Trauma-Informed Parenting

Malte Mueller/Getty Images/fStop To read more of Andee Tagle's article, please click here. It may sound counterintuitive, but if you want to take charge as a parent, stop trying to control your child, says psychologist and author Shefali Tsabary . Her book, The Parenting Map , outlines how to create conscious parent-child relationships by focusing on the reactions you have to your child's behavior rather than the behavior itself. "We keep expecting the child to change and keep trying to...

Image: Janice Chang for NPR To read more of Yuki Noguchi's article, please click here. Two mothers — Jen McLellan in Albuquerque, N.M., and Grace, of Bethesda, Md. — haven't met, but they share a common childhood trauma: Both came of age in the 1980s and '90s feeling burdened by shame and stigma over their body size. Both tried every known diet plan and pill available at the time, only to have doctor after doctor admonish them to restrict calories and exercise still more. Since then,...

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY LONG ' "Mental health problems in teens can sometimes take unexpected forms. Depression and anxiety can manifest as irritability and noncompliance, which parents may reasonably view as disrespect and laziness. Understanding what is beneath those behaviors is challenging. Teens are quite secretive, so they may not disclose the extent of their struggles." To read more of Toria Herd & Sarah A. Font's article, please click here. More than 44% of teens reported persistent...

To read more of Jacalyn please click here. My heart dropped when I read the message from my friend. Normally the exchange is pleasant and I look forward to our conversations but before I even opened the message, the preview told me that something was wrong. All I could see was, "Did you hear about Edith's son?" I hesitated before opening the message because I knew it wouldn't be good, and sadly, I was right. Our friend posted that she was planning funeral services for her 15-year-old son,...

By Amanda Ruggeri, BBC, Image credit: Getty Images, November 16, 2022 Motherhood is hard – and many women have conflicting feelings about the role. Why is saying this so off limits? Even before having her first child, Libby Ward knew what kind of mother she wanted to be. Patient. Loving. Intentional. But her hopes went beyond that, especially when she looked at the mothers in her social circle. She wanted to emulate them in other ways, too: home-made meals, pristine houses, nap schedules.

By Aparna Bole, MD, FAAP & Claire McCarthy, MD, FAAP, HealthyChildren.org Every day, pediatricians see how climate change affects children’s physical and mental health. When pediatricians talk with parents about what’s good for their kids, part of our job is connecting the dots between climate change and their child’s health. Connecting the dots For example, pediatricians often talk with parents about how a healthy diet and exercise help children grow into healthy adults. When we talk...

By Blanca Torres, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, Illustration by Anna Vignet/KQED, September 30, 2022 Jasmine Cuevas stood at her kitchen stove preparing migas, stirring a pan of eggs and tortillas before calling her four children to dinner. She spooned servings onto plates while asking each about their day. “I get out of work, get them from school and then we come straight home,” she said. “And, it’s a wreck: dinner, homework, reading, bath and then bedtime by 7:30 at the...

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash 'Lighthouse parenting' can help make raising teens less rocky. To read more of Christine Organ's article, please click here. Dr. Ken Ginsburg’s advice for parents is like a hug, TED talk and Masterclass rolled into one. As a parent of teens, I often wonder: W hy didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this? I don’t mean the warnings and complaints about how challenging the teen years are. I don’t mean all of the “just you wait” admonitions. I don’t mean the...

By Blanca Torres, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, October 18, 2022 When Mariana Pimentel thinks about her childhood in a small town in Mexico, she remembers being surrounded by anger and desperation. Her parents worked long hours to support Pimentel and her brothers and sisters, so they were often absent. When they were home, her parents communicated by yelling. “I want my kids to grow up in a different environment from how I grew up and not repeat the same mistakes,” said...

By Roy Boorady, MD, Child Mind Institute, August 18, 2022 All kids worry sometimes. But when worry makes it hard for them to participate in daily life, they may have an anxiety disorder. Because anxiety often affects a child’s thoughts and feelings more than it affects their behavior, it can be hard to spot. It’s also possible for a child to be generally happy but still so anxious that it interferes with some aspect of their life, like school or socializing. Common outward signs that a child...

By American Heart Association Newsroom, October 10, 2022 The American Heart Association releases new survey highlighting mealtime impact on mental well-being and introduces Together Tuesdays™ to help people maximize health benefits of shared meals Survey Highlights: 91% of parents notice their family is less stressed when they share family meals together. 65% of surveyed adults say they are at least somewhat stressed, and more than a quarter (27%) are very or extremely stressed. 84% of...

Canva Your child being diagnosed with a mental health condition is not a parental failure. Author: To read Jacalyn Wetzel's article, please click here. Getting a mental health diagnosis for a child can sometimes knock the wind out of people because as parents the single most important job we have is to get our children to adulthood with as little trauma as possible. We taxi them to different sports, sign ourselves up for field trips and make sure they make it to their well-child visits. We...