Tagged With "Stolen Breaths"
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4 Jedi Mind(fulness) Tricks to Help an Anxious Child (themighty.com)
Middle school hurt. Social intimidation, academic challenges and parental pressures all set against the backdrop of swirling hormones and my personal penchant for worry . Around age 12, my anxiety really took flight and started to knock the wind right out of me — literally. The smallest challenges sparked internal firestorms of thoughts that manifested in stomachaches, crying, and often shortness of breath. My parents tried to cleave me from the throes of panic with consistent love and...
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A Reflection of Real Life and the Amazing Influence of People: The Saga of C-PTSD Continues
Cissy Note on Leisa's Amazing Post: This post isn't about parenting, specifically, but it is about C-PTSD which many parents are living with, sorting through and recovering from. I felt so much compassion for and admiration of Leisa reading this. I even felt some compassion for myself. I wonder how many others, while facing our ACEs feel the compassion of others or ourselves? I wonder if anyone, while battling symptoms, feels respected or admired? There can be so much shame. I hope that if...
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Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
In an unprecedented global shutdown, many of us, especially without the noise and distraction of everyday life, are facing intensified, often destabilizing feelings. And that includes kids—whether they’re able to say so or not.
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How It Feels & How We Heal: Parenting with ACEs Chat Quotes (You Tube, Database, PDFs, Links)
Parenting with ACEs is sharing inspiration, information, and expertise from our chat series in 3 formats. Parenting with ACEs: How It Feels & How We Heal Quote Collection (pdf version below as well) Quotes Database (pdf version below as well) Links to Chat Transcripts and before and after-the-chat blog posts. Thanks to everyone who showed up, who shared, and who is doing the important work that is our mission (prevent ACEs, heal trauma, build resilience). We know that work happens...
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How Mindfulness Can Help Kids (and Parents!) Weather Emotional Storms (pbs.org)
All children have times when they become overwhelmed, overloaded or overstimulated. In her new book Under Pressure , psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour shares the helpful phrase, “Let’s settle your glitter.” Imagine a bottle filled with water and glitter. Now shake it vigorously: that’s a child’s brain during an emotional meltdown. My favorite technique — with preschools and adults — is mindful breathing. When we are anxious or upset, our breathing often becomes rapid and shallow. It’s a normal...
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The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy (Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association)
Grabbe L, Miller-Karas E. The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 2017; 24 (1): 76-84.
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Thich Nhat Hanh answers children’s questions. "Is Nothing Something?" (lionsroar.com)
Children have a special place in the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. There are special practices, vows, and programs designed especially for children and teens, and Thich Nhat Hanh often fashions the first part of his dharma talks with them in mind. He regularly takes questions from children, and by and large adults can identify with what they ask. Children may be smaller and younger and they may have a funny way with words, but their questions reveal that they,...
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Through a Trauma Lens: The Need for Doulas
Trigger warning: trauma, doctors, hospital, birth, sex It is very important to me to approach all of the work that I do from a trauma-informed perspective. Whether it is asking for consent before touching a student in yoga class, offering self-regulation skills to those I work with, or preparing clients for potential triggers*, I do my best to incorporate my on-going learning in the field of trauma into my professional practices. Recently, I began taking trauma classes for professionals...
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TIC: News and Notes for March 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Lessons learned integrating ACEs science into health clinics: Staff first, THEN patients Launching a revolution Stress is a key to understanding many social determinants of health Is trauma driving some eating disorders? Adverse childhood experiences: What we know, what we don't know, and what should happen next Childhood maltreatment initiates a developmental cascade that leads to relationship dysfunction in emerging adulthood Report reveals link between poverty,...
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Tonier Cain Deserves an Evidence-Based Apology
Tonier Cain spoke at the Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence conference last month in North Carolina. If you don't know her name you might recognize her as the woman featured in the Healing Neen documentary ( which is must see). I am just starting to recover from her speech. Seriously. It was hard to stand after she spoke. When I did, I went right to a yoga mat in the self-care calm room for a while. I took off my high heels and curled up in a ball for a bit. I'm still digesting her words.
