Parenting the Hurt Child
by Keck and Kupecky

Book Description
In this sequel to their Adopting the Hurt Child (1998), Keck and Kupecky explore how parents can help adopted or foster children who have suffered neglect or abuse. They begin by outlining changes in adoption and fostering procedures in recent years and use case studies to document the friction and disruption introduced into a household when a hurt, adopted child is brought into the family. The authors examine attachment disorders and control issues as well as parenting techniques that work (praise, consistency, flexibility, anger management) and those that don't work (punishment, withholding parental love, grounding, time-outs, deprivation). They highlight the symptoms of abuse and options for therapy. Foster or adoptive parents need to claim the role of parent in the child's life, the authors advise, suggesting ways to deal with teachers and other authority figures in the child's life. The book includes a variety of resources on, among other topics, finance, therapy for siblings and parents, cultural differences, and marriage counseling.

Adopting the Hurt Child
by Keck and Kupecky

Book Description
Fewer and fewer families adopting today are able to bring home a healthy newborn infant. The majority of adoptions now involve emotionally wounded, older children who have suffered the effects of abuse or neglect in their birth families and carry complex baggage with them into their adoptive families. Adopting the Hurt Child addresses the frustrations, heartache, and hope surrounding the adoptions of these special-needs kids.

Attaching in Adoption:
Practical Tools for Today's Parents
by Deborah D. Gray

From Amazon.com
Proper attachment is the most fundamental issue in a successful adoption, but what exactly does the term mean? Attaching in Adoption answers that question thoroughly, and it provides solutions to a variety of specific attachment problems.

Along with technical explanations of challenges such as self-esteem, childhood grief, and limit-testing, the book includes a tremendous number of personal vignettes illustrating attachment-related situations. Parents who are convinced that only their child has ever behaved a certain way are sure to take comfort in these stories; not only do they include kids from all backgrounds and age groups, but each has an ultimately happy ending. The emotional health of the whole family is also paramount according to the book--with plenty of rest and "alone time," caregivers are more likely to be emotionally available when they are most needed.

Because Attaching in Adoption focuses on special needs, families who are coming together through foster programs, at later ages, or across cultural lines will find it especially helpful. Both psychologically detailed and straightforwardly helpful, it can be of equal benefit to counselors and parents alike. --Jill Lightner

Boys, Girls and Body Science
by Meg Hickling

Book Description
This book approaches sex education from a practical, scientific perspective. It can be used for all ages, and is a helpful conversation starter for parents. It is never too early (or late) to start talking about sex.

The New Speaking of Sex
by Meg Hickling

Book Description
For all those parents who struggled with talking about sex, this book gives practical advice and suggestions for how to introduce and respond to sensitive subjects.

Love You Forever
by Robert Munsch, Sheila McGraw

From Amazon.com
The mother sings to her sleeping baby: "I'll love you forever / I'll love you for always / As long as I'm living / My baby you'll be." She still sings the same song when her baby has turned into a fractious 2-year-old, a slovenly 9-year-old, and then a raucous teen. So far so ordinary--but this is one persistent lady. When her son grows up and leaves home, she takes to driving across town with a ladder on the car roof, climbing through her grown son's window, and rocking the sleeping man in the same way. Then, inevitably, the day comes when she's too old and sick to hold him, and the roles are at last reversed. Each stage is illustrated by one of Sheila McGraw's comic and yet poignant pastels. (Ages 4 to 8) --Richard Farr

Hands Are Not for Hitting
by Martine Agassi, Marieka Heinlen

From School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 1-This title offers youngsters an alternative to hitting and other forms of hurtful behavior, guiding them to a more peaceful and positive outcome in their dealings with other children. The refrain that "hands are not for hitting" is accompanied by numerous better uses for them, such as waving, helping, drawing, and making music. While the text is didactic and too redundant to be read aloud cover to cover, the book provides an important point of departure for discussing constructive ways of coping with and resolving strong feelings such as anger, jealousy, and fear. Friendly, colorful illustrations portray children engaged in various positive activities. An extensive list of supportive ideas for grown-ups interested in promoting nonviolence is included.-Teri Markson, Stephen S. Wise Temple Elementary School, Los Angeles

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The Way I Feel
by Janan Cain

From Publishers Weekly
First-time author and artist Cain treads familiar ground here with a picture book that pales in comparison to Jamie Lee Curtis's subtler and snappier Today I Feel Silly. From scared to shy, bored to jealous, Cain covers the emotional waterfront in a series of rhymes paired with pastel pencil drawings featuring elflike children. The opening spread, "silly" ("Silly is the way I feel when I make a funny face/ and wear a goofy, poofy hat that takes up lots of space"), casts a child in a rainbow-colored clown outfit against a sunny yellow backdrop and heralds the book's main artistic conceitAa palette picked to suit each mood. "Bored," for instance, is played out on a background of drab tans and browns, while "angry" steams with fiery reds and purples. Though energetic and bright, the cartoonlike illustrations skate close to being strident, while the verses are pedestrian ("Sometimes I feel so very sad and really don't know why./ Instead of playing and having fun, I cry and cry and cry"). Ages 4-8. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ghosts from the Nursery:
Tracing the Roots of Violence
by Robin Karr-Morse, T. Berry Brazelton

