Every weekday, Monday through Friday, the About.com Parenting Special Needs site offers an opportunity to read, reflect, and respond to a passage from a book, blog, or article. Here are the entries for July 2009. Read the quote, then follow the link for questions and response suggestions.
< June 2009 | August 2009 >
Wednesday, July 1: Loving Well
Cover image courtesy of Avery
Read: "The guilt and fear parents feel can be overwhelming, but at the end of the day all you can ask yourself is, Have I done everything I can? Have I turned over every stone? Have I loved my child well? That's all you can do." -- Jennifer Kolari, Connected Parenting, this week's featured book
Thursday, July 2: Neutrality
Cover image courtesy of Avery
Read: "Neutrality isn't the same as indifference." -- Jennifer Kolari, Connected Parenting, this week's featured book
Friday, July 3: Positivity
Cover image courtesy of Avery
Read: "Positive rewards as well as negative consequences are part of the fabric of life. If you drive too fast, you get a ticket. If you do a good job, you get a bonus. If you work hard in school, you get better grades. Positive statements and recognition for a job well done are good and reinforcing." -- Jennifer Kolari, Connected Parenting, this week's featured book
Monday, July 6: Meaning
Read: "Readers take the written word and construct meaning based on their own thoughts, knowledge, and experiences. The reader is part writer." -- Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance UnderstandingTuesday, July 7: Seeing
Photo courtesy of New American Library
Read: "The experts say Joe has such multicomplex needs, and they use such multicomplex phrases to define him, it's hard sometimes to know what they see, but it's not what I see." -- Nia Wyn, Blue Sky July, this week's featured book.
Wednesday, July 8: Identity
Photo courtesy of New American Library
Read: "People say it's time to start my life again now Joe's going off to school. They say that my life is different from his, and that it's time to move on. But they don't know how it is for me. My whole world has cerebral palsy, whether I'm with Joe or not." -- Nia Wyn, Blue Sky July, this week's featured book.
Thursday, July 9: Battlefield
Photo courtesy of New American Library
Read: "There are so many places where I make a fuss, because his wants and needs are not considered as important as the rest of us, my heart's become a warrior's shield, and the city like a battlefield." -- Nia Wyn, Blue Sky July, this week's featured book.
Friday, July 10: Changes
Photo courtesy of New American Library
Read: "I wonder at how much he's changed me, and the ways I'm so much stronger than I ever was before. I wonder if, without the common milestones, we have somehow made a thousand tiny steps, that I appreciate far more." -- Nia Wyn, Blue Sky July, this week's featured book.
Monday, July 13: Stages
Read: "When our kids hit that magical moment of adolescence, most of the parenting rules that helped us for the first decade of their lives become outdated. Everything changes, even as our kids change. We need to adapt, adjust, and grow in the way we relate to our kids if we want to maintain a meaningful, healthy, and strong relationship during this admittedly turbulent time." -- Kevin Leman, Adolescence Isn't TerminalTuesday, July 14: Anxiety
Cover image courtesy of Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Read: "It is understandable that any person with social and communication difficulties would respond with anxiety to a social world that requires such highly developed social capabilities, yet in so many instances the rules are unwritten and ever-changing." -- Nancy J. Patrick, Social Skills for Teenagers and Adults With Asperger Syndrome
