Mother-daughter duo, Kyla and Bella Thomson have been touching the lives of millions around the world ever since Kyla began documenting her daughter's medical journey online. Mediaplanet sat down with the dynamic duo to learn more about Bella's story and how their family is helping to inspire others.
Bella’s story has reached millions of people. Can you give us an overview of her story for any new audiences?
My daughter Bella was born on Dec. 6, 2013, with three very rare diagnoses that we didn't know of before birth. At three days old she had her first surgery on her bowels for Hirschsprung’s disease, which had affected her colon.
Bella was also born with no immune system due to a rare disease called severe combined immunodeficiency. As a result, she had to have a bone marrow transplant at 15 months old.
Bella’s third condition is a form of dwarfism called cartilage hair hypoplasia. The condition has affected her growth and bone structure but definitely not her spirit. She has taught me that you can still find joy, keep your strength, and remain brave even in the hardest of situations.
By 2020, Bella had lost all vascular access but one and with bowel failure, she
Oneeded to be listed for a bowel transplant. She has been waiting for two years now.
By helping people understand Bella’s experiences, what are you hoping to convey to the public?
I hope that by seeing our story, the public will know that others out there have made it through the darkest of days. Bella has shown me that even though waves of struggle continue, it doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself get stronger so that the next wave is easier to handle. I hope our story inspires others to find joy through the hard days.
How has your family coped with the more challenging days of Bella’s journey?
We're very fortunate to have a lot of support from our relatives and friends during the more challenging days. Our community has also been an enormous support — we're incredibly proud to be
from Saskatchewan, and the love and support here have means so much. We have a huge family of support to which we can always come back home.
Bella, what’s the coolest thing you’ve done this year?
The coolest thing I’ve done this year is the water slides and water park at the Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls! Mom said they invited us, so we travelled there and spent four whole days in this amazing water park hotel meant for kids like me. Well, it’s totally meant for kids and families. We got story time and dance parties at night, so I got to stay up late and party every night and then water slide all day. We also went to mini golf and played games in a giant arcade. Our room was like an actual cabin, and the bunk beds were made of real logs from trees. We basically had our own cabin in our hotel room with a door and windows and everything. It was so cool!
Not All Youth Who Struggle with Mental Health Have a Family to Turn To
The Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada is dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth, and families impacted by child welfare.
ver the last few years, youth in Canada have experienced significant mental health challenges as they struggled with instability and isolation. Yet, for youth who are served by the child welfare system or are transitioning out of care, mental health challenges have long been a barrier to their ability to survive and thrive. The COVID-19 crisis intensified these challenges, and youth who have often experienced abuse and neglect were left even more vulnerable.
Tom, an advocate, entrepreneur, and former youth in care, experienced first-hand the devastating toll the pandemic had on a young person’s mental
health. “I was diagnosed with depression a week before the lockdown started. I was living alone and had to deal with my mental health in an apartment by myself, and it was a very difficult time,” he says.
Thankfully, Tom was able to seek support from the Pape Adolescent Resource Centre (PARC), which helped connect him with a doctor and therapist. “Their support helped ensure my safety during a very uncertain time,” says Tom.
PARC receives funding from the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada’s Teddy Bear fund. The Fund grants $1.375 million to the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and Native Child and Family
Services of Toronto each year, enabling these organizations to respond to the immediate and urgent needs of children, youth, and families in crisis.
“Children and youth are our future, and we need to invest in them today to build a stronger, more resilient society for generations to come,” says Shael Kalef, Chair of the Teddy Bear Fund Committee. “The fund is doing just that for our children and youth facing vulnerable circumstances.”
The Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada is our country’s leading charity dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth, and families impacted by child welfare.
Prioritizing Connection in a Screen-Saturated World
This Toronto school is helping families adopt “screen-light” living.
Sonya Friesen
We can’t ignore the immense benefits technology has had on society. For families, technology offers increased opportunities to connect, whilst at the same time dominating time previously reserved for fostering tangible relationships. It’s essential to recognize the influence screens can have on a family by monopolizing a caregiver’s time and therefore affecting their ability to nurture familial connections.
“It’s through relationships that we learn to form social bonds and healthy relationships,” says Joanna Anderson, MSW. As adults, we face an ongoing demand to be plugged in — our lives are tethered to a screen. It can be tempting to lean on technology as a tool when raising children.“Screens aren’t inherently bad. It’s about how we use them," says Anderson. "We’re seeing kids exposed to topics they aren’t equipped to understand. As a result, attention spans are diminishing and generalized and social anxiety is on the rise.”
Connection is key
The Clover School’s Disconnect to Reconnect: Screen Time Pledge encourages families to be intentional about how their time is spent, instead focusing on building connections off-screen and using screens in a purpose-driven way. Technology isn’t going anywhere, and the pledge doesn’t mandate a complete detox. Instead, it encourages families to take small steps to lighten screen time, committing to a family “unplug hour” or leveraging screens for educational, connection-building purposes, like watching a movie together.
Fostering education off-screen
We can’t tell parents to have fewer demands placed on them, but we can give ideas that parents can use with their children to ensure they’re meaningfully connecting.
For 25 years, The Clover School has worked to bring Montessori education to families across Toronto. The school is committed to providing programs fundamental to a child’s overall well-being and highlights the importance of the connection between caregiver and child. “All humans need connection to thrive. Genuine, loving connection with someone they trust can be the antidote to many behavioural issues in children,” says Isabelle Kunicki, Co-Founder and Director at The Clover School.
This is easier said than done. To help caregivers navigate going screen-light, The Clover School has created a curriculum that supports building stronger connections during school and at home, focused on the experiential learning that has proven critical for development. At school, children are offered opportunities rooted in experiences like gardening, creating a connection to food and where it comes from. The school also offers an outdoor education program, allowing children to experience the natural world through physical exploration with the hope of fostering a caring, responsible generation. Outside of school, HomeGrown is a home-based program that provides simple activities that can be adapted to any household, helping families learn together outside school. “We can’t tell parents to have fewer demands placed on them, but we can give ideas that parents can use with their children to ensure they’re meaningfully connecting,” says Kunicki.
Q&A with Dr. Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist and Good Inside Founder
Mediaplanet sat down with Dr. Becky Kennedy to talk about the ill effects of device screen time on children and tips for parents to manage.
In what ways can excessive screen time be harmful to a child’s development?
I’m big on avoiding shame and panic in parents. So, I wouldn’t say that excessive screen time is harmful to child development as much as I’d say let’s think together about the impact of screen time and how to build skills for kids so they can engage in independent play — which is often the alternative to screen time! Screen time can interfere with a child learning the skills they need to develop in their early years — namely, emotion regulation, attention, frustration tolerance, and experimentation. Children thrive when they work through challenges, tap into their creativity, and explore the world through their senses — none of which can be accomplished when glued to an iPad.
What strategies and tools do you suggest to help children get off their screens?
First, let’s embody authority — it’s our choice how much screen time our children get even if they don’t like it. This comes back to a core principle of Good Inside, my global platform for parents: children’s feelings don’t dictate a parent’s boundaries, and a parent’s boundaries don’t dictate a child’s feelings.
Second, talk to your child during a non-screen-time moment about screen time rules. Remember, you want to approach your child as if it’s you and your child against screen time struggles, not you against your child. So, tell your child something like, “I want to be super clear about screen time rules this week. I want to limit screens to ensure you have time to do the other things kids need to do, like play, explore, create, and even be bored!” Yes, boredom is important to kids because it’s one thing that leads them to try new things.
Third, prepare your child in advance for how they'll likely feel at the end of screen time. We call this “emotional vaccination” or pre-regulation at Good Inside. Words like, “Hey, before you get your iPad, let’s think together: how will it feel when I see iPad time is up? Ugh, that’ll be so tricky, right? Let’s take a deep breath and remind ourselves now, ‘It’s okay to be upset,
and I’ll get more time another day.’”
Preparing kids for upsetting feelings is a much better strategy than trying to convince them not to have these feelings, as it’s the only way they can build basic coping skills.
How can parents and educators model healthy screen-use habits for children?
Our children are watching us and how we direct our attention teaches them what we value. And so, first, let’s look at our relationship with screen use.
Second, let’s think about the patterns we have and how they impact our kids. If you’re like most parents (and like me!), you often carry your phone around with you even when you don’t have to. So step 1 to modelling a healthy “screen relationship” is having phone-away time. If this is new to you, start small — a few minutes everyday.
Next, schedule play no phone (PNP) time with your kids — this is a core tenet of Good Inside. PNP time is one-onone time with your child where you tell them, “You have my full attention, we can do anything you want to do — and my phone is nowhere to be found!” This shows a child that they're valuable and interesting, and not only does wonders for their self-esteem but also for your connection and for modelling that people-to-people non-screen interactions are worthy and important.
