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 August 2009. Read the quote, then follow the link for questions and response suggestions.
< July 2009 | September 2009 >
Monday, August 3: Quirks
Read: "Your job as a parent is to help your child grow and develop and learn and thrive, and to do that job properly, you have to understand your child as an individual, quirks and all." -- Perri Klass, MD, and Eileen Costello, MD, Quirky KidsTuesday, August 4: Humor
Cover image courtesy of Hyperion
Read: "Trust me, you siblings or parents: nothing is going to be all right. Sorry. But along the way, we've discovered things to be funny and healing and loving anyway, so that's all right." -- Terrell Harris Dougan, That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister, this week's featured book
Wednesday, August 5: Future Planning
Cover image courtesy of Terrell Harris Dougan
Read: "Parents of disabled children tackle little problems every hour -- problems other parents just don't have in their lives. But the biggie, the nagging worry that looms foremost in their subconscious, is, of course, how will my child cope when I'm gone?" -- Terrell Harris Dougan, That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister, this week's featured book.
Thursday, August 6: Codependency
Cover image courtesy of Terrell Harris Dougan
Read: "Codependency means you're hooked on having someone depend on you. In other words, you need desperately to be needed. You hover around people, hoping to be helpful. In other words, you are pathetic." -- Terrell Harris Dougan, That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister, this week's featured book.
Friday, August 7: A Great Day
Cover image courtesy of Terrell Harris Dougan
Read: "We who have this in our family tend to be joyous about odd things. We're so happy that for the whole weekend we didn't get one phone call from a staff member who was quitting, or that a whole week has gone by and the horrid behavior hasn't cropped up. We know any day the wheels are going to come off again, but today is a great day!" -- Terrell Harris Dougan, That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister, this week's featured book.
Monday, August 10: Emotion
Read: "Good parenting requires more than intellect. It touches a dimension of the personality that's been ignored in much of the advice dispensed to parents over the past thirty years. Good parenting involves emotion." -- John Gottman, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent ChildTuesday, August 11: Anger
Read: "Anger is OK. Parents too feel angry. Every time we express our own anger positively we give our children a lesson in anger management. As parents, we can help our children by learning to understand our own feelings better." -- Éliane Whitehouse and Warwick Pudney, A Volcano in My Tummy: Helping Children to Handle AngerWednesday, August 12: Expertise
Read: "Recently I asked a small group of mothers, 'What makes a mother priceless?' One woman responded, 'Nobody but a mom can tell when her child is about to throw up!" -- Karol Ladd, The Power of a Positive MomThursday, August 13: Help
Cover image courtesy of Annie Lubliner Lehmann
Read: "I hated asking for help and never wanted to play the autism card to bypass protocol. But as Jonah got bigger and harder to manage, it became more of a necessity than an option. I wasn't looking to exploit his disability, use it as a poor me appeal for help, but I was caught in many situations that were tough to begin with. Was it so out of line to ask people to make exceptions to the rules once in a while?" -- Annie Lubliner Lehmann, The Accidental Teacher
Friday, August 14: Admiration
Cover image courtesy of Annie Lubliner Lehmann
Read: "When I whine or feel cheated, for example, Jonah prompts me to look again. Every day he is tested and frustrated with ample reason to be angry and aggressive. Yet he is a placid, gentle soul who will take the hand of anyone who reaches out to him. Seeing what he deals with each day trivializes our complaints and reminds us to keep life's headaches in their proper perspective." -- Annie Lubliner Lehmann, The Accidental Teacher
