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Flaghouse - Physical Education Equipment - Recreational Products

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Pipeline is a fast-paced game that employs physical coordination, team cooperation, communication, and planning. This lively and thought-provoking activity involves the movement of assorted balls and objects from a starting point to the delivery container. Easily modified, Pipeline is suitable for all ages and abilities, from adult corporate groups to younger students. Pipeline is a field-tested gem with an overwhelmingly successful track record. The kit includes 15 chutes in three different lengths (5 of each length), as well as eight assorted sized balls of different materials. Chute lengths are approximately 12", 15" and 17" long.

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Pipeline is a fast-paced game that employs physical coordination, team cooperation, communication, and planning. This lively and thought-provoking activity involves the movement of assorted balls and objects from a starting point to the delivery container. Easily modified, Pipeline is suitable for all ages and abilities, from adult corporate groups to younger students.

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In partnership with families and communities, schools play a central role in supporting young people's social and emotional development. All parts of the school, from the cafeteria to the hallway to the playground, offer students opportunities to practice and reinforce social and emotional learning (SEL). Their learning experiences and instruction shape how they develop and use social, emotional, and academic competencies.

SEL efforts both contribute to and depend upon a supportive school environment with strong and positive relationships. How students feel in school-whether they feel connected to their teachers, other adults in the school, or each other-is a powerful contributor to their personal and academic success. Adults in the school help shape this environment by practicing and modeling their own SEL, while working together to continuously improve students' learning and experiences.

The result? Schools that put SEL at the center are better positioned to create an environment where all adults can offer their best selves and where students have ample opportunities to practice the skills that support their learning and development.

This page examines how SEL appears in the school-both in terms of creating positive learning environments and offering opportunities inside and outside the classroom to practice SEL.

The first thing that I would suggest to any district is if you care about outcomes. you need to care about SEL. It is the pathway to get the outcomes that we all desire.

Assistant Superintendent

What have we learned?
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SEL implementation at the school level focuses on four main areas of activity: Build foundational support and plan, strengthen adult SEL competencies and capacity, promote SEL for students, and reflect on data for continuous improvement.

Within those, there are ten indicators that offer a clearer picture of what schoolwide SEL looks like. These indicators capture what you see when schoolwide SEL is fully implemented. For example, you'd see explicit SEL instruction using an evidence-based program, opportunities to encourage and listen to youth voice, supportive and equity-focused forms of discipline that center on restorative approaches rather than punishment and exclusion, and all the other activities shown here:

Fig.1: Indicators of Schoolwide SEL

In full implementation of schoolwide SEL, you see evidence of all these indicators, working together to create a supportive, engaging learning environment where all students have frequent opportunities to learn and practice social and emotional competencies.

Everyone has a role to play in schoolwide SEL implementation. From the principal's office to the classroom to the cafeteria and school bus, SEL is everyone's responsibility.

The principal leads commitment to and support for SEL implementation and communicates that SEL is prioritized.

Other members of the leadership team ensure that academic instruction, discipline, student supports, and other areas align with SEL.

Teachers offer consistent SEL learning opportunities by employing evidence-based SEL practices and programs, incorporating SEL into all academic instruction, and fostering a supportive, caring classroom environment where students feel cared for, valued and affirmed in their identity.

Support staff (e.g. counselors, nurses, front office clerks, cafeteria staff, etc.) extend opportunities to practice SEL through supportive relationships.

Families and community partners can ensure all segments of students' lives support social and emotional development.

And beyond these responsibilities, everyone in the school can look for opportunities to continue to build and strengthen relationships with students and each other to help build a school culture where every student feels like they belong.

How is CASEL advancing this work?
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We offer quality guidance and tools to support schools nationwide in pursuing a systemic approach to SEL implementation. Our work has developed out of decades of research and two-way, collaborative partnerships with schools and school districts to build our knowledge about what works and the resources that can support the use of best practices. Our efforts include:

A Process for Schoolwide SEL

Working closely with schools and districts, we created a free online resource that outlines a step-by-step process for creating a caring, participatory, and equitable learning environment that promotes SEL for all students. Organized according to CASEL's school framework, the Guide to Schoolwide SEL includes guidance and resources on:

Building foundational support for SEL implementation

Creating an implementation plan

Strengthening adult SEL

Promoting SEL for students

Continuously improving SEL implementation

In support of our commitment to continuous improvement, the process was first documented more than 15 years ago and continues to be updated as more is learned about what it takes to support high-quality SEL in schools. A randomized control trial study was conducted in Chicago Public Schools where 14 schools implemented an evidence-based SEL program, and another 14 implemented the same SEL program plus the 2014 version of the School Guide. It was found that teams that used the School Guide demonstrated substantial improvement over the two year implementation process on all of the key activities in CASEL's schoolwide model, and staff in schools showed greater improvement on their perceptions of long-term planning for SEL, use of data, and staff involvement.

Workshops Series to Support School-Level Implementation

We offer the Learning Together SEL Workshops, a four-part series on schoolwide SEL. The workshops support school teams in coming together to learn about SEL and bring those learnings back to their schools. The series is offered two ways: With a live group virtually twice a year and on-demand for a self-paced version.

"This workshop has been instrumental in being able to introduce SEL to my school in a way that is attainable and connects to all staff levels." - Past Participant

Research-Practice Partnerships at the School Level

Through collaborative work with practitioners in the field, we are testing and refining approaches to schoolwide SEL implementation. In this process, we are exploring specific problems of practices that our partner school communities have identified, such as how SEL can be integrated into mathematics instruction or how strategies used to implement SEL in service of equitable learning environments can align with the continuous improvement components of CASEL's district-level theory of action. At the conclusion of each partnership, we share our learnings broadly in a series of research partnership briefs. Download the PDFs.

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In partnership with families and communities, schools play a central role in supporting young people's social and emotional development. All parts of the school, from the cafeteria to the hallway to the playground, offer students opportunities to practice and reinforce social and emotional learning (SEL).

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Resume motion Reduce motion

A systemic approach aligns school district policies, resources, and actions to support SEL.

SEL should pervade every aspect of a district’s work – from the superintendent’s office, to academics and core priorities, to the classroom. It is a unifying thread to help bring together district priorities, impacting central office staff, school leaders, teachers, students, and families.

School districts play a vital role in modeling and creating the conditions for schools to prioritize and advance SEL. How? Districts can center SEL in strategic planning and in the ways the central office operates, sets policies, budgets for resources to support implementation, provides professional learning, and enacts a vision and long-term plan for implementing, integrating, and continuously improving SEL practices.

This page examines how a systemic, districtwide approach to SEL supports an equitable, high-quality education for all.

Articulate the value and importance of social and emotional learning in every space. Social-emotional learning is the pathway towards equity, access, and social justice.

What have we learned?
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A key learning: Systemic implementation of SEL in a school district is possible and has a positive impact. Research undertaken in a partnership with American Institutes for Research (AIR) assessed the impact of systemic SEL implementation in eight, large urban districts nationwide. This research found:

Improved academic performance, including improved reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), higher GPAs, improvements in standardized test scores in ELA and math achievement.

Improved behavioral outcomes, including an increase in attendance and students’ social-emotional competence, along with a decrease in suspensions.

Improved school environments, as measured by district surveys.

What contributed to these outcomes? Since 2011, these districts improved implementation across four key areas outlined in CASEL’s theory of action for districtwide implementation:

Build foundational support and plan. Districts establish a foundation for SEL that is carried throughout the system. Key activities include developing and communicating an SEL vision, creating a multi-year plan for implementation, fostering collaboration across central office departments to ensure alignment, communicating about the district’s commitment to SEL, and budgeting for resources and staffing to support full implementation

Strengthen adult SEL competencies and capacity. Supporting adults to practice, model, and implement SEL is a critical foundational step. Districts provide the resources and framework to do this by ensuring central office staff are well-versed in SEL research and best practices, and by providing professional learning and a work environment that supports adult SEL, cultural competence, and collective efficacy.

Promote SEL for students. District-level coordination and support of SEL is critical to ensuring rich educational experiences for all students. By partnering with families and communities to develop standards and benchmarks for SEL learning, identifying and supporting evidence-based programs for teaching SEL, and integrating SEL into all district priorities (e.g. academics, discipline, student supports such as MTSS), the district ensures all students benefit from SEL.

Reflect on data for continuous improvement. Implementing SEL is an ongoing process that requires committed support from top leadership. Central to this effort is a commitment to continuous improvement of SEL implementation by collecting, analyzing and acting upon SEL implementation and outcome data.

For more information, visit the District Resource Center.

How is CASEL advancing this work?
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We work closely and collaboratively with districts across the country to build the knowledge base around SEL implementation. We view these as learning partnerships through which we bring together researchers, SEL coaches, and practitioners to collaboratively build our understanding and practice of systemic SEL implementation. It also allows us to create guidance for districts nationwide.

Partnerships at the District Level

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Collaborating Districts Initiative

In 2011, we launched a Collaborative Districts Initiative (CDI), bringing together eight large, urban districts to determine if systemic SEL implementation in a district was possible and what the outcomes would be for young people and adults as a result. We provided coaching, resources, and strategic planning support to help districts develop and achieve their goals for SEL implementation. Since then, we have expanded our efforts to partner with more than 20 districts nationwide. Read the full report on our first ten years.

Partner Districts:

Anchorage, AK

Atlanta, GA

Austin, TX

Baltimore, MD

Boston, MA

Chicago, IL

Cleveland, OH

Dallas, TX

Denver, CO

Dupage County, IL

El Paso, TX

Guilford, NC

Minneapolis, MN

Nashville, TN

Oakland, CA

Palm Beach, FL

Sacramento City, CA

Tulsa, OK

Warren City, OH

Washoe County, NV

Building Equitable Learning Environments

Through the Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) Network, we join diverse educators committed to tackling the inequities in our school system. We are exploring the redesign of public school systems, including teaching and learning, and partnering authentically with families, caregivers and communities, to center the experiences of young people with evidence-based practice and resources to support lasting change.

SEL Fellows Academy

CASEL and the Allstate Foundation proudly present the SEL Fellows Academy, our first-of-its-kind virtual leadership academy. The 12-month engagement is for those employed by a school district or regional office of education in the United States. Annually, a cohort of up to 50 SEL leaders will be selected to participate and deepen their SEL practice at a personal, interpersonal, and institutional level.

SEL Readiness and Engagement Analysis

To learn more about implementation successes and challenges on the ground, we offer a limited number of SEL Readiness and Engagement Analyses (SELREA) with districts. A SELREA is a fee-based consultation to provide recommendations for districts to initiate or advance their SEL work based on a collaborative site visit, interviews with stakeholders, and reviews of data.  For more information, contact selrea@casel.org.

District Resource Center

We take the learnings from our partnerships and develop and share free guidance and resources to help districts replicate quality efforts across the country. Our District Resource Center provides guidance on our field-tested district framework and sample tools and artifacts developed from our work with districts.

