This blog is my place to vent and share resources with other parents of children of trauma. I try to be open and honest about my feelings in order to help others know they are not alone. Therapeutic parenting of adopted teenagers with RAD and other severe mental illnesses and issues (plus "neurotypical" teens) , is not easy, and there are time when I say what I feel... at the moment. We're all human!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Urgent!! Edited

OK, I'm convinced! I will tell the school, NO!!!!!! THANKS y'all!!


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Anyone read the book "Night" (I think it's about the Holocaust) or "Of Mice and Men" recently? I've never even heard of "Night" and it's been forever since I read "Of Mice and Men." Please ask around!

I need to know by tomorrow if they're appropriate for Kitty, my suicidal/ emotionally disturbed teenage daughter, to read in Language Arts. Some of her triggers: suicide/ self-harming, feeling someone "deserves to die" because of something awful they did (guilt/ shame), domestic violence, blood and gore, hurting women or children, foster care, physical/ verbal/ sexual abuse, abandonment/ loss...

8 comments:

anonymous said...

I dont know about of Mice and Men - but anything about the Holecaust would not be appropriate. Here is some of the summary of NIGHT from Wikipedia:
Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father, Shlomo,(Translated to Chlomo, in German) in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father-child relationship as Shlomo declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. "If only I could get rid of this dead weight ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever." In Night, everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends," a Kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone."[1]

Mommy Merlot said...

Have not read "Night" but would not let my child read "of Mice and Men". There are way to many emotional triggers in that book for our kids! Just my opion. Hope to see you tonight!

elizabeth said...

They are both really awful choices.
I read them more then 30 years ago, and both haunt
me still.
It is clear to me that they were chosen by idiots, who think the low IQ kids need short, (deceptively) simply written books.
I have a strong belief that the best kids literature is truly literature. Charlotte's Web and Little House?
They are both masterpieces, whose depths have yet to be fully plumbed by me, an adult who went to fancy pants universities.
I call bullshit on these choices, and agree with your implicit reaction: no way are these good books for a traumatized child.

KateMonster said...

"Night", while a wonderful book, sounds like a terrible choice for Kitty. Its entire point is loss.

And in checking the Wikipedia article about it, it sounds like an even worse idea:

"Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father-child relationship as Shlomo declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. 'If only I could get rid of this dead weight ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever.' In Night, everything is inverted, every value destroyed. 'Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends,' a Kapo tells him. 'Everyone lives and dies for himself alone.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(book)

Mollie said...

Of Mice and Men has some very disturbing images including a mentally challenged man, Lenny, choking a woman to death and subsequently being shot by George, his caretaker/friend. Sure, it could be looked upon as an act of mercy, but on the surface it seems like Lenny trusted George, told him he had done something wrong, and was shot for it. I cannot imagine a teacher who knows your daughter's history would even dream that this is an acceptable choice. I would not let her read this.

Ashley said...

Not Night, oh Goodness, not Night. It is a memoir of a man in a concentration camp. Definitely not appropriate for Kitty's issues. I read it in a mainstream class in Grade 9 or 10 and I haven't ever gone back to read it again, which is highly unusual for me.

A very important story to be told, but not one Kitty needs at the present time

schnitzelbank said...

Both are bad choices for a kid like Kitty. I'm a teacher who has used both of those books in the (mainstream) classroom.

marythemom said...

Thanks guys!!! I'm definitely telling the school NO!