Tagged With "Complex Post Traumatic Stress"
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Re: Dear Donna, I am reading Childhood Disrupted...
Rona, your words mean so much to me. I, too, have an ACE Score of 4. And even now, when I am so "far" along on the path to healing, there are many many moments when it feels overwhelming to consider that I've navigated one traumatic illness after another for forty years, since I was a child. ACEs aren't the only reason for that, but they play such a large role, for me, in my inflammatory response. The more we share, and look for healing, and follow the science which helps us to understand...
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Re: 5 Scripts for Building Resilience in Children with Chronic Conditions
Cis I can relate to all of this. We've all had those moments as parents where the past affects how we respond. I love the idea of doing yoga after a tough parent/child moment -- as a way to heal the stress of an altercation! Brilliant. My hardest moments as a parent have been when I convey feelings I don't want to convey (appearing to be shut down, angry, overwhelmed) and I end up going from happy normal parenting of my lovely kids, who matter to me more than anything on earth -- to an...
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Re: 5 Scripts for Building Resilience in Children with Chronic Conditions
Donna, I'm glad to know this is familiar to other parents as well. The repair, and quickly, is so important and keeps things from festering or growing. It does bring some relief to know I'm not the only one. I know that is true but it's also good to hear others experience similar things, what happens and different ways to respond! And yes, I like the yoga too to get ME in touch with my better self so I can better parent and we can both LITERALLY get calm together. So far, my daughter is...
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Re: Buying friendship
Hi Randy: That was brave of you and so I will respond. I can relate to this - both the over-giving though I've improved on that and may verge right on into the selfishness and catching up on me category. But also to the frustration that this takes so long. Another random thought I had reading your post is how the dance of intimacy can be wonderful AND anxiety provoking even if it's a friendship being courted. Sometimes I feel the awareness of noticing my patterns is a beautiful and wonderful...
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Re: Buying friendship
Hi, Randy: Thanks for being so courageous to post this, and so open about your experiences. I'm really glad that you've made such incredible progress....it is very painful to come to grips with past adversity and to clearly understand how it warped us in directions that we might not have gone had our circumstances been healthier. I strongly relate to your frustration, and, in my best moments, grasp that it's another way to beat myself up, which just echoes the way I was beaten up as a child.
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Re: finding healthcare providers who specialize in ACEs
Don, there are a number of ACE initiatives going on the Philadelphia area. I couldn't tell from the zipcode on your member profile where in "eastern Pennsylvania" you are. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is apparently supporting some of those initiatives. If you go to the box in the upper right corner of the aces connection page, "alerts" and "dialogues" are boxed beside one another. You could identify other "eastern Pennsylvania" members by going to the "Members" column in the darker blue...
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Re: finding healthcare providers who specialize in ACEs
Originally Posted by Robert Olcott: Don, there are a number of ACE initiatives going on the Philadelphia area. I couldn't tell from the zipcode on your member profile where in "eastern Pennsylvania" you are. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is apparently supporting some of those initiatives. If you go to the box in the upper right corner of the aces connection page, "alerts" and "dialogues" are boxed beside one another. You could identify other "eastern Pennsylvania" members by going to the...
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Re: Faces of ACEs
Poignant. Thank you for the post. I wish more parents and care takers would see this. A dear friend of mine sent me pictures of herself when she was 6 and after terrible abuse took place. Definitely lost the light in her eyes. We are here to recognize and reverse this pain and pattern. I wish the wounded child love.
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Re: My place in ACEs?
Hi Janie, It sounds like you have used your personal tragic experience in a creative and generous way. I love the idea of putting resources out there for kids who may be in the midst of their own ACEs. I have only begun my journey, as I am still absorbing all the information in "Childhood Disrupted". I knew about the psychological consequences of my own ACEs, but it never occurred to me that my sudden onset of health problems as I turned fifty this year could have any relationship to my...
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Re: My place in ACEs?
