Tagged With "Brain Architects Podcast"
Blog Post
Substance Use Disorder and Brain Development
The inputs a brain experiences during its developmental stages have a profound impact on whether that person will develop a substance use disorder (if they choose to drink or use other drugs). In turn, developing a substance use disorder (SUD) as a tween, teen, or young adult dramatically influences that person's brain development. And why is understanding this causality important? The risk factors for developing a substance use disorder are the result of inputs the brain experiences (or...
Blog Post
The Brain Architects Podcast: Laying the Foundation [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, January 15, 2020 Why are the early years of a child’s life so important for brain development? How are connections built in the brain, and how can early brain development affect a child’s future health? This episode of The Brain Architects dives into all these questions and more. First, Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child, explains more about the science behind how brains are built—their architecture—and...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
The First Five Years Matters: Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health
Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health The first relationship—usually this is between the mother and her infant—has an enduring impact on all later stages of human development. This relationship which occurs has been described by Bowlby’s attachment theory, which at its core, is about how the mother helps the infant regulate emotion. The mother-infant attachment communications are essential because they directly affect the development of the brain. Dr. Allan Schore, the...
Blog Post
The Healing Place Podcast - Dr. Kristina Brinkerhoff: Educational Consultant
Dr. Kristina Brinkerhoff, a consultant, keynote speaker, presenter and trainer, leverages over 20 years of experience as a teacher, principal, superintendent and adoptive mom of five foster children, to help educators gain an understanding of the effects Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and the importance of trauma informed practice in schools.
Blog Post
The Trauma-Informed Lens Podcast is Back with Author Sarah Bennett
Sarah Bennett, the author of Trauma-Sensitive Early Education, joins the show to talk about her book and how she integrated trauma-sensitive approaches into her work as a 1st-grade teacher. traumainformedlens.org
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Educator Self-Care
Working in a school is hard. It doesn’t matter if you work in a suburban, urban, or rural area. It doesn’t matter if you work with 5 year-olds on building empathy, teach 11 year-olds about symbiosis, coach teachers in aligning curriculum, or help high school seniors choose their postsecondary pathways. It is hard work. From the cacophony of lockers closing at dismissal, to the challenge of getting 25 sets of 8 year-old eyes looking at you in synchrony, schools are a special kind of organized...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Educators Network Podcast
I am please to announce that the Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast is live and currently has episodes featuring Jim Sporleder, Claudia Roodt, and Ingrid Cockhren. The podcast was established out of the Trauma Informed Schools Network, a Facebook group with nearly 17,000 members from 100+ different countries. The network is designed to connect educators and practitioners around the world to share ideas, gain new ideas, and share resources! Here is the podcast:...
Blog Post
In the Arena with NOW Podcast Episode, "Cultivating Leaders of Color in Early Care and Education" (27 min)
The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is excited to share the third episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. In our third episode, we speak with members of the California Consortium for Equity in Early Care and Education...
Blog Post
My son was hospitalized and now he has PTSD
“Grant, do you remember when you were in the hospital?” “Yes… they came to take the blood and I turned into a werewolf.” Original Post It happened quickly. A year ago my three year old had a collarbone fracture, it became infected and within 24 hours the situation was emergent. A week long hospital stay, one month with a PICC line and two months on oral antibiotics. Finally, the labs finally came back normal. The X-Ray was clean. Gillette Children’s Hospital closed our case. But the healing...
Blog Post
Fires Take a Toll on Students; Some Districts Rethink Suspensions (Podcast) [edsource.org]
By EdSource, November 4, 2019 From Sonoma County to Simi Valley, fires forced hundreds of thousands of Californians out of their homes in October. In this week’s podcast, reporter Sydney Johnson shares what she found at evacuation centers in Santa Rosa and Petaluma, where she spoke with college students worried about how they will make up lost time. Also, with a big decline in out-of-school suspensions for disruptive behavior, some districts are looking at ways to transform how they handle...
