Archives For Family Life

Anything pertaining to family life, children, and friends. Any content that is about personal life outside of trauma-informed content.

My heart is heavy…. 

Again injustice. Again blood shed. Again.

Piles of literature in journals with statistics that mount up to the heavens. Oppression has an impact on all of us. Our entire nation suffers when some are mistreated, neglected, violated. We know this… yet still, more more more of the same treatment. 

Now what? We need the miracle of heart level changes. 

Is one small step dealing with the tangled generational trauma that keeps giving us the same results? Violence.

Generational trauma is an emotional cancer that erodes our safety and keeps being passed down to our children who grow up learning about hatred. Our kids struggle to make sense of an illness. Then the same inequity and injustice perpetuates and rips apart our people. Like this week.

Lord help us! Our nation needs healing from the inside. Blood is on our hands. The bride needs a shower.

Only You can fix this mess. You can give us the courage to look inside. You can strengthen us. Only You have the answers we need collaboration to discover.  

A glimmer of help amidst the gulf of darkness is a movement being birthed. Generational Trauma (GT) curriculum and the Unchained documentary to help us tackle some of the onion layers of wounds. Although we weep, we ask You to help us try.

We will see your greater works Lord.

Unchained Documentary from American Bible Society on Vimeo.

A screenshot for Quest Movement where I recently attended training for Generational Trauma. This curriculum is developed in collaboration with the authors of Healing the Wounds of Trauma curriculum which has been used in 100s of countries for almost 20 years.

Quest Movement will be galvanizing to reorganize trainings and healing groups amidst changes to format required by covid19 restrictions. More to come soon…..

http://questmovement.org/generationaltrauma

Hello again everyone!

I am excited to share more free Neurologic resources because they have been immensely helpful for managing my own school age kids at home for the Covid-19 Shutdown. I find myself repeatedly sharing this info with clients so I decided to post this one and possibly collect some useful resources for caregivers struggling with their kids who are struggling. If you have any winners, please share it in the comments.

This time I am sharing a homeschool webinar: HOMEBOUND: Josh MacNeill (Brain Breaks)

I attended after being notified by one of my agencies that Josh MeNeill was joining Susan Wise Bauer, my homeschool hero to help us all settle into a “school at home” routine with kids who may be grieving the loss of school, defiant, anxious, confused, uncooperative and/or bored.

My worlds have finally collided! I believe families NEED this kind of information to understand WHY their kids are “acting up” instead of just feeling frustrated, annoyed or in dispair.

Josh from Lakeside details helpful concepts for caregivers to help their students’ get through behaviors that interfere with learning. To be honest, as a therapist helping other caregivers, I benefit tremendously from internalizing materials like these to support my own family of 6 + 2 kids; seven of whom are back home for the duration. 

Brain breaks which he gives examples for are the best. We like many use different gadgets to break up the “Groundhog Day” monotony of lockdown school during quarantine. This has been vastly different than homeschooling for sure.

My favorite brain break activities include paper behind the back, thumb roll, mindfulness mint (I use starburst), nature sounds (I use safari videos), the alphabet/number trace, and some of the tossing brain benders.

Lakeside Neurologic is known internationally to support the therapeutic education of vulnerable youth. Full disclosure: I am not sure how long this free zoom link for the Homebound video will be active. 

Due to Covid19 their book shipments are delayed. If anyone wants the “101 Brain Breaks” little square book Josh described that I enjoy using here’s an Amazon link: https://smile.amazon.com/s?me=AU4E06N5BT5JX&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Enjoy guys,
Heloise (Lois) Ridley, MBA,MA