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Toolkit on Domestic Violence and ACEs Now Available
This blog post is to share our toolkit, "A Resilience Framework for Domestic Violence and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)." The toolkit is a PowerPoint that can be downloaded here and is free to share. This project started nearly 24 months ago with support from the Arctic Fulbright Initiative to examine the intersections between domestic violence and ACEs and create an open access resource. A statewide survey in Alaska and focus groups in Finland provided recommendations on information...
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TOOLKIT UPDATE
Our Toolkit, called "Hard Times and Healing: Addressing the Intersections Between Domestic Violence and Other Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)" was launched at a statewide training with domestic violence advocates in Alaska at the end of February. In collaboration with the Washington State Domestic Violence Coalition and several tribes in Washington, the Toolkit will be shared through a series of training events in May, 2017. The concept of creating a toolkit on ACEs for domestic...
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Trigger Season (www.lilacsinoctober.wordpress.com)
Beautiful writing from Arwen Faulkner . For survivors of adversity, there's no way to trigger proof life. Fall doesn't come with a warning. Trauma and adversity change the way we experience ourselves and the world, maybe how we sleep or don't sleep and how we function or struggle to function. While parenting or working or breathing. Certain days or entire seasons. Some mornings. Some nights. Every night at certain times. I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. On the wrong side of myself. I...
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U.S. Maternity Leave Policies Aren’t Just Inadequate, They’re Unequal Too [WomensNews.org]
Around 10:30 one night, I walked across the emergency department to see my next patient, a woman who’d had a panic attack. I took a deep breath before turning the corner, partly because you never know what you’ll see next, and partly because I was three months pregnant and a little queasy. I found a worried looking young woman with an eight-month baby bump. “Hi, doctor” she said. “I’m sorry about this. My boyfriend lost his job and I got overwhelmed.” [For more of this story, written by...
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Building Resilient Communities with Elaine Miller-Karas
Recorded live August 8, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The 1 hour video recording can be found on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/BUyY0FMjv8s Speaker: Elaine Miller-Karas, MSW, LCSW, Executive Director and Co-founder, Trauma Resource Institute. Host: Carey Sipp, Southeast Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection. Webinar Description: This webinar will explore integrating a biological based model to reduce the impacts of toxic stress for children and adults. It is a model both for...
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Show & Tell
Show don't tell is the first bit of advice almost every writer gets. Don't give facts if words can form an image. Don't say a song was fast-paced if words can tap quickly, instead, across the page. It's good advice but when it comes to ACEs we need both. We need to tell and show and tell again. There's resistance to telling. We need facts and data and proof. And we need stories. Both. Over and over and over. So the facts come with faces. So the data is as pressing as a poem. I can write...
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Spokane, WA, public health nurses create trauma-sensitive toolkit for parents/caregivers
Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed a 178-page toolkit -- 1*2*3 Care -- for caregivers of children. They define caregivers as parents, g randparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care...
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Tending to Yourself When There’s No Time [blogs.psychcentral.com]
You yearn to be productive, to blast through your to-do list every single day. You experiment with all sorts of hacks to attain the ultimate efficiency. If you have kids, you take advantage of their nap time, folding, preparing, putting things back, emailing, writing, working, running. There’s so much running. No wonder you often end your day feeling out of breath (and out of it). You yearn to have a tidy house, where every item has a home, and there aren’t piles of unpaid bills on the...
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The Boy Born Out of Resilience
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,...
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Melt the Grumpy [PESI]
I loved this short tutorial about a quick somatic activity to release tension or "melt the grumpy" as the title says. "Melt the Grumpy" is a somatic activity to help shift your emotional state with physical movement, breathing and imagery. When you are feeling irritable, or just not happy, swing both of your arms at thigh level one side to the other across your midline. This motion helps break up postural patterns and muscular tension. Using the momentum of swinging your arms with trunk...