Blog Post
Free ECE APP for Sensory and Emotional Literacy
Center for Optimal Brain Integration™ is offering our Sensory and Emotional Literacy APP for FREE for a lifetime if you download in the next 2 months. You can access links to the APP and a free 22-minute video and a free 16-page user guide to support children ages 3-8 with sensory and emotional literacy. Download now while it is free and share widely. We wish you and your children physical, social and emotional wellness. https://www.optimalbrainintegration.com/app-1
Blog Post
Free Resource: A Children's Book to Help Understand Social Distancing
Here's a link to the book I wrote to help kids understand social distancing and express their own emotions. This is really important or things stay bottled up inside. It is now in video version; podcast and ebook are coming. Feel free to forward to others -- kids of all ages across the nation and the globe.Reprint the link. Do an article on it. Share with friends. Circulate it. Tweet it. Free resource. Bottom line: make it viral. The cover is attached!!! I hope it helps. Navigating emotions...
Blog Post
Growing Resilient Kids
Resiliency is defined as the ability to bounce back from stressful events we encounter in life. When something we encounter is so overwhelming to us that we become stuck in it, that is one definition of trauma. Resiliency can be viewed as the antidote to trauma. In fact, when we effectively process trauma we have experienced, we often come out the other side far more resilient than before. Our nervous systems have a higher stretch capacity, so to speak. How do we help our kids stretch and...
Blog Post
An Invitation to Co-Create Change and Shift Your Mindset
We are not born “normal” or “disordered” or with a “disability” we “are born” and “we develop” in many different ways. Along our path of development we will encounter various influences and each individual will respond to those experiences differently. The brain actually continues to develop well into adulthood!
Blog Post
Association of Timing of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Caregiver Support With Regionally Specific Brain Development in Adolescents [jamanetwork.com]
By Joan L. Luby, Rebecca Tillman, Deanna M. Barch, JAMA Network Open, September 18, 2019 Question: Is there developmental timing and regional specificity to the associations among adverse childhood experiences, caregiver support, and structural brain development in childhood? Findings: This cohort study of 211 children and their caregivers during 4 waves of neuroimaging and behavioral assessments from preschool to adolescence found an association between the interaction of preschool adverse...
Blog Post
BABY ACES: When we consider the traumas that qualify as ACEs, babies need their own list.
Babies are obviously very different from older children developmentally, including their ability to understand and process trauma. Indeed, a baby may be completely unaware of an actual ACE— say, the incarceration of their father— which a middle schooler would be painfully aware of. Yet at the same time, the baby could be much-more-acutely impacted by the secondary effect of this same ACE: a sad, stressed, and distracted mother. Similarly, if a parent dies in a car accident when a child is in...
Blog Post
Behind the Story: Healing the Youngest Victims of the Opioid Crisis [edsurge.com]
By Emily Tate and Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge, March 4, 2020 Today on a bonus episode of the EdSurge Podcast we’re talking about the youngest victims of the opioid crisis. They’re preschoolers whose parents or caregivers misuse painkillers; some have become addicted to heroin or other street drugs as a result. One expert called these kids “America’s lost children.” Of course, educators haven’t given up on them. But they recognize teaching these kids brings unique challenges. EdSurge reporter...
Blog Post
Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, June 10, 2020 We know that responsive relationships and language-rich experiences for young children help build a strong foundation for later success in school. The rapidly advancing frontiers of 21st-century biological sciences now provide compelling evidence that the foundations of lifelong health are also built early, with increasing evidence of the importance of the prenatal period...
Blog Post
Why the dean of early childhood experts wants to get beyond the brain [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Ryan White, Center for Health Journalism, July 23, 2020 Harvard’s Jack Shonkoff, a luminary in the field of early childhood, has spent years showing that events in the earliest years of life have profound implications for how budding brains develop, and in turn, shape a child’s later potential at school and work. Now, Shonkoff says it’s time to connect the brain to the rest of the body. “The message now is to say that there is a revolution going on in molecular biology and genomics and in...
