Leslie Forstadt, a member of ACEsConnection, wrote this wonderful oped about the ACE Study, resilience-building, and the Maine Resilience Building Network. It appears on BangorDailyNews.com.
When public health experts or kindhearted doctors ask questions such as, “Why don’t you eat right and exercise?” and give advice about goal setting and putting colorful foods on the dinner plate, they miss an important piece of the puzzle.
A question that is more to the point is: “What have you experienced in your life that smoking, drinking, eating (insert unhealthy behavior here), etc., is helping you with?”
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Moving on from trauma and adversity is not done in isolation. Resilience, the personal strength to bounce back from adversity, is fostered and strengthened with the help of other people and the opportunity to change.
How did you get to where you are? Who bent down and helped pick up your boots?
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/11/22/opinion/its-not-about-bootstraps-its-about-nurturing-children/
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