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New Café Networking Program - April 30th - Men2Men Monthly Community Café Overcoming Adversity
Fathers and Families Coalition of America introduces two exceptional monthly café conversations that focus on positive change as well as finding a cause bigger than self. We host three café programs that were born out of advancing coalition building. Our meetings promote community-based interventions, research, and build community-wide awareness of essential topics for sustaining healthier children and families. FFCA is continuously seeking to strive for excellence with diverse partnerships for profound change and provide a structure for connecting people.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, and we will end April with a powerful session that you can join by texting Men2Men to 31-996 or email us
Dealing with Adversity and Helping Children and Parents Overcome Trauma
What adversities have you already overcome in your life? Physical, sexual, or emotional abuse? Domestic violence, mental illness, divorce, or poverty? For some, adversity begins before the age of one, with over 4 million cases of child abuse reported in the United States in 2017. * Four out of five of these abusers were the children’s parents. Approximately 75% of this abuse is neglect for failure to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and supervision for children. One in ten children will also be the victim of sexual abuse before their 18th birthday. **
Abuse does not only occur, children, one in four women and one in nine men have experienced severe intimate partner physical violence. *** This abuse of severe mental or physical pain produces trauma, which can negatively impact the rest of a person’s life if they do not get the support and resources to heal.
I asked Bishop Edward Smith, BA, MBA, and pastor of Zoe Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles how we can help these children and parents deal with adversity and overcome trauma. He said, “Raise them in faith, allow them to be safe. Encourage them in what they are good at, so they get a good foundation, and they can thrive in life. As a parent, I trained our four children to be part of our legacy. I protected them from negative influence while being optimistic about their future.”
I also had the opportunity to ask Bishop Henry Hearns, Former Mayor of Lancaster, CA. He is a retired reverend of Living Cathedral of Worship his advice on helping parents and children overcome adversity and trauma. He emphasized the importance of a foundation in faith. “We should make a church a place of safety and love. We should treat the whole person, offering resources for food, shelter, clothing, and work with their mind by gaining their trust to help them open up.”
Bishop Smith encountered and pastored many children and adults who had been raped, been in and out of foster care, and experienced homelessness. Smith says he reads a lot of self-development books, which have given him positive ways to address adversity, and he passes on this education, by teaching it to his congregates. “I promote hope and a broader view of life. I ask them, ‘How far can you see?’ so they can broaden their thinking to greater possibilities and optimism.”
Bishop Hearns reiterated the importance of tutoring and educating children and families as a tool in overcoming adversity. He raised six of his children and pastored many children and teens who did not want to be in the home with their parents. “I would help them find a way to fit back in with their parents and be obedient. Parents must correct their children, love them unconditionally, and spend time with them.”
In helping parents, Bishop Smith says, “What your children hear you talk about marks kids. Avoid instilling fear; prepare your children. Show them you can solve problems. Explain what is going on with options and solutions. Let them see the possibilities- a vision bigger than themselves. Let them know their problems are not their identity. Who they are in Christ is their identity. They are forgiven, they are loved. Encourage their faith in what God has put inside of them.”
Bishop Hearns believes that men should help other men by keeping an eye out for abuse, which is often revealed in children and parents through low-self-esteem and evasiveness. “We should have more training for men to be better parents. We should contribute brotherly love to other men. We should let men know, if you leave your child’s mother, it does not relieve you of the responsibility to be a good parent.”
“Our responsibility as men to help other men,” says Bishop Smith, “Is to become stable men, so that we are role models. When other men look at our lives, they can see that we are quality men. We take care of our families. We need to challenge men and encourage them” to become their full potential.” Adversity is a human condition affecting all of us, but abuse does not have to be if we anchor into faith, support, and resources.
Written by Elisabeth Davies, MC
Counselor and Author of Good Things Emotional Healing Journal: Addiction
*National Children’s Alliance
**Darkness to Light. Two Decades of Preventing Child Sexual Abuse
*** National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
