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Parenting with PACEs

Parenting with PACEs is hard work. Whether you are a parent or caregiver who has experienced ACEs or you are a parent or caregiver of a child who has experienced ACEs, we want to support you. The resources we have gathered are a great place to learn more

Webisites

Websites

  • Attachment & Trauma Network
    The Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) has been the VOICE for traumatized children and their families since 1995. Through its mission of Support – Education – Advocacy, it seeks to improve the lives of children impacted by early childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, and prenatal exposures in their families, schools and communities. It has many resources for parents and schools. The ATN Resource Directory can help you find a trauma-informed, attachment-focused therapist or other professional. You can also learn about attachment and trauma, common trauma-based disorders and evidence informed treatment modalities, join ATN, sign up for an online support group, or email or call ATN for more support. ATN also offers resources for Therapeutic Parenting as well as articles and blogs written by and for parents in Our Voices: Touching Trauma at its Heart. 
     
  • Beating Trauma 
    Beating Trauma provides tools and resources of survivors of childhood trauma to take their recovery journey to a whole new level. Resources for survivors of childhood trauma include coaching, workshops, and weekly articles.
     
  • Caregiver Handouts: Games and Activities from Harvard Center on the Developing Child Pediatrics
    Here you’ll find handouts with suggestions for games and activities to do with children of different ages. These activities can promote child-caregiver bonding and build children’s brains through play.
     
  • Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University Resource Library
    A collection of trauma-related resources, tools, and guides on topics such as brain architecture, lifelong health, mental health, neglect, resilience, and toxic stress. One example of a resource relevant to parents is the Activities Guide: Enhancing and Practicing Executive Function Skills with Children from Infancy to Adolescence, which describes a variety of activities and games that represent age-appropriate ways for adults to support and strengthen various components of executive function and self-regulation in children. Sign up for their mailing list to be notified of newly released resources.
     
  • The Enough Abuse Campaign
    This campaign is a grassroots movement to provide adults and communities with the knowledge and skills they need to end the silent child sexual abuse epidemic. The website includes resources for parents, schools, organizations, and communities.
     
  • Family Acceptance Project LGBTQ Youth and Family Resources to Decrease Mental Health Risks & Promote Well-Being
    Includes crisis and support lines as well as culture-based, evidence-based, faith-based, and national resources for youth and families. 
     
  • Greater Good in Action
    Synthesizing hundreds of scientific studies, Greater Good in Action collects the best research-based methods for a happier, more meaningful life—and puts them at your fingertips in a format that's easy to navigate and digest. There is a section just for Parenting and Family. Topics include awe, compassion, connection, empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, kindness, mindfulness, optimism, parenting, purpose, resilience to stress, and self-compassion.
     

  • Iowa ACES 360 Resources for Individuals and Families
    Even if you have experienced adversity in your life, supportive relationships and access to resources and opportunities in your community can help build well-being and buffer against future stress. This page shares ideas and resources for you to address toxic stress and build resiliency in your own life. It also offers training and resources for individuals who work with families to promote safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments for adults and children. 

  • National Child Traumatic Stress Network resources for parents
    Resources in multiple languages from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for parents and caregivers about trauma types and treatments and trauma-informed care. Includes resources on issues such as trauma related to mass violence, economic difficulties, suicide, sexual assault, medical trauma, death of a loved one, and natural disasters. Many resources are also available in Spanish. Here are a few examples: 

    • Age-Related Reactions to a Traumatic Event: Describes how young children, school-age children, and adolescents react to traumatic events and offers suggestions on how parents and caregivers can help support them.

    • Assisting Parents/Caregivers in Coping with Collective Traumas: Offers strategies to help parents/caregivers cope with collective traumas. This fact sheet also provides guidance on what parents/caregivers can do to care for their children as they cope.

    • Coping in Hard Times: Fact Sheet for Parents: Helps parents understand how economic difficulties can affect their families, in terms of their sense of safety, connectedness, and hope. The fact sheet also helps families find ways to cope during uncertain times.

    • Childhood Traumatic Grief: Information for Parents and Caregivers: Provides information to parents and caregivers on Childhood Traumatic Grief. This fact sheet outlines how children grieve, what Childhood Traumatic Grief is, who develops Childhood Traumatic Grief, the signs a child might have Childhood Traumatic Grief, and what parents or caregivers can do to help.

    • Creating Supportive Environments When Scary Things Happen: Offers guidance on creating supportive environments for youth when scary things happen. This fact sheet includes information on routines, rhythm, and rituals. Also available in Spanish here.

