Tagged With "love"

From the American Academy of Pediatrics, February 5, 2020 One of the most important parts of parenting is also the sweetest: showing your child plenty of love and affection. “Building strong bonds and a positive relationship with your child has a nurturing effect on their physical, emotional, and social development,” said Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and medical editor of its parenting website, HealthyChildren.org. “As parents, the...

Goblins and ghosts don’t scare me. What scares me is what scares many grandparents across the U.S., a grandchild at risk. Recently I was talking with a friend about my situation as guardian of my grandson, and she confided in me. She told me she’s scared every time her grandson goes back home with his mom. My friend “helps out” when her daughter finds herself in a tough spot. My friend worries there’s enough for her grandson to eat when he’s home with his mom. She worries he’s safe from the...

"PTSD can take a heavy toll on relationships. It can be hard to understand your loved one’s behavior—why they are less affectionate and more volatile. You may feel like you’re walking on eggshells or living with a stranger. You may have to take on a bigger share of household tasks, deal with the frustration of a loved one who won’t open up, or even deal with anger or disturbing behavior. The symptoms of PTSD can also lead to job loss, substance abuse, and other problems that affect the whole...

There are many benefits to learning how to feel your emotions. One is it helps you become a more compassionate, empathetic parent. The weekend before I flew to Iceland, I pulled my luggage out of our storage room and came across the boxes I’m saving for my girls. These boxes contain all of my daughters’ art, birthday decorations, cards, diaries, etc., from the time they were little girls. It was a family weekend, so we all decided to go through these mementoes together. It was a sweet...

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” Lao Tzu “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Martin Luther King, Jr. “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” Malcolm X “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.” Malcolm X

I am not even sure where to start. But, I know I need to write about this. I need to give this to the world. Perhaps to another mother who is facing the darkness and can’t see her way out. Perhaps she is watching her children caught in the cyclone that is her life. I think she is who I am writing this for. And maybe for me too. I am doing some amazing work with a community that is fast becoming dear to my heart. I look at the people who keep showing up that are trying to wrap their heads...

I was such a mother. I was also the daughter of an alcoholic. My mom died earlier this year. When a mother loves an alcoholic or is raised by an alcoholic, she is changed in profound ways - ways she has no idea are even present, yet ways that make her a confounding figure in her children's lives. At the root of these "ways" is her adverse childhood experiences. As I shared recently in my post, The Legacy of Untreated Secondhand Drinking ACEs , "[My] Mom and I talked about my realization that...

A few months ago I published a blog, " A Mother's Rage". I re-accounted my rage and helplessness regarding my daughter's high school rape in Miami, FL. I ended my post with words of hope. I wrote how several years had passed since my daughter's assault. She was now engaged and pregnant with my first grandchild.  This is the rest of the story. I held my daughter's hand as she labored through the night with my grandson. I tried to comfort her fiancee who felt helpless. I rubbed her back,...

By Annabelle Timsit, Quartz Africa, October 8, 2019 Like many three-and-a-half year olds, Odille Igirimbabazi loves to sing and dance. On a recent morning in her home, wearing her favorite blue and yellow dress and clutching a doll that her dad, James, made for her, she sings religious songs and sways energetically as James watches, claps, and smiles, tapping his feet. When she finishes, he scoops her up into his arms to tell her how proud he is. “Bravo!” If this seems a common family scene,...

Limbic revision is simply another name for revising and rewiring the faulty development of our brain, namely our limbic system. In simple terms in order to truly heal we need to experience deep and attuned loving care.

By Katarina Sayally, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 25, 2019 If you haven’t heard enough stories about what breaking the intergenerational cycle of foster care looks like, I want to share one. This is our story, and it’s a good one. When I found out I was pregnant, the only fear I had was, “What if my baby ends up in foster care?” As a former foster youth who works in the field, I am constantly reminded of this possibility. One study found that mothers in foster care were twice as...

This has been quite a week, and we are now facing major disruptions in our own family lives. There is no doubt that the events of this winter and spring will be memorable for children. In that spirit, here are a few ideas to help make those memories (at least somewhat) happy.

