Tagged With "Bottom up Regulation"
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Strengthening Families: Increasing positive outcomes for children and families [www.cssp.org]
We engage families, programs, and communities in building key protective factors. Children are more likely to thrive when their families have the support they need. By focusing on the five universal family strengths identified in the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework , community leaders and service providers can better engage, support, and partner with parents in order to achieve the best outcomes for kids. How We Do It The Strengthening Families framework is a...
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Strengthening self-regulation in childhood may improve resiliency later in life [medicalxpress.com]
Millions of families live in poverty in the United States. Associated stressors can often lead to adverse life experiences for children in those families, and negative socioemotional outcomes later in life. Family-centered programs are a well-supported way of buffering against these effects. More than two decades of peer-reviewed research suggests family -focused interventions play a role in improving outcomes over a long period of time. Now, a paper published in Child Development finally...
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Study: Stress Disorders Linked to Greater Infection Risk [mercurynews.com]
By Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 31, 2019 People who have stress disorders like PTSD may be more vulnerable to potentially life-threatening infections, especially if they are diagnosed at younger ages or dealing with other psychiatric issues, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on 144,919 people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), adjustment disorders common after a major life change like a death or move, and other stress-related conditions. They also...
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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...
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Temporary Free Access to Paediatrics & Child Health (PCH) articles (Oxford Academic)
Temporary free access to highly cited articles making an impact in Paediatrics & Child Health ( PCH ) has just been opened up by Oxford Academic. If you're a research hoarder like me, you'll want to check this out. https://academic.oup.com/pch/pages/highly_cited_articles
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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 Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected [nytimes.com]
The parents in Overland Park, Kan., were fed up. They wanted their children off screens, but they needed strength in numbers. First, because no one wants their kid to be the lone weird one without a phone. And second, because taking the phone away from a middle schooler is actually very, very tough. “We start the meetings by saying, ‘This is hard, we’re in a new frontier, but who is going to help us?’” said Krista Boan, who is leading a Kansas City-based program called START, which stands...
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The First Body-Positive Children’s Book Just Came Out, and It’s Exactly What the World Needs Now (msn.com)
Chances are, if you’ve taken a stroll through the children’s-book section of bookstores or libraries recently, you’ve seen a lot of bright colors and catchy titles. You saw some good lessons on friendship and manners, some lively adventure stories and some cute animals. You also saw a lot of pictures of straight-size white girls. While children’s literature now features far more diverse stories than it did even a couple of years ago, there is still one movement that hasn’t gotten a foothold...
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The Importance of Positive Emotional Communication Starting From Infancy
“Why do some children become sad, withdrawn, insecure, or angry, whereas others become happy, curious, affectionate, and self-confident?” It has something to do with emotions and emotional communication.
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The key components of a mentally healthy school [Edexec.co.uk]
With children’s mental health experiences at school proven to have long-lasting effects into later life, we caught up with child psychologist Dr Margot Sunderland to find out what school leadership teams can do to create a mentally healthy school for staff and students Painful life experiences are, in most cases, the cause of mental ill-health – especially when there is no-one there to help a child make sense of, and work through, what happened; these are known as protective factors. This...
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The Preschooler's Empathy Void [TheAtlantic.com]
Back in March, Anderson Cooper famously compared Donald Trump to a 5-year-old. The presidential nominee had tweeted a flattering photo of his wife Melania juxtaposed with a less-flattering photo of the wife of his then-opponent Ted Cruz, and, when Cooper pressed him, he defended the tweet with a kindergartener’s default excuse: “I didn’t start it.” Trump turned 70 this summer. But there may, in the broadest of senses, be science to support Cooper’s analogy—at least when considering what his...
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The Relentless School Nurse: When the Health Office Pass Includes Emotions
The collaboration between school counselors and school nurses creates safe spaces for students at school. Building a coalition between school counselors and school nurses creates a safety net for our most complex and challenging students while benefiting the whole school community. Promoting connections through intentional relationship building, and ensuring a school environment that is physically, emotionally and psychologically safe changes the culture and climate. Read about an amazing...
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The scientific effort to protect babies from trauma before it happens [qz.com]
By Jenny Anderson, Quartz, June 22, 2019. For nearly 30 years, Javier Aceves worked as a pediatrician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, focusing primarily on disadvantaged families. His approach was holistic: along with treating children, he did outreach with teens, and helped children’s parents with everything from addiction to learning how to be a supportive caregiver. For all the programs he helped develop, the patterns he kept seeing haunted him. He could treat young kids’ medical problems,...
