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, August 27, 2012

Books and Methods Review - Therapeutic Parenting - Foster W. Cline




Amazon.com Review
Over 200,000 children live in foster homes in America today. 40-60% of these children have been severely and permanently damaged by their pasts, resulting in behavioral, psychiatric, emotional and neurological disorders. Large numbers of previously adopted children (both domestic and international) suffer from similar problems. In the past, these children would have been cared for in specialized facilities staffed 24 hours a day by professionals. Today they are placed in inadequately prepared adoptive or foster homes where they often become uncontrollable, and forcefully reject those who want only to love and help them. Yet, in the past when families sought understanding and help, they found that there was little or none available. Now there is.

Can This Child Be Saved? Solutions for Adoptive and Foster Families... Offers parents help and hope, encouragement and support. It examines what causes children to act and react the way they do, and why conventional strategies and approaches often fail to reach them. It explores and validates parents feelings and offers struggling families clearly detailed and easy to understand parenting techniques and therapeutic approaches that DO succeed with disturbed children.

Marythemom:  ***** Foster Cline is one of the authors of the Love and Logic books.  I really like the L&L books, but they don’t always work well with kids of trauma.  This book is different.  This is one of my favorite books to help with kids of trauma.  The title is scary, but it is very empowering and validating to parents. The first part of the book is an overview of the disturbed child.  The second part of the book gives more practical parenting tools.  To me, the best part is that it lists both conventional and nonconventional techniques and why they do and don’t work with our kids!

I've mentioned it in this post about unconditional love, and reward and point systems, and will most likely be reviewing it again in the future.

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