“Taking Care of Other People's Children”
Numerous mental health studies suggest that one of the best ways to help children develop resilience and recover from adverse childhood experiences is for them to have a trusted confidante outside the family. Yet we also are told that protecting children from sexual abuse requires our preventing a sexual predator from “grooming” them. The problem…
For those of us who have traumatized children in our care, it is difficult to know how to help them. A recent study from Canada tells us that being a safe person for children to confide in may be one of the best things that we can do. The study surveyed more than 17,000 adults,…
One topic that I have been pondering lately is how families manage adversity and teach their children to be resilient. I ran across a recent study that gave me both hope and some concrete ideas for helping our children. The authors did an in-depth analysis of the National Survey of Children’s Health data from 2016…
A pattern that shows up very often in studies of resilience is a high correlation between resilience and self-esteem. It would be very easy to conclude that, if we help children develop self-esteem, we can also increase their resilience. These studies, however, only measure correlation, not causation. Furthermore, other studies of self-esteem indicate that it…
One of the most important, and difficult, ways that we can encourage resilience in children is to allow them unsupervised play time. Allowing children to have unsupervised time is extremely difficult in our hyper-protective society, but it is essential to helping children become resilient. A groundbreaking analytical review from Canada concluded that giving children…
One of the better trends in the last decade of caring for children is the recognition that children need to develop resilience. In spite of our best efforts, all children will face setbacks and conflicts. We need to help our children learn how to bounce back. Several mental health articles offer some interesting data about…
In my last post, I discussed the 20+ years of research on the possible effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on children. Fortunately, we are seeing more research into how we can help counter the ACEs that the children in our care have suffered. None of these studies is definitive — even the original ACEs…
One of the most active areas of mental health studies these days is the effect of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on long-term health. The term stems from a groundbreaking study from 1995-1997 by the Centers for Disease Control and the Kaiser Permanente Foundation. That study found that children who experience ACEs have increased risk of…
A recent analysis of a national survey indicates that families can help children avoid bullying by developing habits of resilience. The study comes from the periodic National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), which asks parents various questions about their children and their families. In 2016, the survey added questions about family resilience, specifically When your…
Bullying issues get a lot of attention these days, because everyone wants to spare children the trauma of true bullying. Yet in spite of our best efforts, the problem is not getting better, and some experts worry that we are creating new problems for our kids. One problem is that, contrary to what many parents…