Thank you Cheryl for your interest in my work. I do have a book that can help niece. It is available in paperback and an an ebooks for iPad, Kindle and B&N. I will be happy to send you a personalized copy if you email me at: Janielbl@gmail.com A local Librarian gave it to a troubled teen and she said it turned her life around. Discussion Guidelines Included Emily, a desperate young girl who unlocks dark secrets and comes of age in the midst of physical and emotional abandonment. (Age 11...
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Re: My place in ACEs?
The work is wonderful and important and I wonder if the writing alone is one part of your great success as I know it can be one powerful and healthful tool. I also wonder if your book, though geared towards kids, wouldn't be good for adults. There's a book being put together (out in one month) called Trigger Points for survivors of abuse and it's about how we parent. A lot of the pieces are about learning to parent ourselves and raise our emotional selves. I know I've learned so much about...
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Re: My place in ACEs?
Thank you Cissy for your encouragement. The Emily book is good for both young teens and adults. One woman in her 50's wrote a review on Amazon for the Emily book and said that it was the hardest book she ever loved. The emotional journey of Emily brings one in touch with their inner child and can help to understand an heal that child. One man in his 70's said that if he would have read my book as a boy he would have treated girls much nicer. I would love to have my book posted on your face...
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Re: My place in ACEs?
Yes I would like to join your face book. See comment below.Originally Posted by Christine Cissy White: The work is wonderful and important and I wonder if the writing alone is one part of your great success as I know it can be one powerful and healthful tool. I also wonder if your book, though geared towards kids, wouldn't be good for adults. There's a book being put together (out in one month) called Trigger Points for survivors of abuse and it's about how we parent. A lot of the pieces are...
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Re: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
Welcome Jed, I admire your work greatly. Thanks for sharing your wise thoughts here, and feel free to post your recent article on men and relationships -- I think we'd all like to read it!
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Re: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
Cis you raise such important insights and questions here. I'm so glad to have the opportunity to share this space with you and ask these questions and have you share your wisdome. I'm very interested in parenting for resiliency and just wrote a piece for Fearless Parents about this -- which I'll post here tomorrow. It's just touches at the beginning of what we need to know. When we have a history of ACEs we so very much want our children to grow up safe and adversity free. We know that some...
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Re: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
I look forward to reading your article Donna! I know many parents who want this info. There's a group over at Trigger Points Anthology with a book coming out in November about parenting as a survivor. It was going to be about parenting as a sexual abuse survivor but they expanded it to be a survivor of childhood abuse. I'm interested in reading those essays. Not enough is written, in my opinion on that topic. There is how to parent when you weren't parented well. There is also the...
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Re: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
I'll keep an eye out for that book -- what an important work. Yes, these questions are sooo complicated, and watching a parent manage the stress of their own parents dealing with their parents -- nothing has been written about that. I'm about to post the Fearless Parent piece, which just gets at the tip of the iceberg... Originally Posted by Christine Cissy White: I look forward to reading your article Donna! I know many parents who want this info. There's a group over at Trigger Points...
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Re: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
Hi Donna, Your book is very timely. Well done! You stated that it takes 20 years to re-write the biological impact of toxic stress; I'm curious if you came across particular modalities, interventions or combinations of interventions (medical and social/emotional, integrated, holistic etc.) which tended to be most successful? Does the timeline of healing begin when a person actively begins seeking their own healing, or does it also happen passively once the stressor has ended? I'm also...
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Re: My place in ACEs?
Janie, I don't seem to be able to find my place around here either, no fault of yours certainly, but it's more than that the site isn't well organized. I'm a "retired" (not exactly voluntarily) male in Ventura County on fixed income trying to get therapy for C-PTSD with alexithymia and I can't find either term here with the site search. My late mother was neck-deep in cluster B personality disorders, I counted 5 and yes I know by "orthodox" accounting there aren't supposed to be that many,...
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Immigrant teens, parents explore ACEs, resilience in 5-week course with family doc
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family doctor in San Jose, Calif., was determined to find a way to teach ACEs science to her patients. Teens would come to the Washington Neighborhood Clinic clearly depressed by a range of problems at home that were contributing to risky sexual behavior and marijuana use, as well as preventable health problems like extreme obesity.