SEL Stories

We help document and elevate examples of district SEL efforts carried out by our partners across the country. These stories, which highlight trends in SEL implementation and Practices of Promise, provide a snapshot at how districts are navigating opportunities and challenges that arise as part of their broader efforts to systemically implement SEL.

Download our Practice of Promise Series:

Selecting Evidence-Based Programs – El Paso Independent School District (Texas)

Youth Voice –Washoe County School District (Nevada)

Creating a Caring Culture – Atlanta Public Schools (Georgia)

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SEL should pervade every aspect of a district’s work – from the superintendent’s office, to academics and core priorities, to the classroom. It is a

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CASEL District Resource Center - CASEL.org

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Putting research into action through collaboration with districts, refinement of knowledge, and development of powerful resources for the field.

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Social Emotional Growth & The Hopeful Student

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Social Emotional Growth & The Hopeful Student

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Ideas for focusing on Hope, Engagement, & Wellbeing. Lessons, language and more.

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The last few years have highlighted the importance of relationship-building and checking in with students on a regular basis.

For learning to happen, students need to see their identities valued. They need to feel safe physically and emotionally-and they need to feel a sense of connection to peers and adults.

You can do that by creating space for students to tell their stories, learning about their lives outside of school, and creating rituals that cultivate belonging and connectedness.

To help you get to know your students, we've curated this list of 101 asset-based, inclusive questions. Most are open-ended questions, but you can also adapt them into a multiple-choice format.

If you are a district or school administrator focused on improving relationships and belonging campus-wide, we invite you to share this article with your teachers and staff. This is a great resource to include on district or school resource sites, Tier 1 resource hubs, or in staff newsletters.

If you are a teacher, practitioner, or instructional coach, feel free to borrow these questions to get to know your students in the classroom-virtually or in person! These questions are great for small group brain breaks, icebreaker games, morning meetings or morning circles, and advisory periods. Or, use them as conversation starters in a 1:1 setting.

Click on the following links to jump to a section:

Want more inspiration and ideas for building relationships and belonging with students throughout the year? Download the PDF below.
[Bonus PDF Download] 5 Strategies to Build Student Belonging

Interests and Hobbies

1. What are your favorite hobbies?

2. In your free time, what do you like to do?

3. Have you volunteered in your community?

4. What was the hardest part of the past week for you?

5. What is your favorite book?

6. What is your favorite TV show?

17. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

18. What is your favorite thing to do over the weekends?

19. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

20. What is your most frequently-used or favorite emoji?

21. What are three awesome things about yourself?

22. What is something people don't know about you that you wish they knew?

23. What is a unique talent you have?

24. What do you want to be when you grow up?

25. What is a big world problem that you would like to change?

26. What is your biggest dream or goal in life?

Relational and Social-Emotional Learning

27. What is your social-emotional learning superpower?

28. Which of the following traits do you think best describes you: funny, thoughtful, caring, or outgoing?

29. How do you most like to connect with your friends? Through social media, by talking over the phone or texting, or by meeting up in person?

30. What is one thing your teacher can do to get to know you better?

31. How can your teacher help you if you are feeling down?

32. What is one thing you want to know about your teacher?

33. What do you think is the most important quality for a teacher to have?

34. Who is an adult at school that you know you can count on?

35. Who is a friend at school that you know you can count on?

36. When you are stressed, what do you do to relax?

37. What makes you feel the most appreciated and understood?

38. How would your friends or a relative describe you?

39. What is something that you are thankful for?

Family and Cultural Background

40. Where do your family members work?

41. What does dinner time look like at your house?

42. What are some family items or artifacts that represent your culture and identity?

43. Which languages do you speak (even just a little bit)?

44. Who is someone in your family that you look up to?

45. What is a favorite memory you have with a family member?

46. What do you like most about your family?

47. What is a family tradition that you have?

48. Does your family have pets? If not, would you like to have a pet? What kind?

49. What is your favorite family recipe?

50. Do you have siblings? If not, would you want to have siblings or do you like being an only child?

Academic Strengths and Opportunities

51. What is your favorite subject and why?

52. What is your least favorite subject and why? What is the best way I can support you when we work on that subject?

53. What is one thing you think you do well as a student?

54. What is one thing you would like to do better as a student?

55. What do you like most about school?

56. What do you like least about school?

57. What is something you would really want to learn about at school?

58. Which of the following is your favorite way to learn: by talking with others, by listening, or by reading?

59. What would be your dream field trip?

60. Would you rather do schoolwork as a group or by yourself?

61. What is the best school project or lesson you can remember?

62. What is the best way I can support you outside of class?

63. How would you like to be recognized if you get a good grade on an assignment or project?

The Transition Back to School / First Day of School

64. What is one thing you are looking forward to this school year?

65. What is something you learned over the summer?

66. What is something you would really want to learn about this year?

67. What is one thing you would like your classmates or teacher to know about you this year?

68. What is one thing you want to know about your teacher(s) this year?

69. What was the best part of the past week for you?

70. What was the hardest part of the past week for you?

71. What can teachers or other adults at school do to better support you?

72. How much did you enjoy class today?

73. How included did you feel in class today?

74. What was your favorite part of class today?

Virtual Learning

75. What is the best part of virtual learning?

76. What is the most challenging part of virtual learning?

77. How is your internet connection at home?

78. Where do you do your school work?

79. What is something your teachers could do to improve virtual classroom time?

80. What is your favorite Zoom background?

81. How do you prefer to be communicated when learning online? By email, a messaging app, on a video call, or by phone?

82. When you take breaks from school at home, what do you like to do?

83. What is your favorite way to get in touch with your classmates and friends online?

84. What would help you feel more connected to your classmates and your school?

"Would You Rather" Icebreaker Questions

These questions can also be used between classmates to help students reconnect with one another, discover similarities, and learn new things about one another.

85. Would you rather read a book or watch a movie?

86. Would you rather eat pizza or ice cream?

87. Would you rather do a school project by yourself or with friends?

88. Would you rather play a video game or play outside?

89. Would you rather have a dog or a cat?

90. Would you rather have chocolate or vanilla?

91. Would you rather go to the beach or go camping?

92. Would you rather eat salty or sweet snacks for the rest of your life?

93. Would you rather win the lottery or be famous?

94. Would you rather dance or sing in front of a group of people?

95. Would you rather be the oldest sibling or the youngest sibling?

96. Would you rather give a presentation or write a long paper?

97. Would you rather do your homework or do chores?

98. Would you rather travel back in time or travel to the future?

99. Would you rather live in snow or rain for the rest of your life?

100. Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible as a superpower?

101. Would you rather live without Netflix or live without YouTube?

Take our new, self-guided "Actionable Strategies to Build Student Belonging" Certificate Course in the Panorama Learning Center.

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101 Inclusive Get-to-Know-You Questions for Students [+ PDF Download]

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The last few years have highlighted the importance of relationship-building and checking in with students on a regular basis. For learning to happen, students need to see their identities valued. They need to feel safe physically and emotionally-and they need to feel a sense of connection to peers and adults.

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K-12th Grade Alignment with SECD standards.

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K-12th Grade Alignment with SECD standards.

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The Kansans Can Competency Framework provides a structured, embedded process for developing career-equipped, lifelong learners that are socially and emotionally engaged. Through a school-wide focus on intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, enacted through implementation elements (i.e., effective collaboration, multi-tier instruction and interventions, and data-based decision making), students develop self-regulation, self-efficacy, assertiveness, and conflict management. Through collaboration with KSDE, Kansas educators become recognized trainers in the Competency Framework and provide professional development across the state.

Check out our upcoming training opportunities!

Visit http://cccframework.org/ for additional information and resources.

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Chat Pack is a collection of fun ice breaker questions. They can be used as conversation starters, table topics or tabletopics, getting to know you questions, and even ways to in a nonthreatening way open fun dialog with others in any situation. They are great to use on long car trips, writing promp…

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Reflection Rubric - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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Reflection Rubric - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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FSR-Rubric - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 090221

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Careers:  Elementary Individual Plans of Study

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Careers:  Elementary Individual Plans of Study

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Integrating SEL with Career and Workforce Development for Students

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Integrating SEL with Career and Workforce Development for Students

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The science of PACEs refers to the research about the stunning effects of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) and how they work together to affect our lives, as well as our organizations, systems and communities. It comprises:

1. The CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study and subsequent surveys that show that most people in the U.S. have at least one ACE, and that people with four ACEs- including living with an alcoholic parent, racism, bullying, witnessing violence outside the home, physical abuse, and losing a parent to divorce - have a huge risk of adult onset of chronic health problems such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, suicide, and alcoholism.

2. Brain science (neurobiology of toxic stress) - how toxic stress caused by ACEs damages the function and structure of kids' developing brains.

3. Health consequences - how toxic stress caused by ACEs affects short- and long-term health, and can impact every part of the body, leading to autoimmune diseases, such as arthritis, as well as heart disease, breast cancer, lung cancer, etc.

4. Historical and generational trauma (epigenetic consequences of toxic stress) - how toxic stress caused by ACEs can alter how our DNA functions, and how that can be passed on from generation to generation.

5. Positive Childhood Experiences and resilience research and practice - Building on the knowledge that the brain is plastic and the body wants to heal, this part of PACEs science includes evidence-based practice, as well as practice-based evidence by people, organizations and communities that are integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices. This ranges from looking at how the brain of a teen with a high ACE score can be healed with cognitive behavior therapy, to how schools can integrate trauma-informed and resilience-building practices that result in an increase in students' scores, test grades and graduation rates.

1. What are ACEs?

ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children's developing brains and lead to changing how they respond to stress and damaging their immune systems so profoundly that the effects show up decades later. ACEs cause much of our burden of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence.

"ACEs" comes from the CDC-Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a groundbreaking public health study that discovered that childhood trauma leads to the adult onset of chronic diseases, depression and other mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence, as well as financial and social problems. The ACE Study has published about 70 research papers since 1998. Hundreds of additional research papers based on the ACE Study have also been published.

The 10 ACEs the researchers measured:

-- Physical, sexual and verbal abuse.

-- Physical and emotional neglect.

-- A family member who is:

depressed or diagnosed with other mental illness;

addicted to alcohol or another substance;

in prison.

-- Witnessing a mother being abused.

-- Losing a parent to separation, divorce or other reason.

Subsequent to the ACE Study, other ACE surveys have expanded the types of ACEs to include racism, gender discrimination, witnessing a sibling being abused, witnessing violence outside the home, witnessing a father being abused by a mother, being bullied by a peer or adult, involvement with the foster care system, living in a war zone, living in an unsafe neighborhood, losing a family member to deportation, etc.

ACEs fall into three large categories:

Adverse childhood experiences

Adverse community experiences

Adverse climate experiences

Resources:
CDC ACE Study site Wikipedia -- Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
The 10 ACE Questions (and 14 resilience survey questions)

The Pair of ACEs: The Soil in Which We're Rooted, the Branches on Which We Grow

Why are ACEs significant?

1. The ACE Study revealed six main discoveries:

ACEs are common...nearly two-thirds (64%) of adults have at least one.

