Wisdom from a Virtual Schooling Mom
Blog Manager’s Note: I don’t know about you, but I know that I have lost count of how many days we’ve been under orders to “shelter in place.” Although absolutely necessary, this isn’t easy, especially as more and more states make the decision to close school doors for the rest of this academic year. Thankfully, […]
Managing Coronavirus Chaos at Home
How it all got started It wasn’t exactly what we planned for the spring of 2020. Already, life wasn’t very typical, given that we were living in a multi-generational home. Isolating with an eleven- and fifteen-year-old while their mother continued working took atypical to a whole new level. And when our governor (Washington State) took […]
Home School in a Stay-Home World
Blog Manager’s Note: Today’s post is about this strange new world in which we all find ourselves learning how to home school. If you’re like me, the possibility had never even crossed your mind in the days and years leading up to COVID-19! As part of our series on coping with the pandemic, ATN Trauma […]
Activities for the Social Distancing Era
Blog manager’s note: Welcome to the third installment of our Coping with Coronavirus series! This comes to us from long-time ATN Angel Jane Samuel, who shares some activities we can do with and for our kids…and ourselves. I said to my husband the other day, “Life is too much to grasp now. The reality of this […]
COVID-19: Embrace the Gift
Blog manager’s note: Before you get all up in arms wondering what kind of gift the novel coronavirus could possibly be, read on. This is the second of what will be a series of posts by ATN‘s wonderful staff and volunteers concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. We plan to present a variety of perspectives with the goal of […]
Making a Difference in a Time of Dis-Ease
The rise of dis-ease Over the last weeks, we have awakened daily to the rising of dis-ease. The blurry edge between fact and fabrication has brought us to question our questions. It has activated the sort of fear that causes toilet paper to be prized ahead of reason and parity. It has let us feel […]
What to Say to Someone Depressed or Suicidal
According to the CDC, at least 3 in 20 students in a typical high school classroom have seriously considered taking their lives in the past year. With teen depression and suicidal ideation on the rise in these digital times, we’re likely to see these numbers increase. Will we know what to say if that student, friend, […]
Rupture and Repair: Emotions, Attunement, and Attachment
“Why do some children become sad, withdrawn, insecure, or angry, whereas others become happy, curious, affectionate, and self-confident?” developmental psychologist Edward Tronick, Ph.D. asked in a 1989 paper called “Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants.” The answer lies in large part with the quality of emotional communication, or attunement, between parent and child. We don’t get […]
Akin, Trauma, and Mindfulness in School
A Mindfulness room gone wrong About a month ago, I read Emma Donoghue’s novel, Akin, the story of an unlikely duo, both touched by childhood trauma: an 11-year-old boy named Michael and his great-uncle, Noah. Michael’s father–Noah’s nephew–died of an overdose, while his mother is imprisoned for a drug-related offense. Overnight, Noah finds himself the […]
My Son’s Brain in School
A neuropsychologist said of my oldest son: “His brain is not organized the way the world wants it to be, so he has problems functioning. But he doesn’t have behavior problems. His brain doesn’t do those.” My youngest son also has a brain that doesn’t fit the world he lives in, but his brain does […]