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The soaring cost of US child care, in 5 charts [The Conversation]
The cost of having children in the U.S. has climbed exponentially since the 1960s. So it’s no wonder the growing crop of Democratic presidential candidates have been proposing ways to address or bring down the costs tied to raising a family. Most recently, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she wants to provide universal access to child care. According to her proposal, the U.S. would partner with local governments and other organizations to provide various child care options, paying...
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The Trauma-Sensitive Parenting Summit & Commentary
"Having a history of trauma or loss does not by itself predispose you to have a child with disorganization. It is the lack of resolution that is the essential risk factor. It is never too late to move toward making sense of your experiences and healing your past. Not only you but also your child will benefit." That's a quote from the book Parenting from the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, which was published fifteen freaking years ago. It's...
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This New York City charter network is taking its lessons to toddlers [chalkbeat.org]
Preschool is already too late, if you ask Ian Rowe. The head of Public Prep charter schools in New York City believes that, when it comes to setting students up for academic success, the key is starting earlier. Much, much earlier. That’s why the network has teamed up with a pair of nonprofits to start getting children ready for school when they’re just toddlers — a full two years before even enrolling in pre-K. The unique partnership sends trained mentors to meet with families in their own...
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Toxic Schools Worsening Toxic Stress: The Destructive Reign of Universal Standards, Pathology, Medication and Behaviorism
This post is the first chapter of a book. The names HAVE NOT been changed, as each individual profoundly impacted the author's growth and development. She wants their identities to remain intact. I did not realize that my first years in public education would profoundly shape my trauma-informed journey and what I would do nearly twenty years later. But I clearly remember the late fall of 2001. I was completing my second year in a master’s program for school counseling at the University of...
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Toys to Help Children Emotionally Regulate [Blogs.PsychCentral.com]
With so much going on around the world right now , it’s not unusual that the news are rattling up emotions for everyone at home. We as adults, have (hopefully) found a series of mechanisms to help us calm down and self-regulate. But, for many children, the story is different. Whether it’s the global politics climate or actual climate changes that may cause your child to feel anxious. It’s important that parents empathize and recognize these feelings. But, even more crucial, is that parents...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Calming Corners
In our trauma-informed classrooms blog post last week, we talked about choices. We mentioned the benefit of having a space in the room where a child can go to help them calm down and become regulated. While this has become increasingly common at the elementary level, we have found that this is a tool that can work for students of all ages. Even when we survey adults about the things that help them to calm down when they are upset, one of the most common answers we hear is that they want time...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Choices
One thing that is common among many traumatic events is a complete lack of choices. When a person feels like they do not have a choice or control, it can be triggering and cause the negative emotions that the person ties to the original trauma. While you can do a lot relationally with how you interact with your students, you can also set up your physical space with choices in mind. As you think about choices in your classroom, here are a couple of options you may want to consider. First of...
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Trump’s Childcare Plan Will Only Help the Rich [TheNation.com]
President Trump portrays himself as an expert at marketing designer ties and gourmet steaks, but now, as chief executive of federal social policy, his new childcare plan might be a tougher sell. The promise he has made of universal childcare, accompanied by a marketing campaign led by his glamorous career-woman daughter Ivanka, sounded family-friendly enough on the campaign trail. But to childcare advocates, the vague talking points he laid out in his first speech to Congress last month...
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Universal free lunch is linked to better test scores in New York City, new report finds [chalkbeat.org]
Offering all students free lunch helps boost academic performance, a new report, which looked at meal programs in New York City middle schools, shows. The study, out of Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Research, assessed the impact of universal free lunch on students who previously didn’t have access to such a meals program. Researchers found “statistically significant” bumps in reading and math state test scores once students attended schools with universal free lunch. One way to...
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Upcoming Hope Forums via Kids at Hope
Kids at Hope, in partnership with Arizona State University's Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope, is keeping hope at the forefront of our minds with their Hope Forums - the next two coming up on April 1st and 8th! On April 1st, founder Rick Miller will be joined by: Special Guest: Erin Gruwell , an American teacher known for her unique teaching method, which led to the publication of New York Times bestselling book, The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used...
