During April’s Child Abuse Prevention Month, we take special care to promote the ways in which people throughout our local communities can build supportive networks and positive experiences for children of all genders, identities, and ages.

Even though we can’t protect children from every negative experience in the world without suffocating them in well-intentioned wool, we can recognize the ways in which child mistreatment within the home is preventable and how we can help children develop support networks.

The connection between violence and childhood trauma.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that happen during the age of 0-17 years old. Research done by the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser Foundation found that experiencing traumatic events in childhood can have long-term medical, psychological, and developmental effects on an individual. The ACEs in the Kaiser/CDC study and in multiple follow-up studies tracked outcomes from various forms of abuse or neglect experienced by the child directly, and it also tracked trauma related to having a parent who experienced domestic violence, substance misuse, mental illness, or incarceration.

To illustrate the connection of domestic violence between adults and child abuse, it’s estimated that 30-60% of people who abuse their partner will also abuse the household’s children. Children exposed to violence in the home are fifteen times more likely to experience physical or sexual assault than children who haven’t. Although being abused as a child doesn’t mean that someone will necessarily become an abuser or experience domestic violence themselves as an adult, it’s statistically much more likely than for children who weren’t abused.

The research found that the more ACEs an individual experienced, the more that that individual was at risk for mental illness, substance disorders, and health issues later in life. Nationally, 1 in 10 children have experienced three or more ACEs and just under half of all children in the United States experienced at least one ACE (Sacks and Murphey 2018). The California Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, released information about efforts in California to address ACEs, and we are learning more every year about the various adversities that have long-term effects on children and what we can do about them.

As allies to children, we can counteract those risk factors by fostering the different kinds of support and resources which help children develop resiliency. Resiliency factors include parental/caregiver support, social connections for families, supporting social-emotional skills in children, and ensuring that families have access to food, shelter, safety, and other fundamental needs.

It’s important to note that having gone through adverse childhood experiences is not a guarantee of poor health and other outcomes. It describes possibilities, likelihoods, and influences, not fate.

Parental Support

Healthy relationships start at birth. The physical and emotional health of a parent, the family’s access to safe shelter, food, and healthcare, and the social and political barriers that families with historically marginalized identities face are all essential influences on a child’s self-esteem and development.

Domestic violence, which is classified as an ACE and includes child and elder abuse, refers to patterns of behavior that give one person control over another person. It doesn’t always look like physical hurt: because the root of violence is about having control over another person, the actual behavior can look many different ways, including but not limited to the financial, verbal, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Threatening, injuring, or manipulating children are all tactics that can and have been used by unsafe people to gain control over the family. Whatever behavior allows a person to gain and maintain control will be the behavior that they choose, which means there is no “typical” or “standard” template for domestic violence within a family.

For information on dynamics of control, you can view our Power & Control Wheel.
For questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, you can read, “How do I know if my relationship is unhealthy?”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, or if you’re unsure and you’d like some guidance on something causing you to feel uncomfortable about a relationship, you may call our 24-hour hotline at 1 (866) 269-2559 to speak anonymously with an advocate.

From domestic violence crisis intervention, we know that when it comes to stress, there are certain needs that have to be prioritized: namely, physical and survival needs. If you’ve ever tried focusing on work when you haven’t eaten for too long, you probably found it hard to concentrate on anything other than getting food in your belly. When our bodies are tired, hungry, or activated in “flight, fight, or freeze” mode, our brains switch into survival, which impacts our neurology in such a way that strategizing and abstract thinking becomes exponentially more difficult. We become more likely to make harsh judgments, or we become more irritable or apathetic. If you’re caring for a child, then you’re probably also familiar with how much harder it is to feel patient when our bodies are lacking something.

This means that one of the most important elements of building a child’s resilience is the parent or caregiver taking care of themselves. It’s easier to respond the way you want to when you’re not exhausted, hungry, or feeling activated yourself.

What do you, as the parent/caregiver, need to feel grounded?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, what kind of support or resources would you need to help manage that?
What do you want your child to learn in regards to communication and conflict, and how can you model those lessons for them in your own actions?
Based on how you were raised, what kinds of parenting techniques do you think will help you create the kind of relationship you want with your child? Which techniques would you like to set aside?

There’s no single correct way to be a parent. There’s no parenting template that applies to all families across the board. Every family will have different needs, wants, and access to resources, and every child is unique. So instead of asking yourself, “What’s the right way to be a parent or caregiver?” it’s easier and more relevant to ask:

“What kind of impact do I want my parenting/caregiving to have on my child?”
“What skills and lessons do I want to teach my child as they grow and move out into the world?”

Children are sponges for information, observing their world and soaking up data at a rate much faster than adults can. Between this and the fact that they have personalities just as unique as adults do, this is an opportunity for parents and caregivers to take big, abstract ideas (“I want my child to be happy”) and use their knowledge of their child to tailor that idea into behavior that meets the child’s individuality (“What does it look like for my child to be happy?”).

