Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) cause kids to have a hard time learning, making friends and trusting adults. They can’t keep up in school, so they shut down or get in fights. They’re the “problem” kids. Schools suspend them. There’s lots of ways for kids to cope with their trauma. Alcohol. Drugs. Smoking. Food. Kids become daredevils and break their bones. Sleep around and get STDs. Grow up too fast and become workaholics. ACEs can cause health problems later in life, too. Vincent Felitti and colleagues found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.
For background information on ACEs, please see the website: ACEstoohigh.com.
You can check your ACE Score if you wish.
A good article on ACEs is Paul Tough's "The Poverty Clinic" which appeared originally in the New Yorker.