They cause adult onset of chronic disease, such as cancer and heart disease, as well as mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence

ACEs don't occur alone....if you have one, there's an 87% chance that you have two or more.

The more ACEs you have, the greater the risk for chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. People have an ACE score of 0 to 10. Each type of trauma counts as one, no matter how many times it occurs. You can think of an ACE score as a cholesterol score for childhood trauma. For example, people with an ACE score of 4 are twice as likely to be smokers and seven times more likely to be alcoholic. Having an ACE score of 4 increases the risk of emphysema or chronic bronchitis by nearly 400 percent, and attempted suicide by 1200 percent. People with high ACE scores are more likely to be violent, to have more marriages, more broken bones, more drug prescriptions, more depression, and more autoimmune diseases. People with an ACE score of 6 or higher are at risk of their lifespan being shortened by 20 years.

ACEs are responsible for a big chunk of workplace absenteeism, and for costs in health care, emergency response, mental health and criminal justice. So, the fifth finding from the ACE Study is that childhood adversity contributes to most of our major chronic health, mental health, economic health and social health issues.

On a population level, it doesn't matter which four ACEs a person has; the harmful consequences are the same. The brain cannot distinguish one type of toxic stress from another; it's all toxic stress, with the same impact.

What's particularly startling is that the 17,000 ACE Study participants were mostly white, middle- and upper-middle class, college-educated, and all had jobs and great health care (they were all members of Kaiser Permanente).

Resources:

ACE Study primer -- KPJR Films, which came out with Paper Tigers in 2015 and Resilience in 2016, put together this five-minute overview of the ACE Study.

ACE Study video -- Three-minute trailer for a four-hour CD of interviews with ACEs researchers produced by the Academy on Violence and Abuse.

How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime (16-minute TED Talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris)
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study - the largest public health study you never heard of - started in an obesity clinic
Has anyone else done an ACE Study?

Thirty-six states and Washington, D.C. (infographic) have done one or more ACE surveys. Here are links to some of their reports (some states haven't produced reports).

There are numerous other ACE surveys, including cities, such as Philadelphia; organizations, including the Crittenton Foundation; schools, including Spokane elementary schools; by pediatricians, including Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and Dr. Victor Carrion ( 2011 and 2013); several countries, including England, Saudi Arabia, and a World Health Organization ACE survey of university students in Romania,; and 64,000 juvenile offenders in the Florida juvenile justice system. You can find a list of ACE surveys, including expanded ACE surveys with more questions, in the Resources Section of ACEsConnection.com.

2. What's the neurobiology of toxic stress?

Brain science shows that, in the absence of protective factors, toxic stress damages children's developing brains. Stress is the body's normal response to challenging events or environments. Positive stress -- the first day of school, a big exam, a sports challenge -- is part of growing up, and parents or caregivers help children prepare for and learn how to handle positive stress, which is moderate and doesn't last long. It increases heart rate and the amount of stress hormones in the body, but they return to normal levels quickly.

But when events or the environment are threatening or harmful - we stumble across a bear in the woods - our brains instantly zap into fight, flight or freeze mode and bypass our thinking brains, which can be way too analytical to save us (Is the bear really mean? Is it more interested in berries or killing me? Should I wait until I see it charge?). With help from caring adults, children also recover from this tolerable stress.

Too much stress - toxic stress - occurs when that raging bear comes home from the bar every night, says pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris. Then a child's brain and body will produce an overload of stress hormones - such as cortisol and adrenaline - that harm the function and structure of the brain. This can be particularly devastating in children, whose brains are developing at a galloping pace from before they are born to age three. Toxic stress is the kind of stress that can come in response to living for months or years with a screaming alcoholic father, a severely depressed and neglectful mother or a parent who takes out life's frustrations by whipping a belt across a child's body.

Resources:
Harvard University Center on the Developing Child
Video: Toxic Stress Derails Healthy Development (2 min)

An Unhealthy Dose of Stress (Center for Youth Wellness white paper)
The Science Behind PTSD Symptoms: How Trauma Changes the Brain Brain Story Certification, Alberta Family Wellness Initiative

3. What are the health effects of toxic stress?

Chronic toxic stress-living in a red alert mode for months or years - can also damage our bodies. In a red alert state, the body pumps out adrenaline and cortisol continuously. Over time, the constant presence of adrenaline and cortisol keep blood pressure high, which weakens the heart and circulatory system. They also keep glucose levels high to provide enough energy for the heart and muscles to act quickly; this can lead to type 2 diabetes. Too much adrenaline and cortisol can also increase cholesterol.

Too much cortisol can lead to osteoporosis, arthritis, gastrointestinal disease, depression, anorexia nervosa, Cushing's syndrome, hyperthyroidism and the shrinkage of lymph nodes, leading to the inability to ward off infections.

If the red alert system is always on, eventually the adrenal glands give out, and the body can't produce enough cortisol to keep up with the demand. This may cause the immune system to attack parts of the body, which can lead to lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.

Cortisol is also extremely important in maintaining the body's appropriate inflammation response. In a normal response to a bee sting or infection, the body rushes antibodies, white blood cells and other cell fighters to the site and the tissues swell while the battle rages. But too much swelling damages tissue. Cortisol controls this fine balance. So without the mediating effects of cortisol, the inflammatory response runs amok and can cause a host of diseases.

If you're chronically stressed and then experience an additional traumatic event, your body will have trouble returning to a normal state. Over time, you will become more sensitive to trauma or stress, developing a hair-trigger response to events that other people shrug off.

Biomedical researchers say that childhood trauma is biologically embedded in our bodies: Children with adverse childhood experiences and adults who have experienced childhood trauma may respond more quickly and strongly to events or conversations that would not affect those with no ACEs, and have higher levels of indicators for inflammation than those who have not suffered childhood trauma. This wear and tear on the body is the main reason why the lifespan of people with an ACE score of six or higher is likely to be shortened by 20 years.

Resources:

What Happened To You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel Van Der Kolk

The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity, by Nadine Burke Harris, 2018.
Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease by Robin Karr-Morse with Meredith S. Wiley
Biologial Embedding of Early Social Adversity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012
PubMed childhood adversity research publications

4. What's epigenetics and how does that relate to historical or generational trauma?

Most people believe that the DNA we're born with does not change and that it determines all that we are during our lifetime. That's true, but the research from epigenetics - the study of how social and other environments turn our genes on and off - shows that toxic stress can actually change how our genes function, which can lead to long-term changes in all parts of our bodies and brains. What's more, these changes can be transferred from generation to generation.

Epigenetics means "above the genome" and refers to changes in gene expression that are not the result of changes in the DNA sequence (or mutations).

Resources:

WhatIsEpigenetics.com -- This New York-based blog and news aggregator covers the field of epigenetics and is funded by EpiGentek. It includes backgrounders, including epigenetics fundamentals.

Epigenetics -- From the Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah, this section includes explainers and an overview of how the social environment affects your epigenome.

Epigenetics 101: A beginner's guide to explaining everything (TheGuardian.com, 2014)

5. Positive Childhood Experiences and resilience research: If you have a high ACE score, are you doomed? No!

The good news is that the brain is plastic, and the body wants to heal.

The brain is continually changing in response to the environment. If the toxic stress stops and is replaced by practices that build resilience, the brain can slowly undo many of the stress-induced changes.

There is well documented research on how individuals' brains and bodies become healthier through mindfulness practices, exercise, good nutrition, adequate sleep, and healthy social interactions.

Here's a good article that weaves the unified science of human development together: Scars That Don't Fade, from Massachusetts General Hospital's Proto Magazine.

In the last few years, researchers have started to examine the impacts of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) on children and adults. We at PACEs Connection are particularly interested in the interplay between positive and adverse childhood experiences. Here's some of the relevant research:

A team of researchers - Dr. Christina Bethell, Jennifer Jones, Dr. Narangerel Gombojav, Dr. Jeff Linkenbach and Dr. Robert Sege - published research in 2019 that found a dose-response association between positive childhood experiences - such as feeling like family stood by one during difficult times and feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home - and adult mental and relationship health among adults who had experienced ACEs, irrespective of how many ACEs they had. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels | JAMA Pediatrics.

That same year, Bethell, Gombojav, and Dr. Robert Whitaker reported that at each level of ACEs, "the presence of flourishing increased in a graded fashion with increasing levels of family resilience and connection." Family Resilience And Connection Promote Flourishing Among US Children, Even Amid Adversity | Health Affairs

In 2014, Bethell, Dr. Paul Newacheck, Dr. Eva Hawes, and Dr. Neal Halfon found that children with higher ACE scores were less likely to demonstrate resilience, live in a protective home environment, have a mother who was healthy, and live in safe and supportive neighborhoods. However, almost half of the children who had experienced ACEs also demonstrated resilience, and "resilience mitigated the impact of adverse childhood experiences on grade repetition and school engagement." Adverse Childhood Experiences: Assessing The Impact On Health And School Engagement And The Mitigating Role Of Resilience | Health Affairs

In a study published in 2021, Whitaker, Dr. Tracy Dearth-Wesley, and Dr. Allison Herman wrote that "greater childhood family connection was associated with greater flourishing in US adults across levels of childhood adversity." Childhood family connection and adult flourishing: associations across levels of childhood adversity - Academic Pediatrics (academicpedsjnl.net)

Dr. Yui Yamaoka and Dr. David Bard reported in 2019 that "the number of adverse childhood experiences was associated with both social-emotional deficits and developmental delay risks in early childhood; however, positive parenting practices demonstrated robust protective effects independent of the number of adverse childhood experiences." Positive Parenting Matters in the Face of Early Adversity - PubMed (nih.gov)

Among juvenile offenders, Dr. Michael Baglivio and Dr. Kevin Wolff discovered in 2020 that "high ACE scores were associated with increased reoffending, and high PCE scores were associated with decreased recidivism, as measured by both rearrest and reconviction. Further, among juveniles with four or more ACEs who have six or more PCEs, reconviction was 23% lower and rearrest 22% lower when compared to those youth with four or more ACEs and less than six PCEs, controlling for a host of demographic and criminal history measures." Positive Childhood Experiences (PCE): Cumulative Resiliency in the Face of Adverse Childhood Experiences - Michael T. Baglivio, Kevin T. Wolff, 2021 (sagepub.com)

Dr. Michael Baxter, Dr. Eden Hemming, Dr. Heather McIntosh, and Dr. Chan Hellman published research in 2017 that demonstrated that higher ACEs scores were associated with lower hope in a study of caregivers who brought children in for a child abuse medical investigation at a child advocacy center. Exploring the Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Hope: Journal of Child Sexual Abuse: Vol 26, No 8 (tandfonline.com)

In 2019, Dr. AliceAnn Crandall, Dr. Jacob Miller, Dr. Aaron Cheung, Dr. Lynneth Novilla, Dr. Rozalyn Glade, Dr. M. Lelinneth Novilla, Dr. Brianna Magnusson, Dr. Barbara Leavitt, Dr. Michael Barnes, and Dr. Carl Hanson observed in a study of adults that "higher counter-ACEs scores [i.e., positive childhood experiences] were associated with improved adult health and that counter-ACEs neutralized the negative impact of ACEs on adult health."ACEs and counter-ACEs: How positive and negative childhood experiences influence adult health - ScienceDirect

A study by Whitaker, Dearth-Wesley, and Herman in 2020 showed that across levels of childhood adversity, greater childhood family connection was associated with greater flourishing among young adults with type 1 diabetes. Childhood Family Connection With Flourishing in Young Adulthood Among Those With Type 1 Diabetes | Pediatrics | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Finally, in 2016, Bethell, Gombojav, Dr. Michele Solloway, and Dr. Lawrence Wissow examined ACEs, resilience, family protective factors, and emotional, mental or behavioral conditions (EMB) in children and youth in the U.S. The authors found that children with ACEs had higher EMB than children without ACEs, but the presence of resilience was significantly associated with lower amounts of EMB for both children with and without ACEs. In addition, the prevalence of EMB was lower when family protective factors were present, even if the child had ACEs, although the presence of two or more ACEs decreased the effect. Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience and Mindfulness-Based Approaches: Common Denominator Issues for Children with Emotional, Mental, or Behavioral Problems (nih.gov)

Who's using PACEs science?

