The Impact of Early Childhood Trauma

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the 2018 NJEA Convention to talk to Dave Ellis, Global Conversation Catalyst and Founder of Dave Ellis Consulting, LLC, about understanding the impact of early childhood trauma and how adverse childhood experiences can affect individuals throughout their entire lives.

3/16/19 #3204

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We're pleased to be joined by Dave Ellis, global conversation catalyst and founder of Dave Ellis Consulting. Good to see you. It's good to see you also. This is a very important study, the study around adverse childhood experiences. That study told us what about the experiences of certain children and the impact it has on their development, on their lives. What are we talking about? Well we're talking about anything from domestic violence in the home... the original ten were around five types of household dysfunction, three types of abuse, two types of neglect. We know now, that there are even more. Hmm. So, we're talking about things like homelessness, food insecurities, bullying, those types of things. And to be really clear, lots of folks ask the question about poverty, and "is poverty an adverse childhood experience?" The research says it's not. That poverty in and of itself is not an adverse childhood experience. Wait, excuse me, but if poverty causes food insecurity... It's the food insecurity that causes the problem, right? So, what we're talking about is that being poor in and of itself... it will exacerbate not having enough food. Hmm. But just being poor... I grew up dirt poor. Tell folks... you were telling me before we got on the air, here in Atlantic City, you grew up in a fascinating place. Talk about it. Where was it? Yeah. I grew up on the Illinois-Kentucky border, a little town called Shawneetown. It is the farthest point north that slavery existed in this country. And so it sits right on the Mason-Dixon line. When I go home, I feel like I'm in the Deep South. And so, yeah. I have an entire history of those types of things and growing up extremely poor in rural America. But adverse childhood experiences? Mm hmm. You understand it not just from an intellectual point of view, from a point of view based on studies, you understand on a personal level? Very much so. Talk about that. One of the things that we know, through research, and just through general experience, is that unless we start to do our own work... all of us are carrying something. You can't grow up in this country and not carry some type of trauma, some implication of it. And unless we're willing to talk about that, and to work through that, we get hung up trying to help people when we haven't even done our own work. And it's really hard to do, because our stuff gets in the way. For me, I've been... it wasn't until I was 60 that I found this study. Right? And so..."