Stress can affect a child in a major way
Researchers discovered early childhood stress, like abuse and neglect, can smolder, harming kids’ brains and other body systems.
Middle-aged white men are dying from “diseases of despair” like suicide and overdose
Middle-aged white men are dying, en masse from “diseases of despair” like suicide and overdose. What are we doing to prevent it?
What parents should know about child pornography
What every parent needs to know about child pornography and what it means to their family. The answers to 10 good questions.
The Truth About Bathroom Bills
North Carolina’s infamous “bathroom bill” makes life worse for transgendered children and doesn’t protect anyone
What To Be “Aware” Of For Sexual Assault Awareness Month
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month; beware not all programs that claim to be about rape prevention actually deliver.
The Baby, the Bathwater and the Bad Mother
We love to write bills that punish cocaine-addicted mothers, but we don’t like to help them. Should we punish bad mothers?
Child abuse month. Top ten things you learn by listening to survivors
It’s child sex abuse month.There are things about being a sex abuse survivor that most people don’t know, but everyone should learn.
They break, you know
They break, you know. These children we leave behind. Foster care kids have high Adverse Childhood Experience scores. Like all children they thrive on love.
When the abuser is a child…
What if the abuser is a child. About 40% of child sexual abuse is committed by minors. Some are 17 years old. But some are very young children.
Pleading For Power
When we are angry, we are not powerful. We are pleading for power. We are feeling powerless, not powerful. Anger isn’t bad or wrong – just inefficient.
Predators using secret signals. Fact or Fiction?
Do you know how to protect your child from sex abuse? You won’t really know unless you understand the facts. Knowledge is power after all.
The power of letting go of judgement
Judging others is something I do when I’m afraid to love, when I can’t accept love because I can’t accept myself. When we accept others we accept ourselves.
Should we invest in Maternal Home Visiting programs?
Testimony in New York State calling for Maternal Home Visiting programs to be broadly available as a way of dramatically reducing abuse and neglect.
Don’t get mad keep your cool
As a parent, it may be hard to keep your cool with some of the thing’s children do. You may feel like your about to lose it. Here are tips to keep your cool.
Forgiving the father who beat me
Looking at my father I didn’t see the man who lay on my bedroom floor to protect me from the monsters in my dreams. I saw the monster. And I forgave him.
The other kind of motherless mother
Being a motherless mother is hard, the impact of a mother who has mental illness becomes clear when you become a mother yourself
The nonsense of beating sense into kids
There is no evidence that beating kids in school does any good. There is plenty of evidence that it does a lot of harm. So why does it persist?
Five Murdered Children. One Solution. And No One is Talking About It.
New York City is dealing with a rash of murdered children. In the midst of finger-pointing, no one is talking about the one real solution to the problem.
Maternal home visiting programs protect children from abuse and murder
Communities can prevent abuse with maternal home visiting programs that equip mothers, like VernayLah Laventure, to build healthy families
RIP Ariana Smyth
There are lessons that can be learned from Arianna Smyth’s death that would spare other children
Human trafficking, pedophile rings, and what you need to worry about
We can’t talk and learn enough about child sex trafficking and pedophile rings. Protecting children requires actions that are harder, and more mundane.
Child sex abuse: How much was I worth?
“As a 13 year old I didn’t use all the right labels, but words like “rape” and “incest” were the first.” We must protect children from child sex abuse
The cost of child sexual abuse
A study saying the cost of child sexual abuse within the Catholic church has cost $3.99 billion over the last 65 years shows taxpayers still foot the bill.
Why are we teaching children to be violent?
We send subtle messages to our children that as long as someone loves you it is okay for them to hurt you. Children’s violence is taught.