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Mom’s Reaction to Angry Son Shattering a Mirror Is the Parenting Lesson We ALL Need Today (faithit.com)
It took my breath away when my son stormed into the bathroom, frustrated, angry, fed-up for his very own, very significant to him, reasons. And when he chose to SLAM the bathroom door, causing the heavy mirror mounted to the front to slip out of the hardware holding it in place and crash onto the floor — a million, BROKEN pieces were left reflecting the afternoon light. I was quiet. I surveyed the damage and took a deep breath. Put the dog outside so he wouldn’t cut his feet, put the cat in...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Parenting with High ACEs – Voices of Lived Expertise
Christine “Cissy” White is leading a movement to make sure that parents with high Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores have the resources and support they need to end the trend of generational trauma that so many have i nherited and unknowingly passed on to their children. The voice of the parent is first and foremost in Cissy’s plan of action. To reach this goal, Cissy had to first find her own voice, which she has done brilliantly through writing, speaking and leading workshops.
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I’m not cured, but I am healing
I wanted every individual suffering from chronic illnesses to understand the emerging science on not only how early adversity can lead to adult chronic illness, but how we can heal.
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Is Nothing Something? (lionsroar.com)
Thich Nhat Hanh answers children’s questions. Children have a special place in the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. There are special practices, vows, and programs designed especially for children and teens, and Thich Nhat Hanh often fashions the first part of his dharma talks with them in mind. He regularly takes questions from children, and by and large adults can identify with what they ask. Children may be smaller and younger and they may have a funny way with...
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Is Sexism an ACE?
Many of us have experienced sexual assault and/or abuse. The idea that our children could experience the same is terrifying to the point of being paralyzing. Even if our daughters have an ACE score of 0 they will not escape sexism. The upside of so much media coverage about sexual assault, harassment and sexism is that it gives us the opportunity to talk to our kids with a tiny bit of distance. What I mean, is that we can have conversations that are more topical and general, because we are...
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Writing to Heal, Yoga to Feel & Survivor-Led Resources Online
I love yoga and writing. I need yoga and writing. Both are relatively affordable and can be done alone and at home or in community. Both have been central to my survival, recovery and growth which I write about below. I also love sharing and supporting survivor-led resources created for survivors and others. Here are two links to those if you want to get to those right away. There are more details about each following the essay: Write Your Story, Heal Your Life Summit: Alaura O'Dell...
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New Toolkit Issued to Help Providers Measure Trauma With ACES Survey [youthtoday.org]
A new toolkit is out that aims to help services providers give a survey about traumatic childhood experiences that are linked to negative effects on health and well-being. The toolkit, developed by The National Crittenton Foundation , offers recommendations about the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey, including how to talk to children and parents about the survey, track results and use the data for public education and policy advocacy. The toolkit also includes a sample protocol, case...
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ACE Fact Sheets to Give Your Doctors, Patients & Beyond (free downloads)
I was first inspired to create a fact sheet summarizing the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) after reading a comment in “Got Your ACE score?” A reader wished she had a form to give her doctor that documented the vast body of evidence explaining how early trauma increases risk for chronic physical and mental health conditions and much more.
I could relate.
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Anxious Parenting
When my daughter was younger I was anxious. I didn't have full-blown anxiety attacks, as some do. I had an almost constant anxiety motoring within me. It was mixed with dread. Sometimes, it lasted days. Other times weeks. It would come and go. It always returned. When it did, it was hard to read, concentrate or focus. It was hard to eat or sleep or work. It was hard to parent. How I felt in my body scared me and I wanted to be someone else. Anxious time moved slowly. An hour felt like a...
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Belleruth Naparstek, Guided Imagery,Community Conversation, Wisdom & Resources
Belleruth Naparstek was the last featured guest in our Parenting with ACEs chat series last week. She is a psychotherapist, author, and guided imagery pioneer. She is the creator of the popular Health Journeys guided imagery audio series and author of Staying Well with Guided Imagery and Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They H eal. During the chat, Naparstek shared a bit about guided imagery and how and why it can be effective for those of us with ACEs and/or post-traumatic...