Pregnancy is often welcomed with joy and hope however, many challenges and distress may still occur during a mother’s pregnancy. Any concerns simple or complex may impact the wellness of the mother, her baby and cause stress on her multiple relationships. Oftentimes, mothers have to face planned or unplanned life changing events.

Today I interview interview psychiatrist Susana De Leon, MD, who explains how early trauma changes our DNA by damaging telomeres, with potentially serious consequences for our health and longevity. We talk about how she helps people build lives full of love and connection, which can measurably change the health of their cells (and the length of their telomeres) for the better. Click here to watch the video .

Today is a six-year milestone for me: I've just uploaded my book "Don't Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder" to Amazon's editors! 😸 😍 It should be on sale 2nd half November. A professional artist designed a new book cover so I also just changed my website today to show it off. Here's my new website showing parts of the book jacket: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/allan-schore/

Congratulations Kathy

Lisa: This is beautiful and honest and hopeful. And you make me think, as your writing always does, about some of the impacts I don't always think about in my own life or in my own mothering. THANK you!!! Please keep sharing. I started to highlight the lines I loved but there were too many. Cissy

Thanks so much, Cissy!

Thanks for this very concrete and useful post and list! I so appreciate you saying we cant go back to change our parenting but we def can choose today to "create new healthy memories as a family. Today we can begin again!

Svava: This brought a tear to my eye. Thank you for being so honest and hopeful. It must have been painful to hear you weren't there for your daughter, but it sounds like you got a chance to re-parent her in the way you were able to respond. That's so hopeful and realistic because parenting is hard and we often don't know what we don't or didn't know, til later. But it is not too late. Thank you for this. I'm sharing on Facebook, too. Cissy

Perhaps, that is the true miracle of resilience. The option to start fresh, even while I am still in pain. To build my life upwards, though triggers keep me scurrying back to shore up and re-lay crumbling foundations.

For people who were abused and neglected in childhood, one of the cruelest ways the damage shows up is in romantic relationships. Too many of us go through life either alone, or in relationships where we’re not loved, not safe, and not happy. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you have Childhood PTSD and you’re wondering why you keep attracting people who are either dysfunctional, unavailable or abusive -- you’re going to want to read this... READ FULL BLOG POST or.. WATCH THE VIDEO ON...

As humans, we have a basic, primal need to belong. Belonging is defined as ‘the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group . It is when an individual can bring their authentic self to others, including friendships, family and work.’ Feeling disconnected, unimportant, or not cared about can translate into feelings of loneliness. This has led to much of the suffering our society is experiencing today. Cigna...

The 35 th Anniversary edition of Dr. Louise Hart’s parenting classic is revived with her daughter, Kristen Caven. Kristen Caven and Dr. Louise Hart are a mother-daughter writing team who teach social and emotional well-being for parents and children of all ages. Their latest book, The Winning Family: Where No One Has to Lose helps readers develop the win-win life skills that build self-esteem, confidence, and unconditional love in family relationships. First published in 1987 by Dodd, Mead,...

One of the biggest fallouts from the pandemic is that parent-child conflict was amplified or exacerbated to an extremely high level. At the Family Trauma Institute, we call this “interactional trauma” or constant conflict between parent and child (drama=trauma) that leads to resentment, bitterness, and lost attachment. Often, the quickest way to heal this type of deep trauma is through the child or adolescent’s love language. Each child has a special one. For some its “words of affirmation”...

(l-r) Judge J. Corpening; Ben David, district attorney, New Hanover County; Chief Justice Paul Newby; Judge Andrew Heath, executive director, Administrative Office of the Courts of the Chief Justice's ACEs Informed Courts Task Force. David and Heath serve as Task Force co-chairs . “There is not any more important work going on in the State of North Carolina,” said Ben David, District Attorney for New Hanover County and co-chair of the Chief Justice’s ACEs-Informed Task Force . The Task force...

Combining three generations of family experience with ACES research and positive psychology, THE WINNING FAMILY helps prevent dysfunctional behaviors and discipline problems from the inside out.