Intergenerational Resilience in the Context of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Since the first studies on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) more than two decades ago, research, practice, and policy efforts have shifted from documenting pathways of adult health risk to preventing ACEs among children. This chapter applies the long-standing resilience and health-promoting frameworks and identifies three key pathways within the intergenerational transmission of ACEs that may serve as windows of opportunity to promote family resilience. The first pathway involves identifying adults’ and parents’ preexisting positive childhood experiences (PCEs) to elucidate how childhood health-promoting factors may have co-occurred with or counteracted ACEs to reduce the risk for long-term maladjustment into adulthood. The second pathway involves focusing on the perinatal period to help expectant parents draw from and strengthen memories of PCEs as templates to recreate health-promoting experiences or create them anew for their children. The third pathway involves leveraging trauma-informed, relationship-focused, evidence-based interventions that help parents recover from adversity and nurture healthy bonds with their children. Positive and health-promoting experiences often co-exist with childhood adversity and can shield adults and parents from the enduring negative consequences of ACEs, as well as reduce or entirely prevent the occurrence of ACEs among children. Future research, practice, and policy efforts should integrate pathogenic orientations to reducing and preventing child ACEs with salutogenic orientations that leverage resilience processes beginning in parents’ families of origin and extending through current and future generations.