June 2017

In October 2015 in Pueblo, CO, the staff members of a primary care medical clinic – Southern Colorado Family Medicine at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center – start asking parents of newborn babies to kids five years old about the parents’ adverse childhood experiences and the resilience factors in their lives. They ask the same questions of pregnant women and their partners in the hospital’s high-risk obstetrics clinic. The results are so positive after the first year that the clinic starts...

Read this story from the Vital Village Facebook page this morning about the difficulty some kids have just getting to and from school every day. The article was written by Yawu Miller and published in the Bay State Banner. Here's an excerpt: BPS Operations Chief John Hanlon noted that the department’s policy of providing transportation to elementary and middle school students who live more than a mile from their school is more generous than what state law mandates. But as yet there are no...

I love when technology is used to help support people and to create real-life connections. The app described below is interesting and has helped some feel less isolating. The caution mentioned about excessive use of technology by parents is worth considering, too (though it always seems geared at mothers and not fathers). Maybe one day we'll even have a sub-category for those parenting with ACEs who are looking to give/get peer support in order to find each other? Here are a few excerpts...

"Many of the women that I talked to actually struggled a lot with learning how to breast-feed," she says. Two-thirds of the women said they had some problems at the beginning, such as pain, fear, troubles getting the baby to latch and concerns about the milk supply — just like American moms. And their problems went behind breast-feeding. "Most women talked about having little knowledge about early infant care, such as how to hold babies or how to be sure they're sleeping safely," Scelza...

Last week Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and first lady Cathy Malloy hosted a two-day conference called “Reimagining Justice” that invited people from around the country to explore the impact of crime and mass incarceration. As someone who works on juvenile justice reform in Connecticut, I was delighted to see the Malloys’ leadership on these issues. But I was also torn. As the conference started there was a March for Justice in Hartford, just a short way from the convention center where all...

Actor Justin Baldoni recently shared a poignant photo with his own daughter and the big lesion he learned from his Dad about such moments. Baldoni, best known for his role on the show "Jane the Virgin," shared a photo his wife, Emily, took while the family was shopping at the local Whole Foods. In it, Baldoni, along with his father, stares down at his daughter, Maiya. She's crying and/or wailing on the floor. Who knows about what. Her body is twisted into classic tantrum pose. When Baldoni...

Here are some answers to questions I've had about chats as well as a summary of the highlights from last week's chat . Chat Format The chats are done via typed messaging (no audio or visual). Chats are an hour-long and allow for discussion as well as Q&A. All are welcome to Parenting with ACEs chats. You don't have to have kids or ACEs to attend - though it's fine if you one or both :) You can post questions to a chat ahead of time and review a chat transcript after it has ended.

Open file to compare. Visit advancingparenting.org to read about what we do, why we do it, and our plans for the future.

The first 1,000 days of a child’s life are a critical window for cognitive, physical, and social development. Exposure to adverse experiences during this period and beyond in early childhood dramatically increases the potential for lifelong poor health and social outcomes. This in turn can result in substantially increased health care costs across an individual’s life span. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — including neglect, abuse, exposure to violence, family dysfunction, etc. — also...

There's a blog post by Ruth Buczynski, PhD on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine website that links to a great infographic explaining the difference between guilt and shame. It's worth checking out. What I found most helpful though is something I've never really heard of or understood - irrational guilt. Irrational guilt is defined as "a feeling of psychological discomfort about something we've done against our irrationally high standards." Who knew? I...

If you are a successful survivor but your personal hurricane hits again, and PTSD returns, what should you do? First, make sure you are safe. Physical safety requires effort, friends and may require experts in security, law, or health. When the risks are high, you don't need psychoanalysis. You need a safety net. Second, when physically safe, but full of fear, flashbacks, numbing and self-isolation, remind yourself that you are better off than a rookie who knows nothing about emotional...

Parents with PTSD from ACEs sharing what's hard about parenting while post-traumatically stressed: "Managing the terror around the possibility of everyone being a perp." "How to talk to children about why they won't meet X relative." “There was a point when I would feel completely overwhelmed by something as simple as having to make breakfast and school lunches at the same time.” "I didn't understand that not all parents reacted or were triggered the way I was." "was stone set on not...