Figuring out what healthy looks like for your own family means having an idea of what you want to work for while being flexible enough to recognize whether or not your actions are actually taking you in that direction. The impact that our choices have are often more important than why we make the choice. A child, after all, only hears the yelling and not the parent’s fear for safety which lies underneath it.

What does love and support look like in terms of actions for your own family?
What kinds of activities can everyone do together and which everyone, including the kids as well as the adults, actually enjoys?
Without judging yourself or your child, what other kinds of support (therapy, parenting classes, school IEPs) would be helpful to look into, if you haven’t already?

(Remember that asking for help doesn’t mean that you’re a bad parent: it actually means you’re a better one because you’re seeking out what you need to help your family do better!)

Supporting social-emotional development in children.

The ability to recognize emotions, name them, communicate them, and take a moment to think before reacting can be an invaluable skill that will help children throughout the rest of their life. Talk to the children in your lives about emotions: what are they, how to name them, how to recognize the physical signs in our body when emotions are coming up, and how to cope safely with uncomfortable emotions. Sometimes referred to as “emotional regulation” or “emotional intelligence,” the goal is to help children learn that emotions are natural for all ages and genders!

Often the best way to teach our children about emotions and how to interact with other people is by modeling it for them ourselves.

When we catch ourselves escalating with anger or frustration, taking a break to drink some water, do some deep breathing, or have some time to ourselves can interrupt that spiral of conflict and help us shift our brain out of survival mode and back into, “Okay, I can talk normally again,” mode.
Naming our own emotions as adults and talking through some of our own process out loud (“I feel angry because someone called me a mean name and hurt my feelings, and this is how I’m going to help myself feel better”).
Understanding that admitting a mistake doesn’t undermine your authority as a parent unless you act like it’s something shameful (it isn’t!) - instead, model how to apologize and move on to a better course of action.
Encourage, but don’t force, friendships between your child and other children, especially of different ages, genders, and other identities.
Find age-appropriate tasks for children to do when they’re wanting to help, and then allow them the space to try it on their own terms; kids like to feel useful, and everyone likes to feel like their own ideas and efforts have value.

Fundamentally, people want to feel like they have value as a person and have security in their attachments to other people, whether those people are family, friends, colleagues, or partners. Kids are the same! (Even the ones who get old enough to pretend that they don’t care.) The trick is to meet them halfway, so to speak: how do you share time and space with another person while allowing each person to be their unique self?

The earlier that children learn skills of emotional self-regulation, social awareness, confidence in their own abilities and their capacity to learn, and reassurance in the truth of their own personal identity, the more likely they are to find healthier friendships and other partnerships as teens and adults.

Connecting socially with COVID-19.

After more than a year of isolation, collective trauma from the pandemic and racialized violences, and possibly grief over the loss of loved ones, families have been dealing with an incredible amount of stress and will likely continue to feel the impact of COVID-19 even after it’s safe to begin meeting in person again.

Some ways to ease back into connection:

A quick text or phone call to someone you trust, especially another caregiver, can feel like a lifeline.
As stay-at-home orders are lifted, take the time to check in with the parents and children in your lives.
Plan safe ways to connect one one one whether safely outside or via video.
Offer opportunities for children to relearn social skills and build back up their support network.
Give yourself permission not to rush back into bigger family and community connections so that it doesn’t feel so overwhelming after going so long without.
If you are a teacher or care provider, be patient with children who may act differently from what you remember before the pandemic. We don’t know everything that they have experienced during isolation, so be mindful and nonjudgmental of their needs while also practicing your own self-care.
Connect with other parents and caregivers, online or in-person, through peer support groups or parenting classes.
Brainstorm additional ideas with people you trust, or search online to see what other families are trying out.

Santa Cruz County Community Resources

General resources and directories:

Community groups:

Parenting classes:

Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center
Survivors Healing Center
Papás of the Central Coast

Walnut Avenue’s services for children and families:

Main office: (831) 426-3062

24-hour domestic violence hotline: 1 (866) 269-2559
Our domestic violence hotline serves survivors, their families, and their allies of all ages, gender identities, gender expressions, sexual orientations, and family and relationship models.

Early Education Center
Specializing in child development from ages 0-5.
Positive Discipline Parenting Classes
Offered once a year at no cost by our teachers and youth advocates. For dates, please contact our main office. (Next class series: April 20th, 2021.)
Warriors Youth Group
A weekly gender-inclusive, prosocial group for teens aged 12-17.
Youth Mentoring
One-on-one support from a trained youth advocate for youth aged 12-17.
Youth workshops
No-cost, evidence-based workshops for children and youth of all ages and identities on healthy and unhealthy friendships, dating, and relationship with oneself.
Education for adults
No-cost education on domestic violence, ACEs and childhood trauma, crisis intervention and allyship, and other subjects related to interpersonal violence.

From Our Teachers & Advocates

Fostering Child & Family Resiliency