Many people, organizations, agencies, systems and communities are beginning to implement trauma-informed, resilience-building practices based on PACEs science.

Pediatricians (here's an update on the Children's Clinic) and public health clinics are screening patients for ACEs. By the end of 2017, between 1,000 and 2,000 pediatricians had integrated ACEs screening into their practices. Here's an article about Kaiser Permanente pediatricians in Northern California who have started screening kids for ACEs. Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, MacArthur genius award winner, recommends physicians adding ACE screening to measurement of other vital signs, such as blood pressure. A rural health clinic in Pueblo, CO, changed its medical practice after it integrated ACEs screening. A family physician in Tennessee educates his opioid patients about their ACEs, and it helps motivate them to heal themselves. The physician also understands that ACEs leads to damage that is chronic and, thus, he treats addictions as he does diabetes, as a chronic disease.

Many schools - including schools in San Francisco, CA, Spokane, WA, San Diego, CA, and Walla Walla, WA - have integrated healing-centered/trauma-informed practices into classrooms, playgrounds and school policies. These schools have seen 90 percent drops in suspensions after one year; after three years, the schools no longer expel students and some no longer even have the need for in-school suspensions. The grades, test scores and graduation rates increased, and the students most benefitted were those with the highest ACE scores. By the end of 2017, several hundred schools across the U.S. were integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs science.

Head Start (early childhood education program) in Kansas City has integrated trauma-informed practices in a program called Head Start Trauma Smart. (NYTimes article about the program.)

Home-based early childhood intervention, such as Child First. (NYTimes article about the program.)

Police departments and courts have integrated trauma-informed approaches. Safe Babies Courts have integrated PACEs science in resilience-building practices that provide wrap-around services for families; a year after participating in Safe Babies Courts, 99 percent of the children suffer no further abuse. Some prisons are beginning to educate inmates about PACEs science.

Homeless shelters and the faith-based community are integrating practices based on PACEs research. At the heart of their approach is educating those who are homeless and people in rescue missions about PACEs science; it often changes their whole understanding of their behavior, because they realize that they weren't born bad, that they had no control over what happened to them as children, that they coped appropriately, given what was available to them, and that they can change. Batterers intervention programs that have integrated PACEs science have reduced recidivism rates from what was accepted - 20 to 60 percent - to zero to four percent.

Cities and states are integrating practices based on PACEs science. By the end of 2017, several hundred communities around the U.S. had launched PACEs initiatives. This report on self-healing communities describes how integrating ACEs science drastically reduced youth suicide, teen pregnancy, juvenile arrests, and high-school drop-out rates - all at the same time - in communities in Washington State that integrated practices based on PACEs science.

Research on families shows that interventions - such as Nurse-Family Partnership, Healthy Steps, and Child First - can improve the lives of parents and children. Evidence-based parenting practices ( Incredible Years, Triple P Parenting, etc.), increase the health of parents and children.

Resources:

Growing Resilient Communities provides guidelines and tools for communities to launch and grow local PACEs initiatives, and measure the progress of their work.

What does trauma-informed mean?

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAHMSA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a trauma-informed approach refers to how an organization or community thinks about and responds to children and adults who have experienced or may be at risk for experiencing trauma. In this approach, the whole community understands the prevalence and impact of ACEs, the role trauma plays in people's lives, and the complex and varied paths for healing and recovery.

A trauma-informed approach asks: "What happened to you?" instead of "What's wrong with you?" It is designed to avoid re-traumatizing already traumatized people, with a focus on "safety first" (including emotional safety), and a commitment to do no harm. But a trauma-informed approach is most successful when an organization or community builds policies and practices based on a foundation of ACEs science.

Resources:
SAMHSA overview of what trauma-informed is and isn't National Center for Trauma-Informed Care
SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach -- Introduces a concept of trauma and offers a framework for how an organization, system, or service sector can become trauma-informed. Includes a definition of trauma (the three "E's"), a definition of a trauma-informed approach (the four "R's"), 6 key principles, and 10 implementation domains.

Any legislation or federal policies?

Updates on U.S. state and federal legislation can be found in the State ACEs Resolutions and Laws section of State PACEs Action on PACEsConnection.com. Some examples:
California legislature resolution to reduce ACEs Massachusetts bill on trauma-informed schools Vermont attempt to pass ACEs bill Overview of state, federal legislation
US Department of Health and Human Services guidelines to state health directors (and the letter to state health directors)

All resources:
CDC ACE Study site
A Critical Assessment of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study at 20 Years (attached)
Wikipedia -- Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
The 10 ACE Questions (and 14 resilience survey questions)

Harvard University Center on the Developing Child (neurobiology of toxic stress)

Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (Canada)

ACEsTooHigh.com - News site covering PACEs research and practices

PACEsConnection.com - Social network (with 18,000+ members across sectors) and more than 100 community sites that support ACEs initiatives in cities, counties, states, regions and nations.

WhatIsEpigenetics.com - News site covering epigenetics

Epigenetics -- Explainers and backgrounders about epigenetics
National Center for Trauma-Informed Care
Community Resilience Cookbook - Nine case studies of cities and states that are integrating PACEs research)

SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach -- Introduces a concept of trauma and offers a framework for how an organization, system, or service sector can become trauma-informed. Includes a definition of trauma (the three "E's"), a definition of a trauma-informed approach (the four "R's"), 6 key principles, and 10 implementation domains.

ACE Study video (three minute trailer)

Video: Toxic Stress Derails Healthy Development (2 min)

How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime (16-minute TED Talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris)

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel Van Der Kolk

The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity, by Nadine Burke Harris, 2018.
Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease by Robin Karr-Morse with Meredith S. Wiley
The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life, by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

For other books, go to the ACEs Connection Books community.

Documentaries:

Paper Tigers -- What does it mean to be a trauma-informed school? And how do you educate teens whose childhood experiences have left them with a brain and body ill-suited to learn? This film follows six students through a year in America's first trauma-informed high school.

Resilience -- Resilience chronicles how trailblazers in pediatrics, education, and social welfare are using cutting-edge science and field-tested therapies to protect children from the insidious effects of toxic stress.

CAREgivers -- How is the professional care provider affected emotionally and physically, and who helps them?

For a list of all documentaries addressing PACEs science, and how to access them, go here.

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PACEs Science 101 (FAQs) - Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences

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What are ACEs? ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children's developing brains so profoundly that the effects show up decades later; they cause much of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence. ...

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How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime

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Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.

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What ACEs do you have?

There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. (There are many others...see below.) Five are personal - physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who's an alcoholic, a mother who's a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and experiencing divorce of parents. Each type of trauma counts as one. So a person who's been physically abused, with one alcoholic parent, and a mother who was beaten up has an ACE score of three.
There are, of course, many other types of childhood trauma - racism, bullying, watching a sibling being abused, losing a caregiver (grandmother, mother, grandfather, etc.), homelessness, surviving and recovering from a severe accident, witnessing a father being abused by a mother, witnessing a grandmother abusing a father, involvement with the foster care system, involvement with the juvenile justice system, etc. The ACE Study included only those 10 childhood traumas because those were mentioned as most common by a group of about 300 Kaiser members; those traumas were also well studied individually in the research literature. The most important thing to remember is that the ACE score is meant as a guideline: If you experienced other types of toxic stress over months or years, then those would likely increase your risk of health consequences, depending on the positive childhood experiences you had (see below).

Prior to your 18th birthday:

1. Was your mother or stepmother:
Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
No___If Yes, enter 1 _ _

2. Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide? No___If Yes, enter 1 _ _

Now add up your "Yes" answers: _ This is your ACE Score

__________________________

Now that you know your ACEs, what does it mean?

First....a tiny bit of background to help you figure this out.....(if you want the back story about the fascinating origins of the ACE Study, read The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study - the largest, most important public health study you never heard of - began in an obesity clinic.)

The CDC's Adverse Childhood Experiences Study ( ACE Study) uncovered a stunning link between childhood trauma and the chronic diseases people develop as adults, as well as social and emotional problems. This includes heart disease, lung cancer, diabetes and many autoimmune diseases, as well as depression, violence, being a victim of violence, and suicide.

The first research results were published in 1998, followed by more than 70 other publications through 2015. They showed that:

childhood trauma was very common, even in employed white middle-class, college-educated people with great health insurance;

there was a direct link between childhood trauma and adult onset of chronic disease, as well as depression, suicide, being violent and a victim of violence;

more types of trauma increased the risk of health, social and emotional problems.

people usually experience more than one type of trauma - rarely is it only sex abuse or only verbal abuse.

A whopping two thirds of the 17,000 people in the ACE Study had an ACE score of at least one - 87 percent of those had more than one. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have done their own ACE surveys; their results are similar to the CDC's ACE Study.

The study's researchers came up with an ACE score to explain a person's risk for chronic disease. Think of it as a cholesterol score for childhood toxic stress. You get one point for each type of trauma. The higher your ACE score, the higher your risk of health and social problems. (Of course, other types of trauma exist that could contribute to an ACE score, so it is conceivable that people could have ACE scores higher than 10; however, the ACE Study measured only 10 types.)

As your ACE score increases, so does the risk of disease, social and emotional problems. With an ACE score of 4 or more, things start getting serious. The likelihood of chronic pulmonary lung disease increases 390 percent; hepatitis, 240 percent; depression 460 percent; attempted suicide, 1,220 percent.

