As a former La Leche League Leader I became familiar with the teachings of Gary Ezzo (“Raising Kids God’s Way,” "On Becoming Babywise") in the early 1990’s. Leaders in my area began getting a lot of phone calls on our warm line that followed the same basic story: a baby not thriving and a case of very low milk supply despite the Mom’s exclusive breastfeeding and a strong desire to breastfeed. It gradually emerged that a local church had begun promoting a rigid rules-based practice of baby...

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...

In the aftermath of the Florida shooting, as with every shooting, journalists scramble for explanations. They wonder what went wrong, or were there signs. They parse the shooter’s social media accounts, school and work histories, and recent breakups, searching for motives. As a Court Appointed Special Advocate, my perspective is somewhat different. I work with foster youth. My job as a CASA is get to know and empathically understand a traumatized child, in order to effectively advocate for...