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Virtual Screening of Broken Places on March 21st & Registration for ACEs Connection Members!
Please join us on Thursday, March 21st for a special virtual screening of Broken Places , the latest U.S. documentary on early childhood trauma and resilience. The film will be offered via a private Vimeo link with passcode to all registered members of ACEs Connection, for free, accessible in the United States and internationally. REGISTER TODAY: To register, please visit : https://goo.gl/forms/apdoINwgtQmydEXK2 The viewing portal for the film will open on Vimeo at 6am EST and close at 11pm...
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We Need a Healing Movement
What if you had developed a cure for the most painful and costly public health problem in America, you had proven that it worked, and you were offering it for free, but could not reach those who need it most because no one wants to talk about the problem? Tragically, this is my reality and the truth about human nature. It is easier to suffer in silence than acknowledge the painful things that happen to us. Over 20 years ago, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser...
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What do preschool teachers need to do a better job? (hechingerreport.org)
One city’s attempt to professionalize early education could be a model for the nation. “We believe that preschool is an integral part of the public school system and public school should be universally available because every child can benefit from it,” said Josh Wallack, Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education. “Therefore, preschool should be universal.” The changes have come with new money and support to ensure that the city is not only offering preschool to all, but...
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What Exactly is a Toddler Tantrum?
Several years ago NPR had a story about temper tantrums, describing a study showing that the sounds children make during a tantrum indicate that they are primarily sad rather than angry. The written version of the story opens with description of tantrums as " the cause of profound helplessness among parents." I thought this was an interesting choice of words, as I have always thought of tantrums as representing a sense of helplessness in children. In fact, in my over 20 years of practicing...
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What's Lost When Black Children Are Socialized Into a White World [theatlantic.com]
By Dani McClain, The Atlantic, November 21, 2019 Jessica Black is a Pittsburg, California, mother of two black teenagers, both of whom have been disciplined multiple times at their middle and high schools. Her daughter has been suspended more than once, and teachers often deem her son’s behavior out of line, reprimanding him for not taking off his hoodie in class and for raising his voice. In observing her own family and others, Black has noticed a pattern: Behaviors that many black parents...
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What Viral Reunification Videos Reveal About the Trauma of Separated Immigrant Children [psmag.com]
A Guatemalan mother falls to her knees as her seven-year-old daughter walks through the door. They've been separated for 55 days, and the mother is completely overcome with emotion. She embraces her child, rocking her and rubbing her back, openly weeping and speaking to her daughter in Spanish. When she pulls back, the child's face appears somewhat frozen, but she clearly has tears in her eyes; her mother wipes her face with the tissue she has been clutching. This video from CNN is just one...
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What You Never Realized You Were Teaching Your Child About Grit & Resilience: MIT Study Captures Techniques That Work for Babies as Young as 13 Months [the74million.org]
Even at MIT, no one’s been able to create a computer as powerful as the brain of a baby. “They’re better at doing this fast learning from one or two examples than any computer algorithm we have right now,” MIT graduate student Julia Leonard said. “That’s a big interest here — everyone’s like, ‘We want a computer to learn like a baby.’ ” Leonard was curious about how babies learn too, so she gathered up more than 200 to analyze their genius brains. Specifically, she was interested in studying...
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Where Childcare Is an Economic Engine [TheAtlantic.com]
At the end of a long day of work at a small sports-marketing firm in Atlanta, a very pregnant Micki Velmer is driving to pick up her 3-year-old son, Burke, from childcare when her car overheats and breaks down. Velmer’s husband, Jason, soon swings by to get her and then get both of them to the Frazer Center before it closes and starts charging late fees. Still, Velmer is uneasy. In just a few short weeks, once their second child is born, the Velmers will be paying more than $2,800 a...
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Why Do So Few Americans Take Maternity Leave? [PSMag.com]
You probably already know the United States has some of the worst parental leave laws in the world. Among the 41 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. is the only one with no guaranteed paid time off to care for a new baby. But it’s hard to say how these laws actually affect new parents, since no federal agency collects data on how many workers take parental leave. A few recent analyses, however, might offer some clues. It turns out that...
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Why Focus on Resilience? 2019 BPT Conference Big Idea Session with Teri Barila
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in” -Desmond Tutu. This quote captures the essence of why resilience matters. To Community Resilience Initiative, Resilience is not about “lifting yourself up by your bootstraps” or “bouncing back” from serious harm or injury. To us, Resilience is about self-discovery and self-awareness based on what the ACE Study, neurobiology, and epigenetics tell us...
