🚨🎉 My latest article “Exploring networks of complex developmental trauma symptomatology among children and adolescents involved in child welfare” out now in JCPP Advances. W/ @WholeLab @jasminezhang72 & others from the @FamilyPsycle lab at @UWaterloo acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.co…

👔New research for Father's Day! What can dads do to foster teens' secure attachment? 1. Be present 2. Support teens' autonomy (don't try to control) 3. During conflict: stay engaged, empathetic, & non-aggressive @SeasEmotion @tandfonline @uvavpr tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…

In our new study with the Children and Youth Planning Table (CYPT) of Waterloo Region, we found "BELONGING" operates as a bridge between relationships and well being. The article is open access (free), give it a read and tell us what you think! doi.org/10.1002/jcop.23125

In this #OpenAccess paper, @JacksonASmith et al. explores networks of complex #DevelopmentalTrauma symptomatology among children and adolescents involved in child welfare. Full paper available via @WileyPsychology. bit.ly/3Pmn63z

Our open-access special issue on social determinants of health in families is now complete! The collection of studies shows the importance of moving beyond the individual to consider health outcomes across the family unit. Check out the editorial here: frontiersin.org/articles/10.…

Learning and examining the key roles of topics such as attachment, emotions and social support is important. Check out the two articles mentioned!🧠 Article A: https:// acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.co… jcv2.12224 Article B: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

New study! We found that social support may be protective against concurrent stressors during the pandemic in relation to family functioning, though this buffering depends on historical levels of adversity! For more details: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

🔊Our recent study demonstrated that social support was protective against stress during the pandemic for families. However, this buffering depends on historical levels of adversity including traumatic events. Click here for more: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

With growing awareness about mental health challenges, Dr. @dillon_browne has created the @FamilyPsycle Lab at #UWaterloo which integrates a family-centric perspective into mental health-care services. More: bit.ly/3TfX1pa | #GlobalFutures

Child Poverty is Getting Worse in Canada. Teamed up with health economist @shainur22 to highlight why Canada needs to make #ChildPoverty a priority for child #development and #mentalhealth. theconversation.com/child-po…

If you want to learn multilevel modelling but don't know where to start, @JkayFlake and I have created the website for you: learn-mlms.com A brief summary of the materials and the impetus for them: (1/6)

RT @EstherPerel: Be careful not to lose your humanity.

📢 Our new meta-analysis in World Psychiatry showed that in 206 studies and >500k participants, the distribution of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) was: 0 ACEs = 39.9% 1 ACE = 22.4% 2 ACEs = 13.0% 3 ACEs = 8.7% 4 ACEs = 16.1% 🧵 (1/4) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…

Excited to share that my MA thesis: “Empirical support for a model of risk and resilience in children and families during COVID-19: A systematic review & narrative synthesis” was published #OpenAccess in Development and Psychopathology. bit.ly/3KJvhV9

I want to talk about trust and attachment in young children. And there’s no video here for good reason. Several of you have recently tagged me to ask my thoughts on trending videos depicting parents engaging in one appalling behavior or another - in pursuit, apparently, of social media likes. In one trend, parents pretend to be FaceTiming with their child’s new kindergarten teacher and call their child over to meet her. When they get to the phone, the child comes face to face with a photo of a scary looking adult (which in some cases appear to be mugshots of women deep in the throes of drug addiction, if, in fact, they are real at all). The children are almost always alarmed. Often they cry. During one of the biggest transitions in their young child’s life (the start of school), these parents have chosen to stoke anxiety rather than provide comfort. Other recent trends have involved parents in throwing slices of American cheese at their toddlers - or, more recently, unexpectedly cracking a raw egg on their child’s forehead during a joint cooking activity. Obviously I’m not going to uplift any examples here. But I do want to address the harm these kinds of behaviors create from a developmental perspective. The years of early childhood are a time during which trust and attachment are (ideally) formed. With love, attention, and responsive caregiving, young children learn that their world is safe. They develop self worth and self esteem. These are prerequisites to both learning and healthy development. But the key to developing trust is consistency. And the behaviors in these videos - even if rare and anomalous - serve only to undermine healthy attachment between parent and child. They provide children with data points that suggest their parents can be unexpectedly and arbitrary cruel. They are a violation of hard earned trust. Some will argue that these are just jokes in good fun. They aren’t. They are the deliberate infliction of trauma, however brief, for the amusement of strangers. It should go without saying that this isn’t good for children. Please. Don’t. Just don’t.

Join our amazing @care_research_rtp team! Learn more about the project led by Drs. @TracieAfifi and @astewarttufescu at: carertp.ca/

Now accepted at Child Development, myself and Martin Tomasik explore, in tutorial style, how we can use continuous-time dynamic systems to represent theories of change, and why this is important when considering how model parameters relate to theories. osf.io/gw54v

Thank you for this clear and rich conversation. What @WholeLab shares is relevant not only for the @UWaterloo community, but for all who have been directly or indirectly affected by trauma and adversity (hint: pretty much everyone).