(By the way, lest you think that the ACE Study was yet another involving inner-city poor people of color, take note: The study's participants were 17,000 mostly white, middle and upper-middle class college-educated San Diegans with good jobs and great health care - they all belonged to the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization. Prior to the ACE Study, most research about effects of abuse, neglect, etc., involved poor people of color who live in the inner city. And so the notion was that it was inner-city people of color who experienced abuse, neglect, etc., not white middle-class or white upper-class people....that somehow white people of means were immune from the kinds of problems affecting people who were poor. That's not only ridiculous, but it was just another way to perpetrate racism and classism. The ACE Study quashed that notion. So, it's not that I'm saying that the ACE Study is credible because it was done on white people, I'm saying that the ACE Study opened the door to an understanding that ACEs are at the root of nearly all problems of physical, mental, economic and social health in humans, no matter where in the world those humans live. The ACE Study and the other research that makes up ACEs science provided an opening to a better understanding of the constructs that make up our notion of why people suffer ill health - physical, mental, economic, social - and that includes systemic racism. )

Here are some specific graphic examples of how increasing ACE scores increase the risk of some diseases, social and emotional problems. All of these graphs come from "The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult health, well being, social function and health care", a book chapter by Drs. Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda, co-founders of the ACE Study, in "The Hidden Epidemic: The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease."

What causes this?

At the same time that the ACE Study was being done, parallel research on kids' brains found that toxic stress damages the structure and function of a child's developing brain. This was determined by a group of neuroscientists and pediatricians, including neuroscientist Martin Teicher and pediatrician Jack Shonkoff , both at Harvard University, neuroscientist Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University, and child psychiatrist Bruce Perry at the Child Trauma Academy .

When children are overloaded with stress hormones, they're in flight, fright or freeze mode. They can't learn in school. They often have difficulty trusting adults or developing healthy relationships with peers (i.e., they become loners). To relieve their anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, and/or inability to focus, they turn to easily available biochemical solutions - nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamine - or activities in which they can escape their problems - high-risk sports, proliferation of sex partners, and work/over-achievement. (e.g. Nicotine reduces anger, increases focus and relieves depression. Alcohol relieves stress.)

Using drugs or overeating or engaging in risky behavior leads to consequences as a direct result of this behavior.

For example, smoking can lead to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or lung cancer. Overeating can lead to obesity and diabetes. In addition, there is increasing research that shows that severe and chronic stress leads to bodily systems producing an inflammatory response that leads to disease.

In addition, toxic stress can be passed down from generation to generation. The field of epigenetics shows that we are born with a set of genes that can be turned on and off, depending on what's happening in our environment. If a child grows up with an overload of toxic stress, their stress-response genes are likely to be activated so that they are easily triggered by stressful situations that don't affect those who don't grow up with toxic stress. They can pass that response onto their children.

Fortunately, brains and lives are somewhat plastic. Resilience research shows that the appropriate integration of resilience factors - such as asking for help, developing trusting relationships, forming a positive attitude, listening to feelings - can help people improve their lives.

For more information about ACEs science and how it's being used, go to: PACEs Science 101.

Here's a link to the long questionnaire (200+ questions).

For more information about PACEs science, go to PACEs Science 101.

_______________________

What are PCEs - positive childhood experiences?

Although there is still much to learn about ACEs and how to prevent and mitigate their effects, we also all know that childhood experiences are not limited to those that involve adversity. All childhood experiences matter. In the last few years, researchers have started to examine the impacts of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) on children and adults.

In 2019, a team of researchers - Dr. Christina Bethell, Jennifer Jones, Dr. Narangerel Gombojav, Dr. Jeff Linkenbach and Dr. Robert Sege - found a dose-response association between positive childhood experiences and adult mental and relationship health among adults who had experienced ACEs, irrespective of how many ACEs they had. This means that it's really important to have positive childhood experiences, no matter how much adversity you have in your life. And if you have a lot of adversity and a lot of positive childhood experiences, you are less likely to suffer the consequences of ACEs. However if you have no positive childhood experiences and few ACEs, the consequences of the ACEs are more likely to appear. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels | JAMA Pediatrics.

To find out what positive childhood experiences you have, answer the following questions. How much or how often during your childhood did you:

1. feel able to talk to your family about feelings;

2. feel your family stood by you during difficult times;

3. enjoy participating in community traditions;

4. feel a sense of belonging in high school;

5. feel supported by friends;

6. have at least two non-parent adults who took genuine interest in you; and

7. feel safe and protected by an adult in your home.

Also in 2019, Bethell, Gombojav, and Dr. Robert Whitaker reported that at each level of ACEs, "the presence of flourishing increased in a graded fashion with increasing levels of family resilience and connection." Family Resilience And Connection Promote Flourishing Among US Children, Even Amid Adversity | Health Affairs

In 2014, Bethell, Dr. Paul Newacheck, Dr. Eva Hawes, and Dr. Neal Halfon found that children with higher ACE scores were less likely to demonstrate resilience, live in a protective home environment, have a mother who was healthy, and live in safe and supportive neighborhoods. However, almost half of the children who had experienced ACEs also demonstrated resilience, and "resilience mitigated the impact of adverse childhood experiences on grade repetition and school engagement." Adverse Childhood Experiences: Assessing The Impact On Health And School Engagement And The Mitigating Role Of Resilience | Health Affairs

In a study published in 2021, Whitaker, Dr. Tracy Dearth-Wesley, and Dr. Allison Herman wrote that "greater childhood family connection was associated with greater flourishing in US adults across levels of childhood adversity." Childhood family connection and adult flourishing: associations across levels of childhood adversity - Academic Pediatrics (academicpedsjnl.net)

Dr. Yui Yamaoka and Dr. David Bard reported in 2019 that "the number of adverse childhood experiences was associated with both social-emotional deficits and developmental delay risks in early childhood; however, positive parenting practices demonstrated robust protective effects independent of the number of adverse childhood experiences." Positive Parenting Matters in the Face of Early Adversity - PubMed (nih.gov)

Among juvenile offenders, Dr. Michael Baglivio and Dr. Kevin Wolff discovered in 2020 that "high ACE scores were associated with increased reoffending, and high PCE scores were associated with decreased recidivism, as measured by both rearrest and reconviction. Further, among juveniles with four or more ACEs who have six or more PCEs, reconviction was 23% lower and rearrest 22% lower when compared to those youth with four or more ACEs and less than six PCEs, controlling for a host of demographic and criminal history measures." Positive Childhood Experiences (PCE): Cumulative Resiliency in the Face of Adverse Childhood Experiences - Michael T. Baglivio, Kevin T. Wolff, 2021 (sagepub.com)

Dr. Michael Baxter, Dr. Eden Hemming, Dr. Heather McIntosh, and Dr. Chan Hellman published research in 2017 that demonstrated that higher ACEs scores were associated with lower hope in a study of caregivers who brought children in for a child abuse medical investigation at a child advocacy center. Exploring the Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Hope: Journal of Child Sexual Abuse: Vol 26, No 8 (tandfonline.com)

In 2019, Dr. AliceAnn Crandall, Dr. Jacob Miller, Dr. Aaron Cheung, Dr. Lynneth Novilla, Dr. Rozalyn Glade, Dr. M. Lelinneth Novilla, Dr. Brianna Magnusson, Dr. Barbara Leavitt, Dr. Michael Barnes, and Dr. Carl Hanson observed in a study of adults that "higher counter-ACEs scores [i.e., positive childhood experiences] were associated with improved adult health and that counter-ACEs neutralized the negative impact of ACEs on adult health." ACEs and counter-ACEs: How positive and negative childhood experiences influence adult health - ScienceDirect

A study by Whitaker, Dearth-Wesley, and Herman in 2020 showed that across levels of childhood adversity, greater childhood family connection was associated with greater flourishing among young adults with type 1 diabetes.Childhood Family Connection With Flourishing in Young Adulthood Among Those With Type 1 Diabetes | Pediatrics | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Finally, in 2016, Bethell, Gombojav, Dr. Michele Solloway, and Dr. Lawrence Wissow examined ACEs, resilience, family protective factors, and emotional, mental or behavioral conditions (EMB) in children and youth in the U.S. The authors found that children with ACEs had higher EMB than children without ACEs, but the presence of resilience was significantly associated with lower amounts of EMB for both children with and without ACEs. In addition, the prevalence of EMB was lower when family protective factors were present, even if the child had ACEs, although the presence of two or more ACEs decreased the effect. Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience and Mindfulness-Based Approaches: Common Denominator Issues for Children with Emotional, Mental, or Behavioral Problems (nih.gov)

In terms of research, these are still early days, says Dr. Robert Whitaker, director of Research and Research Education at the Columbia-Bassett Program and professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University: "This area of PACEs research is emerging, but the boundaries of that research have not really been defined, particular as complement to the well-established body of research on resilience."

From " Brains: Journey to Resilience ", Alberta Family Wellness Initiative.

"PCEs may have lifelong consequences for mental and relational health despite co-occurring adversities such as ACEs," noted Dr. Christina Bethell in Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels. Bethell is professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and founding director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative. "In this way, they support application of the World Health Organization's definition of health emphasizing that health is more than the absence of disease or adversity. The World Health Organization's positive construct of health is aligned with the proactive promotion of positive experiences in childhood because they are foundational to optimal childhood development and adult flourishing."

However, in terms of integrating what we know about PACEs, we have enough information to continue integrating the science into our work. If we want to change individuals, organizations, communities, and systems we need to talk about both positive and adverse childhood experiences - PACEs - and how they intertwine throughout our lives....

At the individual level, learning about ACEs helps us understand why we behave the way we do, and that our coping behavior is normal...a normal response to abnormal circumstances. Learning about PCEs provides direction to heal. The key concept about PACEs is that learning about both, together, can help improve our health and well-being. It gives us hope.

At the organizational level, staff and leaders can use knowledge of PACEs to create healing-centered work environments and programs in all sectors.

At the community level, educating the public about PACEs can provide hope and foster the development of innovative ideas about how to support families, organizations and communities. Understanding the interplay between positive and adverse experiences offers opportunity for engagement with all sectors. Communities can use this new lens to create mindful, healing-centered, research-informed approaches to prevent adversity and encourage connection and healing.

At the system level, policymakers and leaders can use research about PACEs to find common ground across fields and to support policies that promote the understanding of PACEs and how adversity and positive experiences work together.

At least two organizations are taking this approach and doing research to guide their actions:

The Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) team at Tufts Medical Center have identified four building blocks that lessen the negative effects of ACEs: relationships, environments, engagement, and social emotional development. HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences

The Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, focuses its research on the "science and power of hope as a psychological strength, especially among those experiencing trauma and adversity." The Center defines hope as "the belief that the future will be better and you have the power to make it so." Hope Research Center (ou.edu)

If you're interested in becoming more involved in the PACEs science community, join our companion social network, PACEs Connection. Just go to PACEsConnection.com and click "Join". PACEsConnection.com is the leading advocate for information about the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) and the rapidly expanding, global PACEs science movement.

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What ACEs do you have? There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. (There are many others...see below.) Five are personal - physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who's an alcoholic, a mother who's...

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This resource provides several real-world examples of what restorative practices can look like in a school.

“In schools that use restorative and accountable discipline and student support, students necessarily take an active role,” Jill Davidson wrote for Teaching Tolerance magazine back in 2014. “Discipline is not something that is externally imposed. Instead, students engage in inquiry and must have a voice in determining next steps and consequences in a context of support, strong relationships and effective communication.”

