longer periods in increasingly...

American teens are hitting the bottle less often than they did 25 years ago, new research reveals. The analysis found that while 5 percent of 13-year-olds frequently binge drank between 1991 and 1998, only 2.6 percent were doing so in 2015. Among 18-year-olds, that number fell from 20 percent to less than 15 percent in the same time frame. "Frequent binge drinking" was defined as knocking back five or more drinks in a row, on two or more separate occasions, over the span of two weeks. And...

As if it isn't tough enough being an overweight kid, a new study shows it could have long-lasting repercussions for psychological health, too. When compared with normal-weight kids who become overweight adults, overweight or obese youth in the study faced three times the risk of depression in adulthood, the research found. And, that risk was more than four times greater if they were overweight or obese in both childhood and adulthood, the investigators reported. [For more of this story,...

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...

They’re the only nonprofit of their kind in the Nashville-area and they want your help breaking the cycle of poverty and making sure all children have clean diapers. “We’ve got about 80,000 diapers in here,” explained Doug Adair, the man behind the Nashville Diaper Connection Warehouse. Adair started the city’s only diaper bank in 2013 in a corner of his garage. “You can’t buy diapers with food stamps, you can’t buy diapers with women infant and children vouchers, and there are no federal...

They’re the only nonprofit of their kind in the Nashville-area and they want your help breaking the cycle of poverty and making sure all children have clean diapers. “We’ve got about 80,000 diapers in here,” explained Doug Adair, the man behind the Nashville Diaper Connection Warehouse. Adair started the city’s only diaper bank in 2013 in a corner of his garage. “You can’t buy diapers with food stamps, you can’t buy diapers with women infant and children vouchers, and there are no federal...

On May 23 at 7 PM, Chicago Volunteer Doulas will present a special screening and panel discussion of The Chicago Maternity Center Story , an important documentary recently restored by Kartemquin Films. Birth center and home birth delivery for low risk women, doulas (trained labor support coaches) and breast-feeding support all help to optimize birth outcomes for mothers and babies, prevent re-traumatization of women and families, and set the stage for secure attachment relationships, which...

Article by Susannah Wellford. I'm sitting on the couch next to my son James. It's Mother's Day, late afternoon, and we are watching a dumb movie on TV procrastinating making dinner and doing homework. It is the happiest I have been all day – hanging out with my son, doing nothing. A lot of my favorite parenting moments are like this. I find a tremendous amount of joy just being with my children, not doing anything special. I appreciate this together time all the more because I know how...

As you walk through the courtyard of the Sonoma (California) Charter School (SCS) sounds of stomping feet, clapping hands, and children’s voices singing “round and round” and “shake shake” pour from the performing arts space called the Playbox. Inside, 10 first-graders wearing silk tunics, holding brightly colored fabric pieces , wriggle on the floor like worms, jumping like kangaroos, then gently throw feathers from an imaginary bird in the air. You’ve stepped into the world of...

Note: I just saw this article , and it's one alarming and depressing read and super relevant read. Lots of us take these medications and/or have kids, parents, and partners who do as well. Did you know about the increased risk for dementia associated with them? I didn't. To evaluate possible effects, the investigators turned to a nationwide sample of 417,172 US veterans aged 56 years or older who had not been diagnosed with dementia or mild cognitive impairment at baseline in 2003 and for...

When Kendra Wright was incarcerated for drug-related offenses at Oregon’s only women’s prison, her then-6-year-old daughter, Selene, was placed in the care of Wright’s grandparents. Prohibited from speaking to Selene, Wright cherished what little contact she had: Wright’s grandmother would call her while Selene was in the same room. “It was the only way I could hear her little voice,” Wright said. But in 2013, Wright was accepted to the Family Preservation Project, an initiative then run by...