You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative,humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed - and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.

    Full description

    This abundance of stress is impacting families and in many cases, manifesting itself in children with difficult and severe behaviors. Homes often turn into intense fighting grounds of power struggles and control battles parents find themselves in us against them scenarios with their children. Tension continually builds and before long, parents are feeling completely overwhelmed, powerless, and resentful of their children. As parents implement traditional parenting techniques, parenting in a way that most parenting books recommend, they find their situations becoming worse, not better as promised these resources. It doesn't have to be this way! Heather T. Forbes, LCSW, offers families a new view to parenting children with difficult and severe behaviors. As a parent herself who experienced dark days (and years) following the adoption of her two children, she offers a ground-breaking approach to parenting that shows parents a proven way to develop strong and loving relationships with their children. In her new book, Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love Based Approach to Helping Children with Severe Behaviors, Volume 2, Heather offers practical and effective solutions based in scientific research, coupled with professional and personal experience. She is a master at bridging the gap between academic research and real life when the rubber hits the road parenting. This book is written in an easy to understand and easy to grasp format for anyone working with or parenting children with difficult or severe behaviors. The first six chapters discuss the principles of her love-based parenting paradigm. A newunderstanding of why traditional parenting techniques are ineffective with children with difficult behaviors is given, along with clear and concise explanations of the science behind trauma and negative early life experiences. The next seven chapters address specific behaviors, including poor social skills, homework battles, demanding behaviors, self-injury, defensive attitudes, no conscience, and chores. Each chapter gives specific examples of how to implement her parenting principles, empowering parents to make amazing and permanent changes in their homes. All the examples given throughout these chapters are true stories provided by parents who read and implemented her first book, Volume 1. The book ends with a parenting bonus section where more real-life stories from real-life parents with real-life children are given. These examples range in the spectrum of the ages of the children and a variety of behavioral issues. This book offers hope and healing. It goes beyond just changing a child s behaviors but goes to the level of healing for all family members. This book has the power to literally change families for life and to help families find the peace in their homes that they dreamed of from the beginning--and the peace they deserve!

    A guide for adoptive parents from preparations for a child's arrival through the teen years.

    Covering the best practices for raising and caring for children with Down syndrome through age five, this book is invaluable to new parents who have welcomed a baby with Down syndrome into their lives. This new edition incorporates the latest scientific, medical, educational research, and practical information available, as well as parents' suggestions and feedback. Existing chapters have been revised, some completely rewritten by new authors, and in keeping with its parent-friendly reputation, most of the book's contributors are parents of children with Down syndrome Chapters cover: - What Is Down Syndrome?: A primer on the causes, characteristics, and diagnosis, including the latest information on genetics and prenatal testing;- Adjusting to Your Baby: Advice from an experienced mother on coping with common emotions and announcing the news to friends and family;- Medical Concerns & Treatments: An overview of possible health issues including celiac disease, sleep apnea, diabetes, reflux, and skin problems, with an emphasis on detecting signs early for needed treatment;- Daily Care: The gamut of care from feeding to bathing, with expanded information about toilet training;- Family Life: The impact on siblings and couples, discipline issues, and new material to help everyone understand that a child's behavior is a form of communication;- Development & Learning: Expectations about development plus new material on variability in development, learning styles, using reading todevelop language, memory strengths and weaknesses, and using play to encourage learning;- Early Intervention: An overview of services and therapies for babies & toddlers with new information on the transdisciplinary approach, providing services in the natural environment, transitioning preschool, and common questions & answers;- Legal Rights & Financial Issues: Explains your child's educational and legal rights, and financial information, including the latest on federal education and civil rights laws, sources of financial assistance, health insurance, trusts, and guardianship.Full of new photos, parent statements, updated and expanded resources and reading lists, this build everything parents need to build a bright and healthy future for their child with Down syndrome.

    Moreover, as neuroscience reveals how the human brain is designed to work in good relationships, and how such relationships are central to healthy human development, the practical implications for the parent-child attachment relationship become even more apparent.Here, a leading attachment specialist with over 30 years of clinical experience brings the rich and comprehensive field of attachment theory and research from inside the therapy room to the outside, equipping therapists and caregivers with practical parenting skills and techniques rooted in proven therapeutic principles.A guide for all parents and a resource for all mental health clinicians and parent-educators who are searching for ways to effectively love, discipline, and communicate with children, this book presents the techniques and practices that are fundamental to optimal child development and family functioning—how to set limits, provide guidance, and manage the responsibilities and difficulties of daily life, while at the same time communicating safety, fun, joy, and love. Filled with valuable clinical vignettes and sample dialogues, Hughes shows how attachment-focused research can guide all those who care for children in their efforts to better raise them.

    They said it couldn't be done, but somehow Alex Bell has managed to adopt and raise a family of children with special needs.

