Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are highly stressful and potentially traumatic, events or situations that occur in the life of your child. Examples of these are: 

 

• Losing a parent through divorce, death or abandonment.

• Living with someone with serious mental health illness

• Exposure to domestic violence 

• Emotional Abuse

• Sexual or Physical Abuse

• A parent or care giver who abused alcohol or drugs

• Violence in the Community

• Poverty 

 

Toxic stress from ACEs negatively affects your child’s brain development, immune systems and stress-response systems. These changes can affect children’s attention, decision making and learning. Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships.

 

This can result in behaviours such as 

• Self-Harm

• Suicidal thoughts or feelings

• Intense and On-going Emotional Upset

• Unprompted Outburst

• Regression or loss of previously Acquired Skills

• School Refusal 

• Problems sleeping & eating

• Poor self-regulation in School or at Home

 

At All Things Counselling we want to help your child through those difficulties. Traumatized children develop the belief that they are bad and what has happened to them is their fault. This leads to an expectation that people are not going to like them or treat them well. They develop behaviours to protect themselves or to fit their belief, “I’m a bad kid , why would I do well in school? Bad kids don’t do well in school.”

 

Please contact us if you think we can help.