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In "Childhood Disrupted", Donna Jackson Nakazawa explains how your biography becomes your biology...and that you really can heal
If you want to know why you’ve been married three – or more -- times. Or why you just can’t stop smoking. Or why the ability to control your drinking is slipping away from you. Or why you have so many physical problems that doctors...
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Introducing myself, Morgan Vien & NEW Practicing Resilience Community
Hello! I’m a Community Manager for the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care & Healing community. This is an introduction to me and this new community. I graduated with a B.S. in Public Health from Santa Clara University June 2017. And I’m interested in preventing chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, at the community and population level by addressing biological, psychological, and social factors that affect chronic disease outcomes. As the...
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Latest ACEs science research from PubMed, February 12, 2019
Hair cortisol in the perinatal period mediates associations between maternal adversity and disrupted maternal interaction in early infancy. Nyström-Hansen M, Andersen MS, Khoury JE, Davidsen K, Gumley A, Lyons-Ruth K, MacBeth A, Harder S. Dev Psychobiol . 2019 Feb 12. doi: 10.1002/dev.21833. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 30747450 elect item 3074 Child maltreatment is mediating long-term consequences of household dysfunction in a population representative sample. Clemens V, Berthold O, Witt A,...
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My place in ACEs?
Hello My name is Janie Lancaster and I live in Riverside County. I am trying to find my place in the ACEs community. I am a survivor or cumulative childhood traumas who has spent twelve years doing research on Complex Post Traumatic Stress. On the...
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Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains.
Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains. All trauma informed practitioners who are suffering with or who work with adults or children suffering with C-PTSD, PTSD, Developmental Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, ADHD & Sleep Disorders are welcome to apply to be considered for this study. The deadline to request and submit your application is: March 20, 2020 As a trauma...
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Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom by Yolo CAPC and YCCA
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom. This guide for parents and caregivers, which we are launching during Child Abuse Prevention Month, contains tips and resources that parents and caregivers can use to promote resilience in their children and themselves. Nurturing Children During Times of Stress explains the effects of intense stress or...
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Over 100 pastoral education students trained in trauma at regional meeting in Baltimore
The theme of trauma was selected for this year’s annual summer Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Day because “clergy responses to trauma an have a significant impact on our own healing and in healing our communities,” as described in the planning committee welcome letter. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore hosted the gathering of over 100 pastoral students from the Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia region. Planning Committee Chair Ty Crowe, director of the Hospital’s Spiritual...
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Parent Handouts updated and available In Dari, English & Spanish
The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...
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Parenting, Menopause & ACEs After-the-Chat Summary: Carey Sipp
Have you talked with friends, siblings or co-workers about Parenting with ACEs while going through the change? Do you have any fascinating facts to share about how your OBGYN prepared or supported you when thrown by midlife, hormonal shifts and emotional residue from traumatic stress? Me either. And it's a shame. A lot of people parent, go through menopause, and have survived a bunch of ACEs. Conversations and information shouldn't be so hard to find. But they are. T hat's the reason we...
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Parents’ emotional trauma may change their children’s biology. Studies in mice show how [sciencemag.org]
By Andrew Curry, Science, July 18, 2019. ZURICH, SWITZERLAND— The children living in SOS Children's Villages orphanages in Pakistan have had a rough start in life. Many have lost their fathers, which in conservative Pakistani society can effectively mean losing their mothers, too: Destitute widows often struggle to find enough work to support their families and may have to give up their children. The orphanages, in Multan, Lahore, and Islamabad, provide shelter and health care and send kids...
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Reminder: Live Chat with Donna Jackson Nakazawa
"It's really not survival of the fittest - it's survival of the nurtured." Donna Jackson Nakazawa Date: Tuesday, November 14th, 2017 Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Where: Here / Chats ( featured chat ) Hosted by: @Jane Stevens Topics to be Covered: Parenting with ACEs. What parents need to know. Affordable self-care for stressed and busy parents. Healing from ACEs & family wellness. How to Attend Online Chats: M embers of ACEs Connection : Go to Chats (top of page). Find...
