December 2016

I love a short video clips that educational and entertaining. Have you seen any of these by Sara Langworthy? Her website has more.

My home was flooded just weeks before my divorce was final. The ocean spilled over the sea wall and headed down the street carrying telephone poles, patio furniture and boat parts. It was 2 a.m. and I was in my bedroom with the cat as my daughter was with her father on one of her first overnights. I was knee deep in despair. And fear. The ocean pooled around my stairs, foundations and car. Outside, the flood would take my blue Subaru, dog fence and air conditioner. Inside, it was thr heating...

Few things challenge my attention span more than sleep deprivation or anxiety. Combine both with with parenting babies or toddlers and retaining anything at all is unlikely. It's why I love videos. I discovered some short, warm and accessible ones today done by mother and author, Ann Douglas, on the www.havingababy.com website. Her videos are only a minute long and geared towards parents of infants, toddlers and kids in grade school. I would have loved these when my daughter was younger.

File this under kindness matters only every single time. And for lots of people, most especially, at this time of year. Excerpt from "Dear Laurie" post written by the same Heidi written about in this piece. I came in for a shift one night and she said, “oh” (nonchalant) “I picked up that doll you wanted.” She bought the doll and brought it in. For me. She saw it, knew I was looking for it, and picked it up for me. I was moved. I didn’t have a lot of people in my life. At all. All I did was...

As urgently reported by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), “On December 23, 2016, the fee for the form to request a U.S Certificate of Citizenship for adopted children (form N-600 / N-600K ) is [more than] doubling from $550 to $1,170. Anyone who files an adoption application or petition on or after December 23rd will have to pay the new amount.” The fee to replace a lost COC (form N-565 ) is also rising, from $345 to $555. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...

I'm planning to give my parenting with PTSD talk and have been listening lots to the brilliant author of Childhood Disrupted, Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Here's a podcast that talked about parenting with ACEs. She was speaking with Guy MacPherson at the time. Some of the words she spoke that resonated and remind me that self-care is central to my parenting are as follows: "And the best thing we can do for our own kids is manage our own stuff. Good parents make safe kids." She wrote: "If we are...

Show don't tell is the first bit of advice almost every writer gets. Don't give facts if words can form an image. Don't say a song was fast-paced if words can tap quickly, instead, across the page. It's good advice but when it comes to ACEs we need both. We need to tell and show and tell again. There's resistance to telling. We need facts and data and proof. And we need stories. Both. Over and over and over. So the facts come with faces. So the data is as pressing as a poem. I can write...

I got an email from another parent last week. She saw I was giving a talk on Parenting with PTSD and talking about ACEs. I am. She might not be able to be present, due to childcare issues, but wanted to know if I knew of any resources. Here's the thing. There are few resources. Few peer to peer supports, for parents, where there is childcare and a safe and affordable place to learn and practice regulating our own selves so we can help guide our kids. This, to me, is missing and it's missing...

Educators, health care providers and researchers have known for some time that low socioeconomic status is connected to poor health, including in children, but a new study led by a San Francisco State University psychologist has shed light on what can be done to protect young people from negative outcomes. The keys? A more positive parent-child relationship as well as the child’s own ability to manage his or her response to stressful situations, according to research published last month in...

If we are lucky enough to be healthy, we probably don't worry all that much about health. If we are sick, we think about health issues all of the time. If we are lucky enough be wealthy, we probably don't worry all that much about money. If we are poor, we think about money stuff a lot. If we aren't hurt by racism or sexism or one of the many "isms," we might not even be aware these inequities exist. But if "isms" have hurt us, made life more difficult and less fair, we're probably acutely...

I'm sharing an article written co-founder of the Trigger Points Anthology. Her name is Joyelle. She and Dawn, the other co-founder, created a Facebook community as well for parents who were abused as children. It's about the power of community. I'm so grateful for the community they have created. I'm grateful for this one, too. It's wonderful to share resources, stories and solidarity online. It's great to brainstorm and know we aren't alone and that others are as passionate about ACEs and...

One thing I've learned from adoption expert and social worker, Beth O'Malley , is that talking about hard topics is essential. She knows. She was adopted from foster care as an infant, was an adoption social worker for the Department of Children and Families, in Massachusetts, and is an adoptive mother. O’Malley says that’s it up to us, as parents to initiate conversations about adoption and to make it safe to share thoughts, feelings and experiences about anything. Addiction. Abuse. Loss.