Restorative practices, in essence, replace systems that impose punishment and top-down systems of control on students in favor of a more communal, collaborative system of communication, expectation-setting and accountability.

“We have these blanket rules that are fairly arbitrary, that do not allow for exceptions or complexities,” explains Victor Small, Jr. “I think that restorative justice gives you that. It gives you the ability to understand the complexity.”

A recent classroom teacher and administrator, Small organizes popular online chats on restorative justice, including one called the Restorative Justice League. Restorative practices do not work without social emotional awareness and an understanding of how identities are carried into the space, Small says. That reflection work, he stresses, comes first.

Shifts Toward Restoration: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and Relationship Building

When asked about how to move from systems built on compliance to something more restorative, educators and scholars alike kept coming back to this: There is pre-work to do. Restorative practices, at their best, are part of a school culture that prioritizes culturally sustaining pedagogy and authentic relationship building—connections that allow for trust, openness and inclusive spaces. Without that foundation, it’s hard to move straight into restorative work.

Django Paris and H. Samy Alim describe culturally sustaining pedagogy as a practice that “exists wherever education sustains the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling … [and] explicitly calls for schooling to be a site for sustaining—rather than eradicating—the cultural ways of being of communities of color.”

It’s a necessary foundation for restorative practices because schools cannot repair harm if they are actively enacting it. Students feel diminished in spaces that erase their ancestral and lived experiences, then demand that they participate and engage fully. Without culturally sustaining pedagogy in place, students can feel devalued in the very spaces they are then asked to help sustain.

For example, Small says it’s important for educators to think outside what they may think they know about the restorative circle—a practice often decontextualized from its roots in Indigenous cultures and often oversimplified as a room configuration rather than a reimagined communal space.

Recognizing the value in different models of community, culturally sustaining pedagogy lays the groundwork for educators to move away from a culture of harmful, imposed compliance. And understanding how students’ varied cultural contexts and their diverse lived experiences affect the ways they communicate, behave and learn is crucial. It’s the first step to giving students agency to create a space that values accountability, even as it appreciates those differences.

“Where students get agency is where you allow for there to be community building that’s built from the ground up,” Small says. “What rules do students want to abide by that they create for themselves, that they are willing to hold themselves accountable to?” Small says it’s important to have base expectations, but classroom norms and contracts can be built collaboratively.

This work aligns with what Dr. David Stovall—a professor of Black studies, criminology and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago—might call authentic inclusion. “The scariest thing adults feel they can ask young people is what they need,” he says. “[But] if we know these spaces have historically not worked, then what are we willing to do different? And one of those things is saying, ‘We’re going to start with students’ interests and needs… things that [they] feel like [they] have not gotten from this space.”

Stovall says that part of building authentic inclusion and relationships resides in those culturally sustaining practices: rethinking why a connection is not being made in the classroom or school. As Small puts it, “Relationships need to have been built in order for there to be something to restore.”

Dr. Nataki Gregory is the CEO of CT3, an educator-training group that specializes in relationship building. She says it’s important to acknowledge that the overwhelming amount of responsibility thrown at educators often leads to a devaluation of building such relationships. She encourages educators to rethink that.

“Building relationships with students makes all the other priorities, honestly, a little easier to reach,” Gregory says. “You’re in this together, as opposed to feeling like you’re doing something to or for students.”

But ultimately, educators will struggle to prioritize these shifts in a system that devalues or actively disrupts relationships.

“If you don’t create the conditions for your teachers to thrive,” González posits, “how can you expect them to create the conditions for their students to thrive?”

Shifts Toward Restoration: School- and Community-wide Approaches

Advocates for anti-racist school discipline reform explain that school-wide buy-in is necessary for substantive change.

Gregory says that, often, she’ll hear from schools who ask if they can get training for just a handful of their educators. “They can,” she says, “but that’s not going to do you any good. What you need is for the entire school to have a common language. That whole school needs to be singing from the same sheet of music.”

Without a school-wide investment in shifting the culture, a student who feels safe and valued in one classroom may be thrown into a harmful environment in their next class, in the gym or on the bus.

In order for alternative models to work, experts say, school leaders need to have encoded structures and policies that all stakeholders in the school can consistently follow. Educators have to understand what alternatives to suspension and punitive discipline look like and where they can find support systems, including mental health professionals.

“For guidance purposes and for consistency purposes, it’s important to have something in place,” Williams says, including “structures that promote restoration, structures that promote kids staying in class” written into the handbooks.

When schools commit to real change and create policies that prioritize keeping children in classrooms, they recognize that policies of compliance harm families, too. Suspensions put disproportionate burdens on working-class families. Engagement with law enforcement and social workers can be more fraught for Black, Latinx, Indigenous and immigrant families. And a system in which the primary method of family engagement is punitive actively discourages the kinds of family partnerships that could foster a positive learning environment for their children.

“It’s going to be a lot better for the school if the communities are involved,” says Small, “but we have to consider why the communities aren’t involved. If we think about decades and decades of public schools screwing over Black and Latinx kids, maybe those families don’t feel like the schools have their best interest in their kids.”

Repairing this historic disconnect requires increased family engagement, home visits, community outreach and services—like flexible family-teacher conference times and language interpretation—designed to remove obstacles to a working relationship between schools and families. But it also requires something more elemental.

“Before you even expect those parents to show up and be a part of the school,” Small asks, “how do you communicate to them that their kids matter?”

It starts, Ryan Williams says, with disrupting the deficit-based approach that sees students’ families and communities as inconsequential or antithetical to the child’s education.

“You have to value the families of the kids that you serve,” Williams says. “You have to value the core beliefs and you have to value where these kids are coming from, because if you don’t value that and see those experiences as valuable to kids, then you won’t be able to effectively engage.”

Ultimately, advocates say, building coalitions—including those based in an understanding of how schools have harmed communities of color—will be vital to securing transformational change.

“To me, that’s the bold vision as we dismantle policies that continue to perpetuate racism,” González says. “That we do have a place and a space for something else in existence that is about rebuilding communities.”

Restorative Practices in Action

At East Millbrook Middle School, that rebuilding began with a small first step: reimagining how school leaders responded to fights.

Instead of suspending students who fought, Williams and other school leaders offered restorative circles. They brought students together with their families and a counselor. Over time, they saw that students who were offered this restorative approach were much less likely to repeat the behavior. That success catalyzed the implementation of restorative practices across the school.

Williams says a couple of things were key to shifting from a compliance-based model to a restorative one. First, they had to change the culture. Educators had come to expect suspensions when students enacted certain behaviors, and that had to be unlearned. Second, they had to justify their methods with data to refute any criticism. Compliance-based models of learning and development have become so ubiquitous and intergenerational that people often struggle to imagine that other models may actually be more effective.

The results speak for themselves. East Millbrook has seen drastic drops in suspension rates each year. School climate has improved. Student engagement has increased. The work that has gone into changing the school culture has led to a situation in which Williams is not seeing a lot of behavior issues during virtual learning.

Even better, he says, he has seen a paradigm shift in how educators respond to conflict; more and more, they go to a counselor first instead of an administrator. And while Williams is still having to talk to individual educators about policies of control, such as camera-on requirements, he hasn’t suspended a student yet this year.

He says he hasn’t even considered it.

Learn More

Restorative practices offer an alternative to disciplinary policies based in compliance. Learn more about the harm of these policies—and how they reinforce white supremacy—in the Spring 2021 feature story “It Was Always About Control.”

Read the feature

About the Author

is a senior writer for Teaching Tolerance.

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Toolkit: The Foundations of Restorative Justice

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School discipline and classroom management do not have to be based in compliance. Learn more about restorative practices in this companion piece to the feature article “It Was Always About Control.”

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

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LET'S TALK RESTORATIVE PRACTICES: PART I - IT'S CIRCLE TIME!

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How Children Process Grief and Loss Through Play

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How Children Process Grief and Loss Through Play

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Soon after the Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995, children in a nearby kindergarten started playing dead. Over and over, they toppled towers of blocks and lay motionless on the floor. When their teacher asked them to tell her about what was happening in their play, the students informed her that they had all been killed by terrorists.

The play continued in this vein for some time-smashed towers, splayed-out children-until their teacher asked if they might be interested in building a hospital. "She went in with stethoscopes, masks, and bandages, and helped kids move towards a phase that was focused on care and healing," says Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an expert on the ways young children process trauma through play.

That expertly handled transition-recognizing that the children were stuck and might need a nudge-demonstrates a few important principles about play, according to Carlsson-Paige. First, the teacher did not judge the children's play or let her own anxieties about the situation seep through. For young children, she understood, play is the only way to work through everything they wrestle with, from everyday challenges to anxiety, fear, and even loss and death. Second, while the teacher left plenty of room for discovery, she stepped in when the play turned obsessive, redirecting her students in a way that was both well-timed and developmentally appropriate.

As the world confronts the novel coronavirus pandemic, an economic depression, and global protests about racism and systemic inequalities, children are being exposed to painful and often scary ideas-and their play will reflect their efforts to make sense of what they see and hear.

Why Children Play Through Grief and Loss

The late Vivian Gussin Paley, a kindergarten teacher, recipient of the MacArthur "genius" grant, and author of dozens of books on children's play lives, put it this way: "The young child wants to play. He wants to play because intuitively he understands that through play he will understand more about who he is than in any other format."

Seth Aronson, a psychologist and the Director of Curriculum, Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology in New York City, extends that line of thinking into play that involves the processing of fear, anxiety, or loss.

"One of the functions that play serves for kids is it allows them to approach something that might be frightening in a way that makes it less frightening and more understandable," he says. Through play, children "control the tempo and the pace and the content" of a situation and gain the ability to anticipate what happens next-all of which can take the sting out of scary situations. "Whenever there's any kind of scary or traumatic situation, play really allows the child the displacement and the space to play out some of those things," he says. "If it's happening to a doll, it's not really happening to me."

In other words, imaginative play not only enables children to better understand reality-by helping them to inhabit the perspectives of, say, both a doll patient and a stuffed animal doctor-but also to quickly change the narrative when the reality becomes too much to bear. (In the past two months, I've seen this with a three-year-old I've spent a lot of time with, who repeatedly declares dolls dead before bringing them back to life.) Psychologists call these processes denial and undoing, and they're essential to maintaining a child's sense of safety and control.

"Play has the power to make something un-happen, to correct something that's overwhelming," Aronson explains. For instance, a child whose grandmother recently died might say that she saw Grandma in her room, or that she played with her. "It's totally normal," Dr. Aronson says. "It's undoing the event in a way that's comforting and soothing and helps the child deal with the loss."

How Grown-ups Can Set the Stage

Erika Christakis, a former faculty member at the Yale Child Study Center and the author of The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really Need from Grownups, says that the play impulse is evolutionarily hardwired in humans and "can't be short-circuited." Nevertheless, she says, adults play a key role in setting the groundwork for what psychologists call "productive play"-which actively helps children process their experiences and acquire emotional and cognitive skills-while watching for signs of unproductive play, which represent and amplify feelings of distress.

