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I found a great series of parenting videos today . While they are geared towards helping foster parents communicate, build trust and handle challenging situations - the videos are great for all parents. The advice is kind, wise and sound - especially for those of us Parenting with ACEs. It’s nice to hear about parenting and traumatic stress in relation to working through real-life conflicts and situations. The videos are accessible and show how body language, shaming or the facial...

There is a national challenge to understand child and adult welfare. I have spent my whole life...42 years being trained to advocate and teach healthy dynamics, and for me it was life and death because my ACE score was either going to be a crutch or a gift. My training began in my mother's womb. I started my development out being fed stress chemicals, and fear chemicals, because my mother was surrounded by toxic stress, poor choice behaviors, and a family who did not support her. She is one...

If someone lives through trauma I see that as a success. Not everyone does. But what makes people feel supported, encouraged or able to grow varies enormously. I loved reading about this woman's perspective based on her own experiences. I especially like the way she talks about how painful pity can be and some of my most healing relationships were with people who had compassion for what I'd lived through but who were completely certain that I had as much potential as anyone or saw living...

Note: I saw this story earlier and was thinking of how this gathering or parents and elders happens (or doesn't) on neighborhood steps or at park benches or at coffee hour at church. So much of what we need is each other. Excerpt: While completing his master's in public health, Chibanda was looking for a solution. After speaking with various community leaders and health workers, he figured out that while people were loathe to head to a mental clinic and speak with a lab-coated medical...

“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” –bell hooks One of the most notable descriptors of trauma-informed care is shifting the question of what is wrong...

For generations, parents have told kids to go outside and play. Now, a new study suggests an added benefit to that advice -- physical activity may lower children's risk of depression. The researchers assessed about 700 children at ages 6, 8 and 10. Kids who got regular moderate-to-vigorous exercise were less likely to develop depression over those four years, the investigators found. Previous studies have found that physically active teens and adults seem to have a lower risk of depression.

This is a fascinating interview, overall, and it's wonderful to see that even in the scientific community ideas about traumatic stress are changing and growing. Here's an excerpt: At least we are getting closer to understanding that not all the action occurs at the time of the trauma. That the stage might be set in advance, we are actually an accumulation of our experiences, and we hold biologic changes and then use them to respond differently to traumatic events as they emerge in our lives.

In the race to dominate the child abuse prediction market , the world’s largest data analytics firm has its eye on what it calls “perpetrator” networks. SAS , with a global workforce of 14,000 and $3.16 billion in revenue in 2015, delivered Florida’s Department of Children and Families a lengthy technical report in August of last year. The report claimed that the firm had developed the strongest child abuse prediction algorithm to date by focusing on the many adults in a child’s life who...

When we speak of ACEs we do so, almost universally, as adults. But the adverse experiences lived through are lived through by children, as children, while children. When I look at the photos in the Survivor Gallery I feel sad and old. I remember childhood and the way I felt as a kid, while a kid. Ancient. Lost. Confused. All at the same time. Today, I'd say ancient-lost-confused is code for anxiety or helplessness or too alone. But I didn't know that as a kid. As a kid, I felt wrong and bad...

A trigger is a reaction that is more instinctive and immediate, lacking our typical skill or thought, that has ties to our conditioning of the past. At the point our conditioning takes over, our amygdala amps up, which is the little almond in our brain that detects danger and tells our fight or flight reactions to kick in. Our amygdala comes in very handy at times, however, it’s not the best at determining when danger is real or not. So, let’s use three mindful approaches with roots in...

I just received Bridging the Relationship Gap: Connecting with Children Facing Adversity. It is written by Sara Langworthy, PhD. who is also a You Tuber. Her content is engaging and accessible. Anyhow, she's starting an online book study group and parents and professionals and people who care about ACES might want to participate. CEU's are offered. She is also got a discount code for her book and is making it available via audio for those who prefer listening rather than reading as I...

Hello. I wanted to introduce myself to this group. My name is Rene Howitt and I'm the founder a non-profit child advocacy organization, COPE24....Changing Our Parenting Experience. Our mission is "To significantly reduce incidences of child abuse and neglect." Our methodology is through parenting education. I've been working with Family Consumer Science (FACS) and health teachers since 2008. We believe that parenting education should be a priority in all of our high schools, reaching all of...