From Amazon.com
Hardly a week goes by without a headline screaming out the details of another heinous crime committed by an adolescent or young child. A 14-year-old massacres his classmates at a school prayer circle, two even younger boys fire into a crowd of middle school children killing five people, a student kills his teacher at the school prom. There is no doubt that crimes committed by children are increasing at an alarming rate and the big question is why? The authors of Ghosts from the Nursery produce compelling if not controversial evidence that violent behavior is learned and cultivated in the first few months of childhood development. Even more startling, the authors Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley believe that a predisposition to violent behavior can be learned before birth. A "chemical wash" of toxins such as drugs and alcohol, combined with a mother's stress hormones generated from rage or fear can directly effect the babies brain development. Illustrative case studies and anecdotes make for a fascinating and factually "fat" read. Lacking in the book is an acknowledgment of the larger picture--not all children raised in violent homes will become violent, and on an even larger scale, there is no mention of other contributing factors leading to teen violence. Would crimes be cut if guns weren't so readily available? Still, Ghosts from the Nursery is an engrossing book, which is bound to generate hot debate in the scientific world. --Naomi Gesinger

The Normal One:
Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling
by Jeanne Ph.D. Safer

From Publishers Weekly
Adults who grew up with a disabled brother or sister may have been labeled the "normal" one. Psychotherapist Jeanne Safer addresses the premature maturity, emotional and intellectual perfectionism and deep guilt about their own health that she says many "normal" siblings experience in The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling. Using interviews with 60 subjects who have disabled siblings and her own experience with an emotionally ill brother, Safer sensitively documents the various challenges that siblings face and offers wise, gentle counsel for dealing with these challenges.

Broken Spirits ~ Lost Souls Loving Children with Attachment and Bonding Difficulties
by Jane E. Ryan

About the Author
Jane E. Ryan, RN, MA, a counseling graduate from Rhode Island College, understands RAD as few can after three decades of loving powerful and disturbed youngsters. The profound experiences led her to become a therapist-turned-writer who continuously educates frightened, bewildered families. She co-authored "Motherhood at the Crossroads" and has written two screenplays. Ryan lives in Lincoln, NE and is working on her first novel while she applies her extensive skills providing mental health services in the ER at BryanLGH Medical Center.

More Than Love
by Sherril M. Stone

Book Description
Offered as both guideline and inspiration to parents looking for alternative behavioral measures, Sherril M. Stone, Ph.D. offers a truthful and accurate account of her family’s struggle to parent three boys suffering from the devastating effects of Attachment Disorder.

Handbook of Attachment Interventions
by Terry M. Levy

Book Description
The emotional attachment of a child to caregivers, and the attachment of the caregivers to the child, is of vital importance to the child's socioemotional development. Proper attachment can affect one's ability to feel and express love, moral development, motivation to achieve, and sense of identity. Modern industrial societies have seen a recent surge in attachment problems, yet there has been little information on clinical interventions for attachment disorders. The Handbook of Attachment Intervention meets this need by providing information on diverse patient populations across different therapeutic philosophies, while providing specific techniques for treating attachment disordered children and their families. The book begins with a discussion of how attachment disorders relate to subsequent antisocial behavior patterns and other disorders, as well as general issues parents may encounter with an attachment disordered child. Subsequent chapters discuss special patient populations (the adopted child, military families, etc.) and techniques for intervention. Practitioners in clinical, private practice, managed care, and hospital settings, social workers, developmental psychologists, and interested parents will find the Handbook of Attachment Interventions a valuable reference.

The Pathway: Follow the Road to Health and Happiness
by Laurel Mellin

Book Description
If we have not mastered two simple skills -- self-nurturing and effective limit setting-we cannot soothe and comfort ourselves from within. So it is only natural that we soothe and comfort ourselves by overeating, drinking, spending, overworking, and smoking or by finding our way into the softer excesses-people pleasing, putting up walls, rescuing others, or thinking too much. This is especially true when we have the extra challenge of living with dysfunctional family members. Parents of special needs children must gain balance for themselves before they can teach these skills to their children. The Solution was developed over the last twenty years at one of the nation's most prestigious medical schools. Emerging understandings of neurobiology suggest that using the skills over the long term may retrain the elusive feeling brain to spontaneously favor a life of emotional balance, relationship intimacy, spiritual connection, and freedom from excessive appetites. The Pathway shows you how to use the method and why it work. For more information about the program, you can also visit the website at www.thepathway.org