Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

How Children Succeed

We've been reading Paul Tough's important new book, “How Children Succeed” and find it to be mandatory text for those who are parents or grandparents of young children.  Instead of waxing enthusiastic, please turn to David Brooks' Op=Ed piece devoted to Tough's book in the Friday, September 28 New York Times.

Brooks calls “How Children Succeed” an  "essential book."  "Childhood stress can have long lasting neural effects, making it harder to exercise self-control, focus attention, delay gratification and do many of the other things that contribute to a happy life."  Brooks essay is a great introduction and precis of required reading for many of us.

Rape in America

 

1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in her lifetime.

Read this, weep and rage:  For Native American Women, Scourge of Rape, Rare Justice

 

"In the Navajo Nation, Caroline Antone, 50, an advocate for the reservation’s victims of sexual violence who has herself been raped, said sexual assault was virtually routine in her community. “I know only a couple of people who have not been raped,” she said. “Out of hundreds.”

It is well documented that "Adverse Childhood Experiences" have lasting life-long effects on phycical and emotional health.  Persons who experience these die younger from all causes of mortality.  The article, "The Poverty Clinic: Can a stressful childhood make you a sick adult" by Paul Tough in the March 21, 2011 New Yorker is an excellent companion piece to this riveting and important NY Times article documenting sexual violence in Native Americans.

Paul Tough's article is a "must read" for all care givers and other sentient beings.  You can find a pdf online (too large to upload here) or read an abstract.

From my experience in clinical practice, I see patients every day whose physical and psychiatric health have been forged by ACEs -- Sexual Violence may be the most serious form of abuse and its aftershocks are devastating.