Parenting the Hurt Child : Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow
From Booklist
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…
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This is a very good book for both parents and teachers. It is also useful for adults relating to children who both are and are not “hurt.” This book can be read as a preventive measure, as well as a book to turn to when nothing seems to get through to a child.I tutor at a learning center, and work with children from all types of backgrounds and with all kinds of learning and behavior problems. This book has been very helpful to me. I feel I have successfully applied the techniques and suggestions in Chapter 4, and hopefully have avoided the pitfalls listed in Chapter 3. Chapter 5 has specific activities parents can do to positively affect their interactions with their child. Some activities can be incorporated in a teacher/tutor and child interaction, but they are more for parental interactions. Chapter 6 deals with education and is more for both parents and teachers. At the end of the book the authors present letters told from the viewpoint of both parents and children. If you want to learn about relevant research, Chapter 12, “the Author’s Smorgasbord,” gives brief descriptions of articles about hurt children. Also, the section “Related Readings” presents a reference list of useful articles. All of the researchers on this list are pioneers in early development and/or very well known for the quality of their research. What I especially like about this book is that it does not make the parent feel guilty for the current state of their relationship with their child. Those feelings of guilt can hamper the positive growth of the interaction between parent and child. If you are even contemplating this book, or one like it, that says a lot. If you are really in a bind, go straight to Chapter 7 “Surviving When It Feels Like Nothing Works.” Good luck and don’t give up!
I am the “Forever Mommy” of three wonderful children under the age of 9. I actually laughed (ALOT) while reading this book and felt tremendous relief to read that I am not insane! Many adoptive families go through the same intensity that we do. There were many great ideas that worked wonderfully – in fact the counselors, doctors and social workers actually wrote down some of the ideas for future reference for other families.I sent a copy of this book to my mother to give her some insight and education. This is a MUST READ for all family members blessed with an adoptive child!!
Parenting The Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal And Grow by Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio’s found Gregory C. Keck and Regina M. Kupecky (who works with children having attachment disorders at the Center) is a practical, informative, and “parent friendly” guide to how time, patience, and love can help adopted children heal from past trauma. Individual chapters offer true stories of people who have adopted and been adopted, sound psychological advice, and warnings of oft-used parental techniques that invite failure, such as deprivation without limits, grounding (it’s far better to establish that a child needs to get daily permission to stay out late in the first place), and rewards without judicious measurement. Parenting The Hurt Child is a strongly recommended instruction reference for anyone charged with the responsibility of parenting an adopted or foster care child with a traumatic history of emotional neglect or physical abuse.