Blog

Michael Pritchard came to visit us in Lake County on December 8, 2018 for two shows about 90 minutes each. The 2 pm show was directed to children, parents and teachers. Most who showed up didn’t know what to expect, they knew he is a comedian and that he talks to kids about bullying, but they weren’t really sure what they were going to get from him. What Michael gave was his heart. While he sat and made funny noises stemming from his Star Wars character voice overs, children laughed, and...

I was honored to have Dr. Greg Williams join me for a powerful conversation about his upcoming book release “Shattered by the Darkness: Putting the Pieces Back Together After Child Abuse”, his mission, personal story of triumph, and more!

The first session of the Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & IRL (In Real Life) was a success. Over 100 ACEs Connection members tuned in despite some issues with registration. I have embedded the video in this post. You have also find the video on the ACEs Connection site here . If you have any questions about the series, please contact Ingrid Cockhren , TN & Midwest Community Facilitator.

Painful emotions are a natural and adaptive response to a harmful environment, so labeling them as an illness or disorder is not helpful. Instead we should move in the direction that our human nature leads us, toward correcting the conditions that cause our pain.

Mindfulness is a fast growing trend both in the world generally and in schools. Teachers are turning to the practice as a simple way to restore calm to the classroom , help students find some quiet space, and build self-regulation skills. Some teachers say their personal mindfulness practice has helped them respond more calmly to students and helps them keep perspective. But it’s also important to realize that some of the ways mindfulness is practiced -- sitting still, eyes closed, in...

LA QUINTA, Calif. (AP) — There is nothing left to do, no more frantic phone calls to make, no begging or fighting that can fix this because the worst thing that could happen already has, so Doug Biggers settles into his recliner and braces for his daughter’s voice to echo through his head. “Keep going, Daddy,” she’s saying. It’s been months since they knelt over his 20-year-old son on the bedroom floor. But in these quiet moments, her words haunt him. [For more on this story by CLAIRE...

Before Geoffrey Pesce got on methadone, his addiction to heroin and oxycodone nearly destroyed him: He lost his home, his job, custody of his son—and his driver’s license. So even after he began to rebuild his life, Pesce relied on his parents to drive him to a methadone clinic for his daily dose. One day last July, his mother was unexpectedly unavailable, and desperate not to relapse, he drove himself. En route, Pesce was pulled over for going six miles above the speed limit and charged...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Chally Grundwag, a mental health consultant, faced three teachers gathered around a pint-size preschool table. “What kind of kids really push your buttons?” she asked the group. The teachers at Kidango’s Dorsa Center in San Jose thought for a moment. “Crying ones,” one responded. “I want to say, ‘Stop crying; you’re going to be OK!’ But I can’t.” A crying toddler may be a commonplace challenge for a parent, but for teachers confronted with more than a dozen meltdowns at...

When @Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician recently appointed to serve as California’s first ever surgeon general, talks about her work, she invariably brings up Diego. Diego was a 7-year-old patient who came to her clinic because he had stopped growing. He also had asthma, eczema, and behavior problems. When Harris sat down with Diego to discuss his medical history, she found out that he had been sexually assaulted as a 4-year-old. That’s when it all clicked for her. Years of...

During the first half of my life, I tried to find THE solution to my depression and anxiety — a cure that would forever eradicate my symptoms. I was a gullible consumer of dogmatic books and advice promising Nirvana: by balancing my gut bacteria, by committing to a daily meditation practice, by taking fish oil and vitamin D, or by sweating out my toxins through hot yoga six times a week. While those are all pieces of my recovery program today, none of them alone provided the answer. After...

Stephanie Land’s new memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive , is a bracing one: When Land was 28 and unexpectedly got pregnant, she threw out her plans to study creative writing at the University of Montana in favor of raising her child. But with little support from the father and no close relatives who could help out in any meaningful way, Land soon found herself in a homeless shelter in Washington State with her tiny daughter, Mia. In the years following, Land...

What is possible when we address #AdverseChildhoodExperiences #ACEs #Trauma... "...that my voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems," explains Eleanor Jane Longden in her Ted Talk, "This is My Story of Schizophrenia," linked below As introduced on Ted.com/talks/eleanor_longden, To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading...