Don’t Miss the Bus: Steering Your Child to Success in School

Are you brave enough to be your true self? Ikarus Jackson is, but it isn’t always easy. The people in his neighborhood point at his wings. The kids at school laugh. The teachers call him a distraction. One girl identifies with Ikarus, but she is too shy to speak up for herself, let alone for him. Maybe I should have said something to those mean kids, she thinks, when their taunts send him drifting into the sky. Inspired by Ikarus’s own courage, she sets out in search of him and so begins her own journey of self discovery — leaving both of them transformed. “I wanted to create a book that tells kids never to abandon the things that make them different, to be proud of what makes them unique. Every child has his own beauty, her own talents. Ikarus Jackson can fly through the air; I want kids to find their own set of wings and soar with him.” — Christopher Myers

Currently, only about 50% of American youths live in traditional two-parent, first-marriage families. This fact, combined with often bleak economic and social realities, creates the backdrop of interactions between families, children, and schools are examined in this probing volume. Answering a need for evaluative research in this area of increasing public interest, the contributors build a model for evaluation, focusing on the dynamics of family-school connections. How is school achievement influenced by parent-child interactions and the family environment? How do school, family, community, and peer-group connections affect early adolescents? What is the family’s role in the success of learning-disabled youth or in school truancy? What effect does parental discord and divorce have on a child’s learning?

These questions, as well as proposals for intervention and prevention, create the crux of this book designed to inform and motivate readers to respond to one of our country’s most fundamental social concerns. Vital reading for everyone who wants to better understand child-school-community interaction, this book especially warrants reading by students, researchers, and other professionals in developmental psychology, family studies, psychology, and social work.

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.

It’s parent-teacher conference time and Hank is in a panic! He[’s terrified that his teacher is going to tell his parents that he’ll have to repeat the fourth grade. If only Hank could get his parents out of town. Wait! Hank just might have a plan�

This book uses the Building Blocks model. The Building Blocks model is practical, supported by research, and easy to implement. It identifies ten areas important to school success (the building blocks), divided into three levels:

1. the foundational level includes attention and impulse control, emotion and behavior, self-esteem, and learning environment blocks
2. the symbolic processing and memory level contains the visual, auditory, and motor skills blocks
3. the conceptual level comprises using strategies and thinking with language and images

Designed like a Web site, this book provides straight talk on high school drugs, sex, friends, driving, parents, college and much, much more. It can help make your High School years a time that you can feel good about, instead of one long struggle. Help4ADD@HighSchool includes tips on how to study smarter, not harder; information about your rights in school, and the ways that your high school can help you succeed; tips on getting along better at home; on dating; sex; getting enough sleep, the importance of exercise; and much more. It’s a survival guide for high school students with ADD!