With the Republican and Democratic conventions upon us, and the U.S. presidential campaign in full swing, DailyInfographic.com dug into the archives for this amazing visualization of “right” and “left” that British data journalist David McCandless and information artist Stefanie Posavec put together in 2009 for his book The Visual Miscellaneum. The “Right” and “Left” refer to U.S., British and French politics, as you can see in the top strip of “Parties”.   

In 2009, McCandless made this observation in his explanation of the visual:

Researching this showed me that, despite my inevitable journalistic lean to the ‘left’, I am actually a bit more ‘right’ than I suspected.

The pieces that intrigued me most are the parenting styles, enlarged here.

Instilling fear in a child as a method of parenting, if interpreted negatively by a child, is considered one aspect of emotional abuse, which is one of the more damaging types of child maltreatment, according to the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study). According to marriage and family therapist Felice Block on GoodTherapy.org: ”Children who experience emotional abuse feel that they are responsible for the behavior of their parents and that if only they were more polite, better students or better children, than their parents would be more loving.”

But is there really a difference between left and right parenting styles? Is fear as an element of parenting exclusive to a particular political point of view?

That hasn’t been my experience. I’ve met quite a few people grew up in households filled with chronic intimidation and fear, and whose parents were registered Democrats.

And here’s the attention-getting trailer for the book by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley. This’ll make you sit up and take notice. And, of course, intrigue you enough to buy the book, no doubt. I downloaded it on Kindle, and will start reading it later today. Click here to view the video

After a series of widely publicized deaths of children in Arizona last year, Gov. Jan Brewer created a Child Safety Task Force last October. Child Protective Services had the children on its radar, but did not intervene soon enough to prevent their deaths. The task force issued its recommendations last Friday. Mary Reinhart of the Arizona Republic News reported:

A specially trained investigative unit, quicker response to calls for help and more comprehensive treatment for victims of child abuse are among the final recommendations issued Friday by a gubernatorial task force on child safety. Continue reading →

Although the ACE Study shows a direct link between child trauma and adult onset of chronic disease, it’s not just health that’s affected by child trauma, says Dr. Rob Anda in this presentation he did in May at a meeting of the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative in Canada. “I see this as a developmental process that affects all of society,” he says.

Anda is one of the co-founders of the CDC’s ACE Study. In case you haven’t seen Anda in person, it’s worth checking out this 53-minute video — The Wide-Ranging Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences: Connecting the Developmental Lens to the Health of our Society. It’s fascinating.

Anda incorporates art from Paul Klee, Michelangelo, W. Eugene Smith and others into his talks. “All art, to me,” Anda says, “mimics public health.” His interpretation of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” is an eye-opener.

Toward the end of the 53-minute presentation is a short video of a woman Anda met at a community meeting in Washington state several years ago. When she filled out the short 10-question ACE survey, and answered yes to all 10 questions, a light bulb went on. I’ll let you watch the video to find out what she did with that knowledge.