    Why am I not a more joyful parent? Why aren't my kids turning out as I expected? Why do I always feel as if I'm not doing enough for my children? Is Parenting Supposed to Be This Difficult? As a mother of six, Leslie Leyland Fields knows firsthand the insecurities and questions that come with rearing children. In Parenting Is Your Highest Calling, she tackles nine myths about parenting, including:- Children make you happy and bring great fulfillment. - You will always feel love for your child. - Your success as a parent can be measured by your child's behavior. - There is one "right" biblical model for family life. - Good parenting will result in happy children.Through a close look at God's own life as a parent as well as stories from real-life families, Fields highlights the transforming biblical truths that release parents from the grip of mistaken assumptions. Fresh, provocative insights will lead you to a deeper understanding of God and yourself- an understanding that lifts the weight of guilt and fear and frees you to love your children as God intended.Includes "going deeper" questions for individuals, couples, or groups.

    What will they be like? She imagines all kinds of wonderful familiesastronauts, pastry chefs, even pirates. How nice to find out that they are the best family in the world.

    This second edition contains 8 NEW POEMS. Beautiful is much more than a source of inspiration. Its words reveal the majesty and vulnerability of all children. Beautiful is an empowerment anthem for youth, a resource for those who love, care for, and work with these purposeful souls. Child light shines through these pages, asserting the demand of our young for their dignity, while portraying their limitless power to heal, grow, and flourish. A poetic companion to Jaiya John's Reflection Pond, Beautiful is the kind of treasure we polish repeatedly, its truth seeping into our compassion. Struggle and triumph. Solitude and belonging. A journey of sunflowers toward the sun of selfhood. In these pages we find Beauty born.

    Being a pup in foster care is awfully confusing. What's Murphy do when he's taken away from his family and placed in a new home, with new people, new pets, and...new EVERYTHING?!Murphy, a Tibetan Terrier puppy, is told he is a "good luck dog"--he is cheerful, happy, and loves to play and wag his tail. However, after going through two different homes and an animal shelter, Murphy starts to feel like a "bad luck dog" who nobody wants. Murphy's Three Homes follows this adorable pup through his placement in three new homes, as well as through his anxiety, self-doubt, and hope for a new, loving family. Finally, Murphy is placed in a caring foster home where he feels comfortable and valued. He learns that he is not a bad dog after all and can go back to being a playful puppy and a "good luck dog!"An extensive Note to Parents, written by author Jan Levinson Gilman, PhD, discusses the emotional experience of children who are in foster care, and provides caregivers with information on how to help kids cope with the difficulties of being placed in multiple homes.

    Originally published in 1978," ... it is as true and open as the changes advocated ... comprehensive, factual, forward looking, totally honest, readable and thoughful ..." Los Angeles Times.

    Winnicott is likely the most influential and evocative child therapist and theoretician who ever lived. His work provides the underpinning for much of the empirical and clinical enterprises regarding the developmental process over the past half-century. Using over 25 of his most thought-provoking--indeed provocative--conceptual and clinical writing as its base, Attachment, Play and Authenticity provides a systematic construction of his theorizing and then integrates it with his clinical work. The book begins with a description of Winnicott's unique ability to link Freudian drive theory with what we now call object relations theory by describing the newborn as a being with "predatory ideas" and the new mother as adaptively "preoccupied" with her baby. It then discusses the infant's innate need to "create" its mother; the dangers of a false compliance to an unreliable mother in order to survive; the dynamic dialectic between the baby's essential isolation and its need for others; and the capacity for hate as intrinsic to the humanization process. The role of play as the medium and hallmark of human potential, the creation of transitional phenomena to weather the aloneness of existence and the antisocial qualities inherent in the human condition are then all brought into play as pillars of his conceptual constructions. These themes are constantly interwoven throughout the book with an analysis of his clinical work, so that Winnicott as preeminent clinician sits alongside Winnicott as generative theorist.

    The Sound of Hope is such a story, told by Anne Bauer, an adoptee who cannot pretend that she had another life and another family before being adopted.Much of Anne's childhood was spent wondering about her other mother. She desperately wanted to know where she was, what she looked like and most importantly, why she placed her for adoption. Living in the closed adoption system, her questions were met with a wall of silence. This aura of secrecy only intensified Anne's quest to eventually discover her own story. Faced with anger and contempt, secrets and revelations, Anne sets out to uncover the truth. This powerful memoir traverses family and relationships and carries the unforgettable message that nobody should be cut off from their origins.

    He names him Luke and asks his friend Chris Croc to help him build a dog house. Working together, the two saw, hammer, paint, and decorate, and in no time the dog house is built. But that night, after his friend goes home, Ben Bear can't sleep. He tosses and turns, tries counting sheep, and listens to the tick-tock of the clock. As Ben thinks back over the events of the day he suddenly remembers the very important thing he forgot to do!