Note: Anne Dachel is compiling a litany of stories from around the world about the state of pediatric health and its impact on schools. Each day she's adds to her list like Madame Defarge knitting in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. If only the article below were fictional. CDC has a new term to explain the severe changes in violence among children: Adverse Childhood Experiences.  

We just had another school shooting in America, 2 high school students were murdered in cold blood, others injured, none in that building will ever be the same.  Home life has always affected children! Nature versus nurture is real. It's a no brainer that every child deserves a "safe, stable, nurturing" home. Reality is that many children have and have always had terrible home lives.  Anne and I spoke about this today. How is it that children of the depression were not so violent? Children of color grew up with Jim Crow laws that denied them basic human dignity - and yet were not wreaking havoc in their schools requiring safe rooms, evacuations, counseling, medication even.  We played with toy guns and shot each other dead in our back yards while the smell of caps surrounded us. Today, angry, despairing boys are reaching for real guns and do not have the basic human impulse to tell themselves, "NO! THIS IS WRONG." Divorce and verbal abuse are to blame for this shift? So many adopted children (and their families) are suffering from reactive attachment disorder today, and yet kids had been adopted for decades without the heartache and violence of RAD. 

It's CDC's job to look at health within the nation. Somehow ACE as an answer feels similar to what we see in autism. Examine everything except the obvious problem. Blame anything that isn't related to a partner and profitable industry like pharmaceutical. Leave medications and vaccinations out of the equation.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that America has made no progress in school shooting violence since Columbine, Colorado.  There is more violence than ever.  Anne has a story below from Maine that talks about ACE.  I guess we should get used to hearing the term. It may become the new Refrigerator Mom theory. Blame the parents for the out of control violence in the classroom and schools.  It's much more than stress that's toxic in children's lives today. And it comes from the CDC.

From CDC:

Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. As such, early experiences are an important public health issue. Much of the foundational research in this area has been referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Adverse Childhood Experiences have been linked to

• risky health behaviors,
• chronic health conditions,
• low life potential, and
• early death.

As the number of ACEs increases, so does the risk for these outcomes.

The wide-ranging health and social consequences of ACEs underscore the importance of preventing them before they happen. CDC promotes lifelong health and well-being through Essentials for Childhood – Assuring safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children. Essentials for Childhood can have a positive impact on a broad range of health problems and on the development of skills that will help children reach their full potential.

Jan 25, 2018, Bangor (ME) Daily News: These Down East schools want to fix rural education

 “It’s a growing movement, stemming from a Centers for Disease Control study that laid the groundwork for research into the toll adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, take on health and brain development.”

“When ACEs experts talk about trauma, they’re not just talking about poverty, but a range of childhood experiences that can lead to frequent, toxic stress. Those experiences include surviving or witnessing verbal or sexual abuse, going through periods of hunger, and having parents separate or divorce.”

“Some 31 percent of Washington County students recorded at least three adverse childhood experiences, according to the survey, the second highest rate among the state’s 16 counties. …”