Continuing with my discussion about the ACE Study… it is interesting to note what the authors of the study consider to be their two most significant findings: that adverse childhood experiences are “far more common that recognized or acknowledged”, and that such negative early childhood experiences “have a powerful relation to adult health a half-century later.”


If you read the breakdown of the categories studied, you realize most of our kids were not exposed to only one negative experience. Most of our kids (and most of the folks in this study) had multiple “traumas”. In fact, the study reports that one quarter of the participants were exposed to two of the adverse experiences, and one out of every 16 participants experienced four of the five! A child exposed to one adverse experience had an 80% chance of being exposed to a second negative experience or influence.


That statistic reminds me of a family my husband and I “mentored” in the early 90’s. Perhaps I shouldn’t say “family” but just “kids”… the mom was a single, alcoholic mom who lived off of her kids’ social security that they were collecting after dad died. There were six kids… 3 girls and 3 boys. I never met the oldest boy… he was apparently the product of an incestual relationship between mom and her brother. (Did you know that spell check doesn’t even recognize “incestual”? How’s that for the definition of dysfunctional?) The second oldest boy was already in "The Boy’s School" for having “messed with” his sisters. The youngest boy was stealing and vandalizing when we met the family… he’s the kid who wanted a “My Little Buddy” doll when we threw him a party for his 13th birthday… in between vandalizing, smoking and making out with his girlfriend on our back porch, he liked that doll… Then there were the three girls… Where do I start? They all went on to have a boatload of kids, be imprisoned, do drugs, etc. They embodied so many aspects of dysfunction… and it simply repeated itself in future generations. These kids didn’t have a prayer of coming out “normal” and raising “normal” kids of their own… and try as I might, I couldn’t change during weekend visits what was thrown at them the vast majority of their childhood.

Other bloggers have been discussing the impact of negative childhood experiences. Read Erin's blog on transracial/transcultural adoption, or Cindy's Older Child Adoption blog.