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Dr. Claudia Gold: Empathy & Listening as ACE-Informed Practice
"You are absolutely not doomed from having ACEs."
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Re: Cannitta’s Story: Surviving, Not Living (www.lsnj.org)
Thank you for sharing this. I am not going to watch just before I go to sleep. I am so blessed to have that option. To not watch this video. So many people who “live” this video are not living. Chronic trauma is just breathing enough to stay alive. Never getting a full breath. I think that is part of the reason so many people in poverty have asthma. That and mold infested apartments. So I will watch this in the morning, so I can “sleep well.” And I will say prayers that this mom, and you and...
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Re: Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (www.traumainformedoregon.org)
Thank you for posting this great article by Debby Jones from Trauma-Informed Oregon. It's terrific that the tools are targeted to creating emotional literacy in young children. In my community we struggle with drug and alcohol use in our teens. We also are struggling with lots of causes of toxic stress - ACEs, academic, parental and social pressures. By the time these youth reach junior high and high school we have missed many opportunities to support them and to better equip them to support...
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Re: Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (www.traumainformedoregon.org)
Hi Gail: It's such a hopeful approach. I like how at the end there's a focus as well on the healing of future generational trauma and not only focusing on the present and the past. That means what can seem slow going now can continually be positive for generations and generations. I find that hopeful. Cis
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After My Wife Died I Was Consumed by Both Grief and Paperwork. We Must Work Together to Change the Medical System [time.com]
By Daniel Jonce Evans, TIME, May 20, 2020 After finding a parking space I stopped and shifted my minivan into park. I sat still for a moment, a moment that allowed me to take a breath in relative silence. Silence, sitting in that driver’s seat, had a particular sound. It encroached after relays clicked and vent fans stopped. The engine crackled while cooling. Still hanging from the ignition, keys on the ring touched once or twice, singing their acknowledgement that their cohort completed the...
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Stolen Breaths [njem.org]
By Rachel R. Hardeman, Eduardo M. Medina, and Rhea W. Boyd, New England Journal of Medicine, June 10, 2020 In Minnesota, where black Americans account for 6% of the population but 14% of Covid-19 cases and 33% of Covid-19 deaths, George Floyd died at the hands of police. “Please — I can’t breathe.” He was a black man detained on suspicion of forgery, an alleged offense that was never litigated or even charged, but for which he received an extrajudicial death sentence. “Please — I can’t...
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Unbecoming an Armadillo: Recovering from Trauma with EMDR
Unbecoming an Armadillo By: Victoria F. Burns, PhD, LSW Victoriafrances49@gmail.com Instagram: @betesandbites “When you are traumatized, you are basically in a permanent defensive mode” — Gabor Mate I’m sitting across from Meg on her charcoal grey love seat. My forearms are resting on a velvety mustard-yellow throw cushion and I’m holding crescent shaped pulsers in each hand. Meg’s my psychologist; a rare gem who specializes in chronic illness and trauma. Every two weeks, we spend an hour...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Explaining COVID-19 to Children And Helping Them Overcome the Fear of Face Masks
Elementary school nurse, Anne Young, created a series of videos for her students and parents to help reduce the stress and disruption of COVID-19. Nurse Young's Corner is a delightful collection of informative videos that translate the ever-evolving pandemic information families are grappling to understand. Look for Nurse Young's "magic box," something that all school nurses need in our health offices! Explaining COVID-19 to Children And Helping Them Overcome the Fear of Face Masks Photo by...
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The Health Care System Has the Black Community in a Choke Hold [chcf.org]
By Vanessa Grubbs, California Health Care Foundation, August 4, 2020 It was the Black woman’s third trip to the emergency department because she was feeling short of breath. She was starting to panic. She knew the COVID-19 death toll was climbing and that it was far worse for Black people than white people , and yet the doctors told her to go home again. But this time she pleaded, “If you all don’t admit me to the hospital, I’m going to die. I can’t breathe.” This is the story told by Sheila...
