Covid and ACES

What are ACES and how do they relate to Covid right now? ACES are Adverse Childhood Experiences. Almost everyone has gone through some Adverse childhood experience at some point in their life, whether it was their parents divorcing, a parent losing a job and that creating financial instability, perhaps a parent being incarcerated, there are many of them that are in this link. ACES

How does this relate to Covid right now? Well, one of the things that can cause an Adverse Childhood Experience is parents losing their jobs, homelessness, not knowing whether you will have enough food to eat. As well as being scared you or your family members will get sick or being scared of your family members dying. And we are all dealing with that in some manner or another right now. Whether you have lost your job, or are underemployed, whether you are worrying about your or your child's health, whether you have a family member that is sick with Covid and your child knows this and is afraid that they may die. These can all contribute to adverse experiences. The other thing that can happen, and is happening right now, is parents may be having a hard time with their children home all the time. They were used to the 6-7 hour break they would get while their child was at daycare/school. And we have seen a spike in child abuse cases. It's more difficult to ask for help form elderly relatives, due to not wanting to get them sick. Perhaps home visiting programs have been converted to teletherapy, and many people are not used to reaching out to ask for help when they need it. So, we have seen an increase in parents abusing their kids and mandated reporters having calls to DCFS and the children are placed in foster care.

Right now is a stressful time for a lot of people. Many people are finding that they are having to try to do their work from home, as well as help their kids with remote learning, and if you have a child with a 504 plan or an IEP, you are trying to individualize their learning so that you can best help meet their needs. And if you don't have an education degree, that probably seems next to impossible. Never mind all of the regular stuff like cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. No one would blame you if you just said "oh forget it," and let them watch tv while you finished your work.

Here's the good news. Adverse childhood experiences do not have to be forever. I love this quote in this article Adverse childhood experiences "If the brain can be hurt, it can be healed" How? Be using positive childhood experiences. If you are having too hard of a time with your child's trigonometry homework, and you feel you both getting frustrated and you want to blow, set it down. Stop what you are doing and take some time. If you are not working at the moment, maybe go for a walk around the neighborhood just the two of you, go get some ice cream together, watch a tv show together. Do something that makes the two of you feel good. If your infant is crying and crying and crying and you are at your wits end, put your baby down and walk away for a bit. I promise you, your baby will be ok. Also, right now, you can utilize The Fussy Baby Network for free during Shelter in place. Utilize them! They are a great resource of infant specialist and are there to help with no judgment!

Here is another great article about ways to avoid aces during covid. Doing positive things together such as baking, coloring with your children, playing games, doing puzzles, will help heal the brain., Look, no one is perfect. If you lose your job, or have food insecurity, or you become underemployed, or worry about your child getting sick, you are going to have feelings about that and your children are going to know. This is not saying do not feel your feelings because it will traumatize your children. This is just giving you advice on where to go and how to also create positive experiences for your children so that we don't continue seeing spikes in child abuse cases, so that we don't see spikes in domestic violence cases. There are resources out there for you. If your child is in Early Intervention, utilize your therapists, ask them for resources for your child for while you are sheltering in place. If your child is in school, utilize the teachers. Ask for activities for your child to do indoors to keep them active while you are working. If your child's teachers or therapists are creating more stress because they are scheduling all of your child's meetings during your work time, and you have to help facilitate this, talk to them and explain that this will not work for you. If you can come up with a plan, great. But if not, let them know that you will work on what you can, when you can, but first and foremost, what matters is your child's mental and physical health. And yours as well!