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Why I'm Passionate About ACEs Awareness
When I was 42, I landed on my butt so hard I couldn’t imagine how it had happened. I found out that the beliefs and relationships I had built my life on and around were all lies, and my world and worldview came crashing down around me. From that place of desolation, at what was rock bottom for me, I had to figure out what was true and not true, what was right and wrong for me, who I was – not who I had become to be acceptable to others. I needed to figure out who was with me and to what...
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Why Intentionally Building Empathy Is More Important Now Than Ever (kqed.org)
Those in helping professions like teaching, social work, or medicine can buffer themselves from burnout and “compassion fatigue” with self-care strategies, including meditation and social support . A study of nurses in acute mental health settings found staff support groups helped buffer the nurses, but only if they were structured to minimize negative communication and focused on talking about challenges in constructive ways. English Professor Cris Beam also studies empathy and wrote a book...
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Why Parents Are Being Forced to Find Childcare Underground [TheAtlantic.com]
The front door of Nora Nivia Nevarez’s adobe-like house in suburban Albuquerque, New Mexico, opens to blocks and children’s books scattered around the brightly colored carpet, shaped like a puzzle piece. Throughout the afternoon, she keeps a careful eye on her four small charges, ages 4 months to 10 years, by turns reading books and helping them with puzzles. One little boy named Javier cries as his guardian, Guadalupe, picks him up. He’s tired and ready to go home. “I love caring for...
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Why Toddlers Deserve More Respect [theatlantic.com]
In The Emotional Life of the Toddler , the child-psychology and psychotherapy expert Alicia F. Lieberman details the dramatic triumphs and tribulations of kids ages 1 to 3. Some of her anecdotes make the most commonplace of experiences feel like they should be backed by a cinematic instrumental track. Take Lieberman’s example of what a toddler feels while walking across the living room: “If adults experienced and enacted the full range of feelings available to an average toddler in the...
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World Premiere: Stress & Resilience: How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 13, 2019 When the stress in your life just doesn’t let up, and it feels like you have no support to get through the day—let alone do everything you need to do to be the best parent you can be—it can seem like there’s nothing that can make it better. But there are resources that can help, and this kind of stress—known as “toxic stress”—doesn’t have to define your life. In this video, learn more about what toxic stress is, how it...
Calendar Event
COVID-19 Early Childhood Webinars Thursday March 19
Calendar Event
Oprah to discuss ACEs and trauma on 60 Minutes this Sunday!
Calendar Event
Tranform Challenging Behavior Online FREE Conference
Calendar Event
Webinar: Immigration and Trauma
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How Cities and Counties Are Taking the Lead on Child Care
Absent federal action, local jurisdictions are increasingly looking for ways to help working parents. America is waking up to child care as a major political issue. Back in January, President Obama discussed it at length for the first time in his...
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How Collaboration Fosters Safer Communities for Kids [RWJF.org]
Oct 3, 2018, 11:00 AM, Posted by Martha Davis Collaborative approaches can help ensure kids grow up with a solid foundation of safety and with a support system for those who are affected by violence. As the executive director of Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility in the late 1990s, I worked closely with the local police department, the Women’s Law Project , and the district attorney. At the time, these forward-thinking professionals were frustrated. They were arresting the...
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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How Does Toxic Stress Affect Low-Income and Black Children? [citylab.com]
John Singleton, the groundbreaking director who died last month at age 51 after suffering a stroke, grew up in South Central Los Angeles. In 1991, at first-night screenings in South Central for his debut film Boyz n the Hood, violence broke out. At least one man was killed. The then-23-year-old Singleton remarked about the stress of it: “I think I lost about five years of my life.” He was channeling a bit of conventional wisdom, that extreme stress has lasting effects on health and...
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How Does Trauma Affect a Person’s Interaction with Their Child? (www.nicabm.com) & Commentary
Has anyone seen this video posted on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICAMB) blog? "According to Dr. Ruth Lanius, a parent's experience of trauma can impact their ability to form a close, intimate relationship with their child." Ruth Buczynski, PhD Those of us Parenting with ACEs sure know that's the truth. Developmental trauma impacts our ability to form close and intimate relationships with ourselves, other adults and our children. The video was...