Books and Methods Review - Related Issues

BEHAVIOR ISSUES

*****Raising Your Spirited Child Rev Ed: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka 

Marythemom: This was not written for kids of trauma, but I can highly recommend this book!  It is the reason my biodaughter, Bob, reached the age of 5 (she started the terrible twos at 17 months and ended at about age 4 1/2!).  This gives a lot of practical advice and insight into why kids act the way they do. 

The spirited child—often called "difficult" or "strong-willed"—possesses traits we value in adults yet find challenging in children. Research shows that spirited kids are wired to be "more"—by temperament, they are more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and uncomfortable with change than the average child. In this revised edition of the award-winning classic, voted one of the top twenty books for parents, Kurcinka provides vivid examples and a refreshingly positive viewpoint. Raising Your Spirited Child will help you:

• understand your child's­—and your own—temperamental traits
• discover the power of positive—rather than negative—labels
• cope with the tantrums and power struggles when they do occur
• plan for success with a simple four-step program
• develop strategies for handling mealtimes, sibling rivalry, bedtimes, holidays, and school, among other situations

Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime Kurcinka's vivid descriptions bring to light common conflicts, but her primary lesson is that power struggles give parents an opportunity to teach their children better ways of expressing frustration, anger, jealousy, and other emotions. Kurcinka also helps us recognize the role that temperament, both our own and out child's, plays in family life--and that continued success depends on respecting our differences."
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, M.A., is an award-winning educator in Minnesota's Early Childhood Family Education Program, and founder of the Spirited Child and Power Struggles workshops. She is the bestselling author of Sleepless in America and Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles, and she lives with her family in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 ADVOCACY

Fighting CPS: Guilty Until Proven Innocent of Child Protective Services Charges by Deborah K. Frontiera 

Proving Innocence chronicles thirteen months of agony and frustration suffered by the innocent Bonilla and Frontiera families as a result of Children's Protective Services removal of young James Bonilla from his parents. Most people are not prepared to navigate the maze of sometimes senseless procedures of a government agency that has too much power. The Frontiera and Bonilla story and reports of several other cases across the country should be a wake-up call to a public unaware of how the state agencies charged with protecting the nation's children are failing. Interviews with lawyers, caseworkers, and others who work within the system, point out specific steps that should be taken to improve how these agencies work. The author issues a call to action from the public to charge all levels of government to make necessary changes in these agencies. They must protect children from abuse and neglect without persecuting innocent families.

Second Time Foster Child: How One Family Adopted a Fight Against the State for their Son's Mental Healthcare while Preserving their Family by Toni Hoy

In a juvenile courtroom, the judge reprimanded the caseworkers, the attorneys, and CASA for responding to a no-fault dependency case as an abuse case, “There is nobody bad here!”
There were no criminals. There was no crime.
Then why were we sitting in the accused chairs?
As an infant, Daniel entered the foster care system as a result of severe neglect, which manifested in violence and aggression later in his childhood.
Desperate to get their adoptive son, Daniel, into a residential treatment center and keep their other children safe, the state of Illinois left Jim and Toni Hoy with two options. If they brought their son home from the psychiatric hospital for the 11th time in 2 years, the Department of Children and Family Services threatened to charge them with child endangerment for failure to protect their other children. Mental health professionals recommended abandoning him at the hospital after the state denied all viable sources of funding for his treatment. Making that choice would trigger a child abuse investigation and subsequent neglect charges.
Daniel re-entered the foster care system for no other reason than he was mentally ill.
A year later, Daniel’s mother discovered that his treatment was covered by a funding source that he was awarded as part of his special needs adoption. The EPSDT provision of Medicaid. How could they get the state government to understand the federal law and re-gain custody of their son?
"Second Time Foster Child" is the story of parents who never gave up on their son, despite being prosecuted and persecuted in exchange for his medically necessary treatment.

Marythemom:  This is an excellent book to inspire parents advocating for kids with an “alphabet soup” of diagnoses who can’t get services needed without having to surrender custody of the child to the state.

Alcohol/Drug Exposed

“The Mystery of Risk: Drugs, Alcohol, Pregnancy, and the Vulnerable Child” - Ira J. Chasnoff, MD

Sensory Processing Disorder

The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder by Carol Stock Kranowitz

The Out-of-Sync Child broke new ground by identifying Sensory Processing Disorder, a common but frequently misdiagnosed problem in which the central nervous system misinterprets messages from the senses. This newly revised edition features additional information from recent research on vision and hearing deficits, motor skill problems, nutrition and picky eaters, ADHA, autism, and other related disorders.
Carol Stock Kranowitz, M.A., has been a preschool teacher for more than 25 years. She has developed an innovative program to screen young children for Sensory Processing Disorder, and writes and speaks regularly about the subject. She has an M.A. in Education and Human Development.

Sexual Abuse 
Adopting the sexually abused child - Bernard and Joan McNamera -- Includes lots of ideas for handling perpetrators who were first victims.

"Helping Your Child Recover from Sexual Abuse"-Caren Adams, Jennifer Fay

Trauma Specific (PTSD/RAD)
"The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog"- Bruce D. Perry PhD, Maia Szalavitz *
"Parenting Other People's Children: Understanding and Repairing Reactive Attachment Disorder"- John L. Stoller
"The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child"- Nancy Newton Verrier
"Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence"- Robin Karr-Morse
"Raising Children Who Refuse To Be Raised"- Dave Ziegler
"The PTSD Workbook" - Mary Beth Williams
"I Can't Get over It: A Handbook for Trauma Survivors"- Aphrodite Matsakis
"The Scared Child: Helping Kids Overcome Traumatic Events"- Barbara Brooks, PhD, Paula M. Siegel
"Children and Trauma: A Guide for Parents and Professionals"- Cynthia Monahon
"Trauma in the Lives of Children: Crisis and Stress Management Techniques, 2nd Ed."- Kendall Johnson, PhD

"Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience..."- Tion Dayton, PhD

 Detached by Jessie Hogsett Young adult survivor of RAD.