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Soul Murder
Soul Murder Create New Post 18 hours ago by judith haire Donna's book came in the post yesterday. I've been reading it avidly. Can't bear to put it down. It fills in so many gaps in my knowledge. I know now...
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Standing Strong – The knowledge, skills and peer support parents need to lead (www.risemagazine.org)
Cissy's note: I admire the work of this parent-led and parent-focused organization. I read everything they post. For those not familiar with what they do, this is a recent interview with three staffers and gives a really good look at what and how they work to support families and make systems change. Here's an excerpt. The full piece is here. To read more of this piece recently published in Rise Magazine, go here.
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The Decision that Changed My Life
Four years ago, I decided to start a conversation about the long term impact of childhood abuse. More specifically, about what happens when those abused children grow up and have children of their own. When I had become a parent, I went looking for books on this topic, and I didn’t find anything. But I knew I couldn’t be the only one who was dealing with this. And once I found one other person who was willing to write about this, I said, let’s collect these stories. The stories of these...
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The Girl on the Side (www.beatingtrauma.com)
Elisabeth Corey writes so honestly on her Beating Trauma blog . I'm a huge fan of her writing and advocacy work. This piece, in particular, is amazing. She writes about adult relationships and how they have been impacted deeply and consistently by ACEs in childhood. We know what we have lived. Unlearning and learning new and different things takes time and work. And it helps, that parents like Elisabeth share as they learn. We all benefit from that sharing. Many of us are learning how to...
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Trauma Mama: Little Girl Riding Shotgun in My Psyche
“I love you,” I say to my daughter. “Of course you do,” she says, I’m awesome.” She was twelve. The mother in me smiled. The girl I was shook her head inside and wondered h ow would it have been to feel both loved and lovable while a child? I do not know. I will never know. It does not matter how wonderful my present. It does not matter who I will become. I can’t change the past. The past is a country I never want my daughter to travel near or in. I am an exile, from my past, my child self.
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When Your Kid is Too Good for Brené Brown
Childhood, like literature, lasts." Lance Woolaver, paraphrased from his book, Maud Lewis: The Heart at the Door. Even in the midst of conflict, I have known moments of maternal bliss. I had one just recently when my daughter and I hit a snag. It wasn't one of the ugly, awful or prolonged kinds. That's not due to me though. That's mostly because my kid has a practical, logical and rational nature which does not clash with my more emotional, reactive and fearful one. We are alike enough to...
Ask the Community
7 Ways Childhood Adversity Changes the Brain How Early Emotional Trauma Changes Who We Are -- and What We Can Do About It
Hope you'll enjoy Part 1 of my 2 Part Series in Psychology Today, 7 Ways Adversity Changes the Brain - and What we Can Do About It . I gathered together the most current research, in hopes it will help those on their healing journey....
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My Childhood Disrupted
Greetings, All! Dwayne, here! First... TRIGGER ALERT! TRIGGER ALERT! This Blog-Post may cause some readers to TRIGGER into a TRAUMATIZED STATE! Of course, that is never my intent; but, I thought it would be polite to warn anyone who needed such warning. Now... I am not entirely sure how/where to start. During my daily inner-dialogues, I hardly ever have this discussion -- there is just too much pain and shame involved. I even end up feeling ashamed about those rare positive accomplishments I...
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A Memoir for ACE Sufferers, Educators, Healers
I was elated to hear about Donna's Childhood Disrupted last summer, since I had been writing a memoir on healing from loss and unexplained illness (MCS) via the mind-body connection and working with the inner child. I was really sick with the chronic symptoms of nausea, lightheaded-ness, and brainfog. I had a young child and a part-time job I barely held on. I found integrative medicine, which helped me cope, but even that wasn't enough. One day after a holistic method...
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Announcing the Parenting with ACEs Monthly Chat Series!
I'm thrilled to announce our NEW Live Chat series!!! Starting in May, once a month, we will have a live Chat Event. It will take online in the Parenting with ACEs Group the second Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST). We'll learn from our featured guests (below) about ACE-related issues. We'll have discussions and share experiences, stories, and resources with each other. Here is who and what we have scheduled for 2017. 2017 Monthly Chat Schedule / Time is Always: @ 10 AM PST (1...