The P.A.C.E. approach: Christakis says that the acronym P.A.C.E. -which stands for playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy-is a useful guide for helping adults interact with young children. Adults should recognize that children are navigating a tension within themselves: they want to feel powerful and independent, while also yearning to feel protected and cared for. Given this, adults should empower children with age-appropriate choices: asking them what song to sing, what to have for a snack-or what they want to play.

Generally speaking, adults shouldn't be overly worried that children will lead themselves down roads they aren't prepared to navigate: the very instinct to explore a subject in play likely means that the child is ready-and perhaps needs-to do so. "Children are really good at getting what they need through the tools that they have," she says. She adds, "Kids can tolerate a lot as long as they know that their feelings are not creepy or wrong."

Don't shame: Sometimes children's play can inspire uncomfortable feelings in adults, which is perfectly fine, as long as adults don't convey to children that their play is shameful or wrong. Play is highly personal: Nancy Carlsson-Paige, the professor, says it contains "the whole child: emotions and thoughts and physical being and social self." As such, children tend to interpret criticism or dismissal of their play as criticism or dismissal of themselves.

"The healthiest, most nurturing thing we can do for children is to join them in their feelings," Christakis says. She encourages adults to communicate that "there's nothing you could say to me that would be too weird, too annoying."

Create the conditions for imaginative exploration: To encourage children to play out what's on their minds, experts recommend providing children with "multi-use" toys-generic objects like blocks and wooden dolls, onto which children can project what they need to project. When children have a Superman action figure, they tend to play out Superman storylines; but when they have a faceless figure, they engage with their own thoughts and emotions, what they find exciting, troubling, or confusing. It's these scenarios that are most conducive to productive play, which reflects some aspects of a child's experience or imagination.

Watch for unproductive play: In rare situations, play-or a lack thereof-can be a cause for concern. Generally speaking, adults should not intervene in children's play. However, "if the child's play makes the child anxious, when it's too literal for the child, or when it's obsessive and repetitive-that's a sign that the play isn't serving its purpose," says Aronson, the New York psychologist. In these situations, adults can gently introduce new elements or coax the narrative in a new direction, as the teacher in Oklahoma did when her kindergarteners repeatedly revisited the terrorist attack.

"I always look for some kind of change in play," says Carlsson-Paige. If that change doesn't occur-if the same troubling event is rehashed over and over, with the same outcome each time-intervention, or psychological attention, may be merited.

However, what may be most concerning is the absence of play. When Carlsson-Paige spent time in El Salvador in the early 1990s, during the country's civil war, the children she encountered there were so traumatized they didn't play at all. When she returned the next year, after the war's conclusion, play had returned.

"Children need to have a certain sense of safety to go into an imaginary play zone," she asserts. Adults can provide that safe space at this tumultuous and historic moment-being careful to strike the right balance between the freedom children need to explore difficult subject matter on their own, and the periodic need to step in when kids get stuck.

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How Children Process Grief and Loss Through Play

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Young children will likely process the tumultuous events of 2020 in the only way they know how-through play. Here's how adults can be supportive.

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Keep Your Teen Moving to Reduce Risk of Depression

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Keep Your Teen Moving to Reduce Risk of Depression

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Science shows moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise is good for us -- it improves sleep; lowers blood pressure; protects against heart disease, diabetes and cancer; reduces stress; boosts mood; and fights anxiety and depression.

It's especially important in adolescence, where the first signs of depression often begin, studies show. But unless your child is an athlete, it can be tough to wean them away from social media and the ever-present screento swim laps or go for a blood-pumping jog.

A new study has some good news: even light exercise may help protect children against developing depression.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Psychiatry,found that 60 minutes of simple movement each day at age 12 was linked to an average 10% reduction in depression at age 18. The types of movement ranged from running and biking to walking, doing chores, painting or playing an instrument.

"It's not just more intense forms of activity that are good for our mental health," Aaron Kandola, a PhD student in psychiatry at University College London and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

"A lot of initiatives promote exercise in young people, but our findings suggest that light activity should be given more attention as well," senior author Dr. Joseph Hayes, a psychiatrist and clinical research consultant at University College London, said in a statement.

"Schools could integrate light activity into their pupils' days, such as with standing or active lessons," Hayes said. "It doesn't require much effort and it's easy to fit into the daily routines of most young people."

Long-term results

The study used information from the University of Bristol's Children of the '90s study, which has been following 14,500 women and their children for 30 years, from pregnancy onward.

As part of this, 4,257 adolescents wore instruments to track their movements at ages 12, 14 and 16 over a three-day period. For at least 10 hours each day, accelerometers recorded whether the child moved or was sedentary. The machines provided a better method of tracking than prior studies, which relied on self-reporting, researchers said.

"Worryingly, the amount of time that young people spend inactive has been steadily rising for years, but there has been a surprising lack of high quality research into how this could affect mental health," Kandola said.

Sedentary behavior increased as the children grew older, the study found, with depression scores highest among the least active. Each additional hour of sitting at age 12 was linked to an 11% increase in depression scores at age 18, based on a clinical questionnaire which measures depressive symptoms and their severity on a spectrum.

At age 14, each additional hour of being inactive raised depressive scores by 8%, while 16-year-olds had an increased score of 10.5%, the study found. The study only looked at depression, not anxiety disorders.

Researchers adjusted their analysis to account for those with depression at the beginning of the study as well as socioeconomic status, parental history and the like, which are all linked to mental health. While the study is only an association and can't prove a relationship between movement and depression, "our study suggests that these two trends may be linked," Kandola said.

In fact, the data "suggested that a 2 [hour] reduction in daily sedentary behavior between the ages of 12 and 16 years old was associated with a 16 [to] 22% reduction in depression scores by age 18," the study said.

Rates of adolescent mental disorders on rise

According to the World Health Organization, depression is one of the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents around the world, accounting for "16% of the global burden of disease and injury in people aged 10 to 19 years."

In the United States, rates of teen depression are on the rise. A new study to be published in March found rates of major depressive episodes in the last year among teens increased 52% between 2005 and 2017. The study analyzed data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health and found rates rose from 8.7% to 13.2% over that time span.

A depressive episode is defined by a list of symptoms that include feeling sad, hopeless, frustrated, anxious or worthless for at least two weeks.

That number fits with a 2017 analysis by the US National Institute of Mental Health, which found 13.3% of American teens aged 12 to 17 have suffered at least one major depressive episode over the last 12 months. That's more than three million children, mostly girls. Girls are almost three times as likely to suffer depressive episodes, the report said.

The trend is worrisome, experts say, especially since only 50% of depressed teens are diagnosed before adulthood and suicide is on the rise. A study last year found that the numbers of children and teenswith suicidal thoughts who went to emergency rooms in the U.S. doubled between 2007 and 2015.

The National Institute of Mental Health is currently funding three separate research projects to study the depressed teenage brain and evaluate treatments.

What to look for

For parents, it might be hard to distinguish between normal teen angst and depression. Symptoms include fatigue, irritability, odd sleeping patterns, a wish to be left alone and a lack of interest in school and daily activities, among others.

In 2016, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said that all primary care doctors, such as pediatricians and family physicians, should routinely screen teens over age 12 for signs of depression. One of the most used tests is called the PHQ, or patient health questionnaire.

The questions cover mood, sleep, energy, concentration and suicidal thoughts, and asks the teen to rate the severity of their symptoms from "not at all" to "nearly every day."

Parents should be able to access the test via their pediatrician, as the American Academy of Pediatrics updated their guidelines in 2018, encouraging all pediatricians to screen teens for depression, and depending on the severity of the results, refer teens for treatment.

Parents, say experts, can help their depressed child by being supportive and validating their feelings. Rather than being critical, says the U.S. nonprofit Child Mind Institute, try to notice positive behaviors.

For example, "Instead of saying, 'Honey, you should really get up and do something. How about calling an old friend?' you might say, 'I'm going to the mall to do an errand. Let me know if you want to come with me, and maybe we can get lunch together,'" the institute suggests.

And if you can't break through the first time you try to connect to your teen, says YoungMinds, keep trying on another day. But don't ignore your teen's feelings hoping they will go away.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness in the U.S. has these tips as well:

1. Watch for warning signs: low self-esteem, withdrawal, lack of energy and interest, lower test scores at school, fatigue and suicidal thoughts. If seen, get your child professional help.

2. Spend quality time with your child and encourage "open and honest" conversations in which you actively listen to your child.

3. Encourage regular exercise, healthy eating habits and regular, quality sleep.

4. Encourage connections to others through family gatherings, social events, sleepovers and clubs and activities at school.

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Keep your teen moving to reduce risk of depression, study says

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A new study has found that even light exercise may help protect children against developing depression.

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Examples of How SEL Skills are Implicit in Lessons

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Examples of How SEL Skills are Implicit in Lessons

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Whether it's planning and delivering instruction or just interacting with others throughout the day, every action you take is an opportunity to demonstrate empathy toward your students, your colleagues, and yourself.

"I'm already empathetic to my students and their stories," you may be thinking. But a teacher's actions, even unintentional and especially uninformed, can be implicitly shaming, compounding any disconnect students may already feel and undermining your efforts to create a safe and positive classroom environment. Rather than try to identify who needs empathy, start with the premise that all learners deserve empathy because it is a prerequisite for learning and growth.

In Teaching with Empathy , Lisa Westman explores three types of empathy-affective, cognitive, and behavioral-and clarifies how they intertwine with curriculum, learning environment, equity practices, instruction and assessment, and grading and reporting.

Through her own experience as an instructional coach, Westman shares tips and tools, real-world classroom examples, powerful stories, and even a bit of herself as she guides you to a better understanding of yourself and others. Ultimately, you'll learn what's possible when you let compassion and acceptance inform all aspects of your daily practice.

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Teaching with Empathy: How to Transform Your Practice by Understanding Your Learners

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Teaching with Empathy: How to Transform Your Practice by Understanding Your Learners [Westman, Lisa] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Teaching with Empathy: How to Transform Your Practice by Understanding Your Learners

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Book - Social Emotional Learning and the Brain

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Book - Social Emotional Learning and the Brain

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ASCD Bestseller! Today's teachers face a daunting challenge: how to ensure a positive school experience for their students, many of whom carry the burden of adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, poverty, divorce, abandonment, and numerous other serious social issues. Spurred by her personal experience and extensive exploration of brain-based learning, author Marilee Sprenger explains how brain science-what we know about how the brain works-can be applied to social-emotional learning. Specifically, she addresses how to

- Build strong, caring relationships with students to give them a sense of belonging.
- Teach and model empathy, so students feel understood and can better understand others.
- Awaken students' self-awareness, including the ability to name their own emotions, have accurate self-perceptions, and display self-confidence and self-efficacy.
- Help students manage their behavior through impulse control, stress management, and other positive skills.
- Improve students' social awareness and interaction with others.
- Teach students how to handle relationships, including with people whose backgrounds differ from their own.
- Guide students in making responsible decisions.

Offering clear, easy-to-understand explanations of brain activity and dozens of specific strategies for all grade levels, Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain is an essential guide to creating supportive classroom environments and improving outcomes for all our students.

