When The Political Becomes Personal
Last week was just plain emotionally exhausting! As the mom of a child who experienced severe early childhood trauma, a mom who has spent the last two decades immersed in the study of what these early traumas (abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, separation from your parent) do to the developing brains of infants and toddlers, […]
Trauma-Informed Parenting: What Adoptive & Foster Parents Can Teach About ACEs
[original version published on Parenting with ACEs on June 5, 2016] There are many adults with low ACE scores who parent children with high ACE scores. These parents are often feisty and fierce advocates who tirelessly seek out support, strategies and solutions to make the lives of their children easier and better. They are some of the […]
What I Learned -or Remembered- when I Read Brave
1) There are (at least) 2 kinds of being brave. One is an illusion in which we tell ourselves a version of events that we would like to be true. The other is the real deal. It involves facing our fears head on and living to tell the tale. In a future ATN blog post, […]
Three Things Parents Want Therapists To Do
Last month, I shared three things that parents want therapists to know: Parents don’t know if they can trust therapists. Parents love their kids. Parents are juggling multiple responsibilities. I promised a follow-up, so here it is, three things parents want therapists to do. 1) Please listen to us. We know a lot about our […]
On Losing a Mother…and a Mother Culture
I saw them the moment we entered the restaurant. The dad was suited up, ready for Mother’s Day at our favorite Indian buffet. The little girl, her black hair chopped in the “orphanage bob,” sat safely strapped into a high chair. The mom wore a salwar kameez, blond hair hanging loosely about her pale neck. […]
Five Nuggets of Emotional Wisdom for Mothers of Children with Trauma
Being a mother is the hardest job in the world when things go smoothly. When you have a child who suffers symptoms of trauma, the hardest job becomes exponentially harder. At my worst moments, when I despaired and felt like I could not go on, I was grateful for the education in emotions that I […]
Opting Out of Mother’s Day?
I’m here to give you my blessing…yes, you CAN opt out of Mother’s Day! It is your day after all…so technically by the rules of our society (as enforced by Hallmark) you’re allowed to do whatever you want. Well…unless “whatever you want” triggers the heck out of your children with relational trauma. And there’s the […]
Mother’s Day. Beautiful and Complicated.
–by Neeva Carter The moment I heard my children’s names, my world stood still. I was at work, standing in an empty room on the phone, listening to our social worker run through the highlights of their story. She was reluctant to tell me anything, having only agreed because the children’s social worker had begged, […]
Giving Up Mother’s Day
There is a movement in recent years to do away with celebrating Mother’s Day. It’s a fair argument that Mother’s Day has become too commercialized. It’s also important to consider how Mother’s Day is achingly painful for so many of us: Those who have lost children. Those who have lost mothers. Those who have suffered abuse, […]
Mother of the Year (Sort of…)
–by Anna Gosman And the “Mother of the Year” award goes to me…AGAIN. This is what I usually say to myself after I’ve lost my temper, forgotten to pack someone’s lunch, left someone at school (yes, that can happen…), the list goes on and on. It seems like every day I fail as a mother, […]