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Listening to a Young Family’s Suffering (www.claudiamgoldmd.com)
By Claudia M. Gold, MD, November 30, 2021 In the months that followed the brief moment of hope in the spring of 2021-before the surge of the delta variant of COVID-19-in my behavioral pediatrics practice pervasive anxiety of in-person visits felt even more acute in contrast to that small, glorious taste of freedom. As I see children under four with their family for hourlong sessions, the benefits of the mask-free Zoom space soon brought me back to the virtual world. But in the interim I...
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Q & A: Head Banging - Parenting Center Tip of the Week [mountsinaiparenting.org]
Q: What information can I give parents about head banging? What can they do about it? At what point does it become a concern of safety or need for further intervention? A: As is true for many aspects of behavior and development, any parental concern needs to be taken in context for how the child is doing overall with any other concerns you may have. However, in general, head banging is a common childhood behavior. Typically, this occurs when children are frustrated or overwhelmed. You can...
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“What Happened to You?” by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey: a book that resonates with us in the PACEs world
What do PACEs Connection and “What Happened to You?”, the new book by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry, have in common? Almost everything. That’s my conclusion after I finished listening to the book on Audible and re-reading parts of it on Kindle. In the book, Winfrey, a w orld-class connector, journalist, entertainer, author, thought leader, actor, and philanthropist, teams up with her longtime friend Perry, a child psychiatrist, neuroscientist and principal of the neurosequential model of...
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Autism Prevention in Infancy: A Broad Interpretation [www.claudiamgoldmd.com]
By Claudia M. Gold , MD, September 25, 2021 Carla’s bright flamboyance stood in stark contrast to her quiet 3-month-old infant, who lay on a blanket on the floor, his eyes transfixed by the light in the ceiling. ‘I think he’s autistic” had been her opening words when she called to make an appointment in my behavioral pediatrics practice. We sat beside him on the floor. With her bright flowered dress and bangling necklaces matching her high lilting voice, she leaned into her son’s face, with...
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The Toll on Children's Health during COVID-19 [bu.edu]
By Eric Moskowitz, Bostonia, July 28, 2021 Near the end of the strangest school year of her life, Julia, a Newton North High School freshman, found herself scrolling an Instagram feed full of her friends posting COVID-vaccine selfies. Some boasted that they felt like superheroes, newly powerful. One said she could finally exhale, calling it her “first deep breath” in over a year. Neither captured what Julia was feeling as she worked up the nerve to get her first shot. “I was really nervous...
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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter October 2021
Healing the Heart Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran The Surviving Spirit Newsletter October 2021 “Don't Quit” by John Whittier When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but you...
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Sharing Your Calm: It Takes Two to Make Things Go Right! (Zero to Three)
Think about any of dozens of tough moments during your day. The dog is barking, the baby needs a diaper change (again), it’s an hour past dinner time, and you’re really hungry. On most days, you’ve got this. You have the coping skills you need to take a breath, change a diaper, or make a sandwich without breaking down into tears or yelling at everyone in frustration. Babies don’t have these coping skills yet. Even though babies’ brains are growing very fast and they are learning a lot about...
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When 'making the grade' takes on new meaning [edsource.org]
By Anne Vasquez, Photo: Allison Shelley/All4Ed, EdSource, December 13, 2021 After 18 months of distance learning, I took a breath before the start of this school year. What would the new normal look like? I feel like I’m still holding my breath, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop that comes in the form of an end-of-semester report card. As the mother of a newly minted middle school student and a high school junior, I knew this year would test my personal code of ethics about grades:...
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Noticing Positive Behavior - Parenting Center Tip of the Week [mountsinaiparenting.org]
Noticing Positive Behavior Research shows that giving attention to any behavior - positive or negative - increases the likelihood that you’ll see more of it. In the exam room, you can use the power of praise to notice and comment on positive behaviors and model this technique for parents. Try something like, “Great job taking in a deep breath. That really helps me to listen to your lungs.” Or, “Thank you for holding still for the exam, you listened so well to all of my instructions.” By...