    • Disasters: Includes resources for coping with hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, tsunamis, and floods, as well as extreme weather events such as blizzards, droughts, extreme heat, and wind storms.

    • Help Kids Cope: Helps parents talk to their kids about the disasters they may face and know how best to support them throughout—whether sheltering-in-place at home, evacuating to a designated shelter, or helping your family heal after reuniting. This mobile app is also a great resource for teachers and other professionals involved in children's lives. 

    • Talking to Children When Scary Things Happen: Offers guidance on talking with children and youth when scary things happen. This fact sheet includes information on checking in with yourself, clarifying your goal, providing information, reflecting, asking helpful questions, going slow, labeling emotions, validating, and reducing media exposure. Also available in Spanish here.

    • Teen Sexual Assault: Information for Parents: Defines key terms, including consent and coercion, and offers guidance to parents related to dating violence and sexual assault. This fact sheet describes how common teen sexual assault is, how it relates to dating relationships, the roles drugs and the Internet can play in increasing risk, as well as provides tips for staying safe and what to do if your teen has experienced sexual assault.

  • Number Story
    Resources for the public interested in learning more about ACEs and their ACE score, healing and prevention, and the science of ACEs. Specific healing and prevention tools are available for individuals, parents, and families and communities. Number Story teamed up with the American Society for the Positive Care of Children to help parents and caregivers understand, prevent, and heal from ACEs. Explore the toolkit, which is designed for caregivers to support the development and positive parenting of babies and children ages 0 to 5. The Number Story campaign, funded through private philanthropy, is a creation of the ACE Resource Network. The toolkit is also available in Spanish. 

  • One Tough Job 
    This website from the Children's Trust in Massachusetts connects parents with parenting information, ideas, and on-the-ground resources.
     
  • Parenting with PTSD 
    This HealthyPlace website has posts from Trauma! A PTSD blog. Blogs address multiple PTSD-related areas, including parenting with PTSD, anxiety, childhood trauma, grief, and PTSD causes, recovery, and treatment. 
     

  • Parenting Resource Center
    The American Society for the Positive Care of Children (SPCC) provides parenting education and support as the most effective way to support families and nurture children. The following resources are made possible through contributions by child and family advocates like you. The site has information on positive parenting, Adverse Childhood Experiences, child safety, children's mental health, foster care and adoption, fatherhood, LGBTQ+ youth, bullying and cyberbullying, child abuse and neglect, and COVID-19. 

  • Parenting for Social Justice
    This resource collection from ZERO TO THREE provides ideas for parents who are wondering how to raise children who will stand up against racism and injustice. There are books that parents can share with their child to nurture identity, anti-racist resources for parents to read, and ideas for those who want to raise children in a more just and inclusive world. 
  • Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Resources
    This collection of online resources from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center provides information and tools for caretakers, organizations and communities assuming the responsibility of preventing child sexual abuse. Through basic information on child sexual development, defining sexual abuse, and learning effective strategies we can prepare to take action steps toward prevention.
     
  • Resources for Before and During an Emergency
    The American Red Cross library of fun and engaging animated videos can help children learn how to help stay safe during a variety of emergencies and cope with any thoughts or feelings that might come up along the way. Check out the Red Cross Kids Videos playlist on YouTube to view them all! All videos are available in English and Spanish.
     
  • Stop it Now!
    This organization is dedicated to stopping the sexual abuse of children. The website includes resource guides, prevention tools including tip sheets, trainings, and ways to get help online or by phone through the helpline (1-888-PREVENT).
     
  • Stress Health
    The Stress Health website from the Center for Youth Wellness shares many ways that parents can support a healthy stress response: sleep, nutrition, exercise, mental health, mindfulness and healthy relationships. These things help to decrease our stress hormones and inflammation for healthier brains and bodies. Stress Health is about learning how the stress that humans live with can have adverse effects if there is too much for too long – the emphasis of this aspect is on stress. It also emphasizes the importance of overall health – the focus of this aspect is on health. Every family goes through some adversity. For some families, however, the adversities are too many for a child’s stress response. If you’re a parent in this situation, fostering supportive relationships is the best thing you can do to help your kid.
     
  • Support Resources for Families of Gender Diverse Youth
    Includes resources collected by Healthychildren.org for parents, teachers and schools, and youth.

     

  • Links to PACEs Connection Collections on Practicing Resilience for Self-Care and Healing