By Sheilamary Koch, Multibriefs: Exclusive, July 27, 2020
When Christina Bethell was little, she lived in a low-income housing complex in Los Angeles where her neighbor, a quiet lady the kids called Mrs. Raccoon, always had her door open for the neighborhood kids. Every Saturday she threw a little tea party with candy to celebrate any child with a birthday that week. Bethell fondly remembers the woman’s kindness as source of comfort during her challenging childhood.
Dr. Bethell, now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, shared this story in an NPR interview last September on the release day of her study on the long-term effects of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) on mental health.
Like the well-documented effects of Negative Childhood Experiences (NCEs) on childhood trauma and adulthood health outcomes, she found PCEs have a greater effect when they’re cumulative. That means every encounter makes a difference — especially for children living in conditions where problems like poverty and discrimination propagate negative experiences.
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