4 New Facts About ACEs Parents Need to Know [yahoo.com]

In today's world, many Americans have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before reaching the age of 17. These ACEs encompass a range of challenges, from neglect and emotional or physical abuse to household struggles such as substance abuse, mental illness, parental separation, or witnessing violence between intimate partners.

When will we engage in the more substantial conversations that are needed outlining how to create “safe, stable, nurturing environments” for all kids?   I hear this phrase so often with no discussion of how to accomplish this, it’s starting to feel like a cruel cliche. 

Over the years. I have interacted with many parents who have experienced a lot of their own childhood trauma.  Many of these parents have had interactions with the child welfare system. Many have also had their kids taken away or have been threatened to have their kids taken away.   These systems can often be mechanical and cruel.  

I hope we have considered sensitivity to these families in our ACE Screening.   It feels deeply unkind to me to not provide these mothers with the kinds of treatments that would help them keep their children.  We demand they do this or that in an often  insensitive way and then look at them with disdain.  We expect them to be successful but don’t provide them with the tools and the treatments that are most effective for childhood trauma. 

This is another reason I am weary about diving in deep with ACE screening.  How many of these disadvantaged mothers might we push right towards the edge with punitive systems that are quick to take children away?  

instead of screening, I’d like to see an emphasis on helping mothers resolve their own unresolved attachments so that they can be successful with their children.   This will require alternative therapies such as Sensorimotor and Somatic Experiencing, IFS and Neurofeedback.  I would like to see these treatments studied. It seems incredibly unfair for effective treatments to be available only to those with financial resources.   It will also require education on attachment, dissociation and how childhood trauma manifests in the body.   

Thanks for sharing this article, Rafael. It's nice to see a post directed to parents. I'm sharing in the Parenting with ACEs community. Cissy