Understanding Your Child’s Puzzling Behavior

Kids with sensory processing disorder SPD may seem unduly sensitive to physical sensations, light, and sound, and they may react strongly to sensory events that adult and other children take in stride or totally ignore. SPD can make it hard for kids to do well in school, participate in social events, and live peaceably with other family members. Until now there have been only limited resources for parents of kids with this condition, but in this book a child advocate and child psychologist offer this comprehensive guide to parenting a child with SPD and integrating his or her care with the needs of the whole family.

The book introduces SPD and offers an overview of what it means to advocate for a child with the condition. It describes a range of activities that help strengthen family relationships, improve communication about the disorder, and deal with problem situations and conditions a child with SPD may encounter. Throughout, the book stresses the importance of whole-family involvement in the care of a child with SPD, especially the roles fathers play in care-giving. Many of the book’s ideas are illustrated with case stories that demonstrate how the book’s ideas can play out in daily life.

This book is about helping youngsters with learning disabilities hold onto their dreams. It is also about helping their mothers and fathers negotiate the maze of challenges that so often leaves parents and students alike feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Writing with warmth and compassion Corinne Smith and Lisa Strick explain the causes, identification, and treatment of learning disabilities and present a wealth of practical strategies for helping youngsters become successful both in and out of the classroom.

Phoebe Flower’s is having some friendship troubles. Plus, her impulsivity and distractibility have landed her in trouble at school again. Her parents and the school principal decide that Phoebe needs a little help to get back on track. At first, Phoebe is worried when she hears her parents talking about something called ADD. But then her mother confides to Phoebe that she had similar problems as a girl. With Mom’s encouragement, Phoebe struggles with a writing assignment. Completing it at last, Phoebe is proud of her accomplishment, and excited that, through her writing; she’s discovered the true meaning of best friend.

It’s September, which means it’s time for school to start! The alarm rings, but Sarah Jane Hartwell just burrows deeper into her covers, announcing that shes not going, wailing “I dont know anybody, and it will be hard, and … I just hate it, thats all.” Finally, Mr. Hartwell firmly orders her down to breakfast, puts her in the car and drops her off to join the children flooding through the school doors. But is Sarah who you expect her to be?

Best Friends, Worst Enemies brings to life the drama of childhood relationships, guiding parents to a deeper understanding of the motives and meanings of social behavior. Here you will find penetrating discussions of the difference between friendship and popularity, how boys and girls deal in unique ways with intimacy and commitment, whether all kids need a best friend, why cliques form and what you can do about them.

How and when does a child begin to make sense of the world? Why does a lively preschool child so often become a semiliterate and defeated school failure?

Developmental psychologist Margaret Donaldson shows that much of the intellectual framework on which we base our teaching is misleading. We both underestimate the astonishing rational powers of young children and ignore the major stumbling block that children face when starting school.

Given a setting and a language that makes sense to them in human terms, very young children can perform tasks often thought to be beyond them. The preschool child learns everything in a human situation. Only in school is he asked to acquire skills―reading, writing, arithmetic―isolated from a real-life context. This transition is difficult.

The author suggests a range of strategies that parents and schools can adopt to help children. She argues that reading is even more important than we have thought it to be, since learning to read can actually speed children through the crucial transition.