Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child

Emily’s littler brother has ADD and it’s creating issues for Emily. Her parents are giving all there attention Ben. She loves her little brother, but she’s somebody too!

Author Rondalyn Varney Whitney, a pediatric occupational therapist, is the mother of Zac, a child who suffers from nonverbal learning disorder, or NLD. By definition, NLD is a neurological defect in children who are unable to recognize the nonverbal clues that make up 50 percent of communication. In Bridging the Gap, Whitney seamlessly weaves practical professional advice throughout the account of her passionate involvement with her son. She writes, “I believe that NLD, now thought to be as prevalent as dyslexia, is a difference and not a flaw.” She also warns parents and teachers that kids with NLD are likely to be misdiagnosed as lazy or defiant, so she urges readers to consider both the strengths (high intelligence and advanced verbal skills and memory) and weaknesses (low visual, spatial, and motor skills and deficits in social communication) of these kids.

Twenty talented, successful people with LD tell their own stories in this inspiring book. Some are famous (one received a MacArthur Foundation Award), most are not, but all are positive role models for people with or without LD. B&W photos.

“I’m normal because I am a normal kid — going to school, being happy, getting homework, having a family. I’m not normal because I’m dyslexic…” Thus begins the autobiography of an eleven-year-old boy who describes how he created a board game based on the popular Harry Potter series and entered it into his school’s yearly Invention Convention, where it became an instant hit.

In Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., two of the country’s leading child psychologists, share what they have learned in more than thirty-five years of combined experience working with boys and their families. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting—sad, afraid, angry, and silent. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they’re not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that “cool” equals macho strength and stoicism. Cutting through outdated theories of “mother blame,” “boy biology,” and “testosterone,” the authors shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive—the emotional miseducation of boys.

When Marvin’s name is not on the class roster on the first day of school, he feels like he’s one too many – in fact he doesn’t even have a desk. Plus, Marvin can’t seem to catch on to reading as quickly as the other kids. Perhaps a little help from his teacher and his parents will give Marvin the boost he needs.