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Art, Drumming, Storytelling, Singing infuse Intergenerational Trauma event in Baltimore
On a beautiful fall day I drove up to Baltimore from my home in Washington, DC for an event I learned about in a post by Donna Jackson Nakazawa on the ACEs Connection group named after the title of her new, must-read book, Childhood...
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Childhood Should Not Be Disrupted
People often ask me why I wrote # ChildhoodDisrupted . As a science journalist specializing in the intersection of neurobiology, immunology and emotion, I’d spent 20 years writing about the immune system and the human brain. When I came across the CDC’s # ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study), it struck me like a lightning bolt. I realized that after 20 years of writing about how we become ill and how we heal, I had been missing a huge piece of what can cause disease. Chronic...
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Come Chat with Dr. Claudia M. Gold: An ACE-Informed Pediatrician
Date: July 11th Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Location: Parenting with ACEs Group , Online Flyer: Attached below. Please share. Dr. Claudia M. Gold has practiced general and behavioral pediatrics for 25 years and specializes in early childhood mental health. She is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Boston Infant-Parent Mental Health program, William James College, and the Austen Riggs Center where she is a Human Development consultant. Dr. Gold is author of the following...
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa's Tweet Thread Response to Jennifer Brea & the Angel and the Assassin
While @Donna Jackson Nakazawa is usually too busy writing books, training, and research to blog, she does share gems, nuggets, and information every once in a while on Twitter or Facebook which demand to be turned into blogs. With her permission to post, here's a recent, consolidated Tweet thread version of her writing. It's in response to another thread by Jennifer Brea (which can be found here) where she details about what we can expect from her upcoming book, The Angel and the...
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EveryDay Strong: Teaching kids about family history helps increase resilience [heraldextra.com]
Resilience, or the ability to overcome challenges in life, is a trait many parents hope their children will develop. Resilient children are more likely to have good emotional and mental health. Research has shown that children who know more about their families and family history are more resilient and tend to do better when facing challenges in life. This may be because seeing patterns of overcoming failures and surviving hard times can help children recognize that people can recover and...
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Fathers & ACEs with Trauma Dad & Father's Uplift CEO: Tuesday, September 12th
What supports exist to "uplift" fathers who have survived abandonment, abuse or torture as children? Where can men go to discuss the joys, struggles and issues of being a father with ACEs? Where are the men who face hard, heavy and complicated realities to make life easier and lighter for all who come after? We found two of them and they will be the featured guests in the next Parenting with ACEs chat . Meet Charles Clayton Daniels, Jr. of Father's Uplift and "Trauma Dad" Byron Hamel. Both...
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For Parents with High ACE Scores
When I lecture at universities, advocacy groups, hospitals, schools, etc., I’m often asked: what advice do you have for parents who have high ACE scores if they are trying to raise children with fewer ACEs? Children with ACEs find “resiliency” because an adult provides a safe environment – in which they feel known, validated. So that means that the most important thing adults can do is to manage their own stuff. Self-regulation by adults is a first step to help kids self-regulate themselves.
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Healing Is Possible
I devoted half of my book, Childhood Disrupted , to science-based interventions on how individuals can heal from the effects of ACEs. Here are some of the basics. H ere are some really important healing steps we can all take – which the science shows can help reverse the changes to our brains and DNA that might have occurred, growing up with ACES Writing to heal. Research shows individuals who write about emotional upheavals and stressful experiences for 20 minutes each day, over a period of...
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How Genes Respond to Trauma and Stress
Okay! So, after getting YOUR answers to my crowdsourcing question (thank you for the 100 responses on Facebook and Instagram !): "What do you want to see from me on social media?" the overwhelming #1 response was more nuggets of science, offered with the shared sense that I understand YOUR struggles, I see your suffering. And I do. Oh, you have no idea how much I do. So, with that in mind, here's a nugget of science about How Genes Respond to Trauma and Stress . Some genes, like the ones...