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Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain: Strategies to Help Your Students Thrive

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Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain: Strategies to Help Your Students Thrive [Sprenger, Marilee] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain: Strategies to Help Your Students Thrive

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Book - Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL

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Book - Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL

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"Good lesson plans have an almost mysterious power; they declare that all information can be interesting, that every skill acquired broadens our potentials to make a better world, and that all impassioned activity leads to learning. Our best teachers have shown us over and over that life is not a struggle against boredom and compliance; it is a wonder to be apprehended. Every bit of SEL you can integrate into your planning will not only begin to heal the wounds of passivity, racism, and inequity, but also give students an experience today, in your classroom, of that better world."

Jeffrey Benson draws from his 40-plus years of experience as a teacher and an administrator to provide explicit, step-by-step guidance on how to incorporate social and emotional learning (SEL) into K-12 lesson planning-without imposing a separate SEL curriculum.

The book identifies SEL skills in three broad categories: skills for self, interpersonal skills, and skills as a community member. It offers research-based strategies for seamlessly integrating these skills into every section of lesson plans, from introducing a topic in a way that sparks students' interest, to accessing prior knowledge, providing direct instruction, allowing time for experimentation and discovery, using formative assessment, and closing a lesson in a purposeful rather than haphazard manner.

In addition to practical advice on lesson planning that can lead to improved student motivation and achievement, Benson offers inspiration, urging both new and veteran teachers to seize every opportunity to develop caring, joyful communities of learners whose experiences and skills can contribute to a better, more equitable world both inside and outside the classroom.

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Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL [Benson, Jeffrey] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL

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Help kids unwind and refocus with these mental and physical options for brain breaks.

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Brain gym exercises are simple activities that improve cognitive function. These exercises help enhance learning, communication ability, attention, memory, academic performance in children and also help maintain a healthy lifestyle ( 1), ( 2). While they were initially designed for kids, they also may help delay Alzheimer's XA brain disorder that impacts memory, thinking, and cognitive functions due to the shrinking of brain cells. disease, Parkinson's 3), ( XA brain disorder that leads to degeneration of the nerve cells and causes involuntary movement of the arms, legs, or the jaw disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems, and depression and anxiety in adults ( 4), ( 5), ( 6).

This article explores the 15 best brain gym exercises and their benefits. Keep reading.

Why Are Brain Gym Exercises Good?

Michael Hamlin, Certified Personal Trainer, says, "Brain gym exercises are based on the idea that certain movements, such as shaking your hands, rocking, and stretching, can help brain function. There needs to be more research on brain gyms. But a substantial amount of research has found that exercise, in general, can help relieve anxiety and depression by releasing endorphins and improving blood flow in the brain. For example, researchers found that those who exercised regularly showed fewer signs of anxiety and depression when exposed to stress."

Most brain gym exercises are appropriate for people of all ages. For example, some simple movements such as walking and stretching have been shown to be effective in easing anxiety, regardless of a person's age or fitness level. In fact, tasks such as sleeping or listening to music also allow the brain to rest and recover, which can help with mental health.

1. Make you smarter and sharper.

2. Boost your confidence levels.

3. Improve your self-esteem.

4. Improve attention and memory.

5. Boost thinking and decision-making abilities.

6. Revitalize your natural healing mechanisms.

7. Restore health and harmony.

8. Help improve eyesight.

9. Enhance creativity and communication skills.

10. Cheer you up when you feel disappointed or rejected.

The best part of brain gym is that anyone can do these exercises, from kids to older adults, and improve their quality of life. Explore the brain gym activities in the following section.

15 Brain Gym Exercises

According to Hamlin, "These exercises are designed to develop, increase, and improve functions of the body, such as vision, concentration, balance, coordination, and communication.

Next to this, brain gym exercises are the foundation for developing a more alert and relaxed body and mind, and this translates into improved physiological function. These exercises help improve the functionality of specific neural pathways so that the body and mind work harmoniously together and students can be more balanced and grounded in their physical, mental, and emotional activities."

Let's take a look at the brain gym exercises you can do.

1. Marching In Place

Marching in place is a great way to warm up your muscles. This low-to-moderate intensity exercise preps your muscles and improves breathing, balance, and hand-leg coordination.
How To March In Place
2. Cross Crawl

Cross crawl exercise helps improve the coordination between the right and left brain. You can do it either by standing, sitting, or lying, depending on your comfort level.
How To Do Cross Crawl

1. Stand straight with your legs hip-width apart, shoulders rolled back, and chest up. Look ahead.

2. Lift your right hand above your head. This is your starting position.

3. Lift your left leg off the floor, and bend your left knee.

4. Simultaneously, bend your right elbow and try to touch the left knee with your right elbow.

5. Get back to the starting position. Do the same with your left hand and right leg.

6. Do three sets with eight repetitions.

You may sit on a chair and do this exercise if you have a knee injury or are relearning to balance your body.

3. Ankle Touch
Similar to the previous exercise, the ankle touch exercise helps enhance balance and coordination between the left and right limbs. How To Do Ankle Touches
4. Ankle Touch Behind Your Body

This brain gym is another variation of the ankle touch. It is an effective way to improve balance and coordination between the right and left limbs.
How To Do Ankle Touches Behind Your Body
5. Step Touch
Step touch, also known as the dancer's warm-up, is great for lateral or side-to-side movement coordination. How To Do Step Touch

1. Stand with your legs close together.

2. Take a step toward your right with your right leg.

3. Place your left foot next to your right leg.

4. Take a step toward your left with your left leg.

5. Place your right foot next to your left leg.

6. Do this 30 times at a slow to moderate pace.

6. Neck Circles

Neck circles are good for the neck muscles and head movement coordination. This activity also improves balance if you do it while standing. Keep your eyes closed when you do this exercise.
How To Do Neck Circles
7. Cook's Hook-Up

The cook's hook-up exercise helps calm the nerves and improves hand and brain coordination.
How To Do Cook's Hook-Up
8. Brain Button

This exercise helps improve the flow of electromagnetic energy. It relaxes the eyes, shoulder, and neck and promotes body balance.
How To Do Brain Button Exercise
9. Lazy Eights

In lazy eights, you trace the number eight or infinity symbol with a marker on a whiteboard or with a pen/pencil on white paper. Following the shape with your eyes have several benefits. It improves eye muscle movement, visual tracking, peripheral vision X The ability to see objects away from the center that are out of the direct line of sight or from the corner of the eyes. , attention span, and coordination. This activity enhances your abilities to understand languages, study comprehension, and eliminate reversals and transpositions.
How To Do Lazy Eights
10. The Elephant

The elephant brain gym helps improve attention, recognition, perception, memory, speech, spelling, thinking ability, depth perception, and eye coordination.
How To Do The Elephant
Note: You can also do this exercise in a sitting position.

11. The Energy Yawn

The energy yawn exercise helps release tension in the jaw and relaxes the eyes.
How To Do Energy Yawn
12. The Thinking Cap

The thinking cap activity is one of those brain exercises for memory that effectively improve learning speed and mood, increases attention span, and boosts memory in kids and adults.
How To Do Thinking Cap

1. Sit on a chair. Place your index finger and thumb on your ear.

2. Massage the top of your ear and gradually come down to the auricle XThe outermost layer of the ear made of skeleton and skin (also called the pinna) that helps collect and transmit sound waves. .

3. Massage from the back to the top of your ear.

4. Do this slowly for 15 times.

13. Belly Breathing

This exercise helps increase oxygen supply in the body, which, in turn, helps you relax and improves your reading and speaking abilities.
How To Do Belly Breathing
14. Trace X

The trace X exercise helps improve eye coordination, vision, depth perception, hearing, and body coordination. It enhances your skills in writing, organization, mathematics, spelling, grammar, language learning, sports, and executive function (planning and scheduling).
How To Do Trace X
Note: You can also draw a big 'X' spanning the diagonals of a whiteboard and trace it with your eyes.

15. Positive Points

This exercise helps draw positive emotions and reduces the negative ones. It releases stress, relieves memory blocks, and boosts your mood. The positive points brain gym also enhances long-term memory and improves learning, reading, academic skills, and stage and sports performances.
How To Stimulate The Positive Points
Note: Practice it regularly to train your brain to restrict bothering thoughts.

Workout routines are good for maintaining a fit and healthy body. It is a universal truth that exercising improves your muscle tone and fitness, but there are a few exercises that improve your brain fitness or cognitive function as well. You can look up specific exercises to train certain aspects of brain functioning like brain exercises for concentration, brain exercises for focus, brain exercises for learning, and brain exercises for creativity. They help boost your memory and attention span along with academic and athletic performance. Make sure that you are doing the exercises correctly as incorrect form can lead to injuries or muscle pains. Additionally, you can practice mental exercises that stimulate brain function to enhance cognitive and memory functioning. Consult a therapist and primary care physician before beginning these brain gym exercises to learn how to make the most of these exercises.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you train your brain like a muscle?

Michael Hamlin says, "The brain is not a muscle, but in many ways, it does work like one. The brain is made up of millions of neurons communicating through electrical and chemical signals. Like a muscle, your brain can be trained to become stronger over time using activities such as brain gym exercises."

Is brain gym evidence-based?

Yes. Brain gym exercises help improve cognition, mental health, and overall well-being.

Which brain gym exercise is best for students?

The following exercises are best for students:

Belly breathing

Positive points

Thinking cap

Brain button

How do you exercise your left brain?

Do coordinated moves of the right limbs to exercise your left brain.

Is the brain gym an effective educational intervention?

Yes. The brain gym might help improve thinking, reading, and speaking abilities. However, no evidence shows the brain gym to be an effective educational intervention.

Which brain gym technique to use to calm children down?

You can use Cook's hook-ups and cross-crawls to help children calm down after experiencing anxiety and distress. Hook-ups can help control their breathing while cross-crawls can improve their focus and release stress.

Does brain gym help autism?

No, current scientific evidence shows that brain gym does not increase engagement in children with autism ( 7).

How much brain training should you do in a day?

You can practice 60 to 90 minutes of brain training or brain workout every week to keep your brain sharp and healthy.

What time of the day is your brain sharpest?

Studies suggest your brain is sharpest in the mornings following a good night's sleep ( 8), ( 9). Ideally, you can perform cognitive-heavy tasks in the morning.

Key Takeaways

Learn how to improve your focus and concentration with brain gym exercises. Discover simple and effective techniques in the video below to help you stay focused and productive.

Sources

Articles on StyleCraze are backed by verified information from peer-reviewed and academic research papers, reputed organizations, research institutions, and medical associations to ensure accuracy and relevance. Read our editorial policy to learn more.

1. THE EFFECT OF BRAIN GYM® ON ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1029010.pdf

2. Memory and Time of Day
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233046511_Memory_and_Time_of_Day

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Top 15 Simple Brain Gym Exercises For Children & Adults

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Brain gym exercises improve learning, memory, attention, academic performance, planning, and mood. Here are the 15 brain gym exercises for kids and adults.

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