Top School Ensures Student Success by Focusing on Whole Child
Student success at The York School comes by supporting the individual needs of the whole child.
Forward thinking and academically robust, The York School approaches education in a unique way. A gender inclusive JK to Grade 12 International Baccalaureate (IB) school, York prioritizes their students’ mental and emotional wellbeing alongside building their academic strengths in preparing them for the future.
Knowing one cannot thrive without the other, The York School has a multi-layered support system in place that includes teachers, learning strategists, counsellors, and social workers. By focusing on the whole child, the School can provide specialized assistance suited to each student’s needs. It also cultivates meaningful parent partnerships to ensure children succeed at school and at home.
This approach proved especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being away from the classroom, students may have experienced learning gaps. In addition, they may have experienced difficulty focusing and adapting to online and hybrid learn-
ing. The School also recognized that young people may have struggled with their mental health over the course of the pandemic.
Community encouragement Fortunately, The York School already had a strong wellbeing and learning strategies structure in place, ready to support where needed.
Proactively, the School intervened to prevent learning gaps and promote mental health by reaffirming support through its three-tiered Response to Intervention (RTI) System. Teachers and staff quickly identified where students were struggling and addressed learning issues with individual learning plans built on subjective intensity, frequency, and duration levels.
division and also headquartered in a centrally located Leigh Centre for Wellbeing. As one student put it, “I just think the school wants us to be prepared — to build a foundation here and be able to do whatever we want to meet what we think our idea of success is.”
Social and emotional wellbeing is central to how we approach our students because we see it as the foundation for academic learning.
Plus, the School has an impressive social and emotional learning curriculum that is woven throughout each school
Understanding the Impact of Adoption on Children, Youth, and Their Families
Adoption is not an event but a lifelong journey for everyone impacted by it — children, youth, and their adoptive and birth families.
Well-rounded
education
From Junior School through Middle and Senior School, York ensures student success by having the right tools and infrastructure in place to support different learning styles.
“Social and emotional wellbeing is central to how we approach our students because we see it as the foundation for academic learning,” says Elissa KlineBeber, Associate Head of Wellbeing. “Our goal is that, by graduation, students really know themselves, are confident in their strengths, and aren’t afraid to ask for help.”
Adopted children and youth have all experienced loss, grief, and adoption trauma in their young lives. This loss can impact how they feel and think about themselves, others (including parents), and the world around them. At the Adoption Council of Ontario (ACO), we understand this. We also know that healing from loss and adoption trauma happens through strong and nurturing relationships. For this to happen, kids and parents need to feel understood, and they may need support in building and deepening their relationships.
For parents
We have an excellent free training program called Pathways to Permanence 2: Parenting Children Who Have Experienced Adoption Trauma and Loss. The Pathways training program provides education and support for adoptive parents — whether they adopted their
child years ago or recently. Pathways makes parenting easier to understand and provides the skills needed to parent in a way that helps children and youth heal from adoption trauma and loss. The training has been very well-received and is highly recommended by participants.
For children and youth
Pathways makes parenting easier to understand and provide the skills needed to parent in a way that helps children and youth heal from adoption trauma and loss. The training has been very well received and is highly recommended by participants.
The ACO’s free, virtual Kids Sessions provide a space where children who are adopted can get together in a safe environment, learn about each other, play games, and talk about adoption — if they want. The sessions are organized by age group and are an excellent opportunity for children to connect with other adopted children and not feel alone. The ACO also runs a Youth Network program for youth and young adults aged 16 and over that meets virtually twice a month. In addition to the fun and social atmosphere, the Youth Network
also provides interested youth with the opportunity to participate in advocacy and leadership work.
“At first, I didn't want to join, and my mom kind of made me try it. It was great. I felt so comfortable within a couple of minutes and actually met someone like me,” — A Kids Sessions attendee.
For professionals
Because of the unique dynamics involved in adoption journeys, the ACO offers ACT training, a specialized professional training program.
ACO understands...
ACO understands adoption and adoption journeys. Therefore, we take a child/youth-centred approach to all our work, and through our programs, we normalize, connect, educate, support, and advocate through all stages of the adoption journey.
Let’s support the health and well-being of children and youth who are adopted and provide them and their families with the ongoing support and connections they need.