Blog Post
What Babies Need Right from the Start (Birth-24 months) "Delusional Optimism" Podcast with Dr. B
Raising an infant can be very consuming and upending, especially for new parents. Babies have needs that are confusing and different, and there are times when nothing a parent does will sooth the baby. In this episode of Delusional Optimism, Dr. B and co-host Seth Creekmore discuss how to survive those early years and share what babies need from birth to 24 months. Listen to some common parenting myths that are harmful and misleading.
Blog Post
Every Child Matters: Podcast recording with Dr. Cindy Blackstock
Listen to Episode 5 of the Rise Resilient Podcast with Dr. Cindy Blackstock : https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/...7453?i=1000523674198 Agnes is honoured to be able to have a conversation with Dr. Cindy Blackstock who is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada which stands with First Nations children, youth and families so they have equitable opportunities to grow up safely at home, be healthy, get a good education and be proud of who they are. In...
Blog Post
A Child’s Joy in Growing Up: A View from the Pandemic (Claudia M. Gold MD)
John and Adam longed to follow the advice of their favorite parenting podcast and teach their 18-month-old daughter Avery to play independently. But when John left her in her playpen to go make dinner, or Adam sat on the couch doing work while Avery played at his feet, they relented to her protests within seconds. They felt torn between a wish to follow what they called “attachment parenting” where they responded to her every need, and to give her space. I began working with them when Avery...
Blog Post
Traumatic Events and Behavior
Early childhood trauma or adverse events in the absence of natural supports or a nurturing caregiver may interrupt and negatively impact brain development and affect behavior and long-term emotional and mental health. Early experiences in life that are positive and negative shape the architecture of the brain. When a an infant or young child is exposed to chronic stress or traumatic events, the brain's emotional center, the amygdala, reacts. In a state of constant fight, flight or freeze,...
Blog Post
A Little Money for Mothers Improves Babies' Brain Development
The on-going Baby’s First Years research ( https://www.babysfirstyears.com/ ) examines the impact on mothers and babies of modest cash gifts as a model of poverty reduction. It turns out that a little money goes a long way and affects the development of babies’ brains. “Early childhood poverty is a risk factor for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health, and has been associated with differences in brain structure and function. Whether poverty causes differences in...
Blog Post
4 Ways Outdoor Play Helps Develop Resilience In Children
Outdoor play is key to the health and well-being of children. Getting muddy and staying out till sunset is great for children’s development and can help them refine their motor coordination skills. Kids who play outdoors have improved cognitive skills, too. A recent systematic review found that children who have regular access to green spaces show improved “mental well-being, overall health, and cognitive development.” Children who play outside also had better self-discipline and showed...
Blog Post
Review of “First 60 Days” booklet: Leveraging author’s work and movement could spark revolution to prevent and heal trauma, one precious baby, child, and caregiver at a time.
(This is a review of what I believe is an important new resource for the PACEs [for positive and adverse childhood experiences] science movement. Opinions expressed are my own, and are shared as a parent, advocate, author, and longtime student of trauma, healing, and prevention. Thoughts are also shared through my lens as someone who believes, deeply, in the incredible importance of and value in building healthier, more compassionate communities to support and nurture pregnant and new...
Blog Post
What Children Really Need Is Adults That Understand Development
The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...
Blog Post
Early Relational Health Innovators Partner In Program Supported by PACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities Members in Twelve California Counties
Christina Bethell, Ph.D, MBA, MPH, founder of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), principal author of the groundbreaking study on positive childhood experiences, and creator of the free Well Visit Planner, among other innovations. Two internationally-respected leaders and innovators in complementary aspects of early relational health and childhood and maternal health equity recently launched a partnership they believe will benefit everyone from newborn babies and...
Blog Post
Empathy: Can It Make The Difference?
Emotion has an enormous impact on imprinting memory in our brains. I had an experience when I was 6 years old that included emotion and I have the memory of it all of these many years later. It was a 6 year old birthday sleepover party. There were 7 girls invited that lived near each other and played together most days. A girl new to the neighborhood was invited only due to the requirement of the birthday girl’s mother. I was also invited. I lived a block away but did play with these girls...