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Out of Harm’s Way: A Parent’s Guide to Protecting Young Children from Sexual Abuse

Sandy K. Wurtele’s fact-filled book details who really abuses kids, how those people target and groom kids for abuse, and why we too often ignore molesters. She emphasizes the importance of parents taking the lead in talking to children, listening to what they say and watching for signals of possible predatory behavior. “A must-read,” said several peer reviewers. Complements school curricula for personal safety.

For more information, see the book description.

Where Is My Mommy?

What does a child think when a parent disappears? This gentle story is ideal for sharing with a child who can’t understand why Mom or Dad is gone, and when—if ever—the parent might return. Created by Mary and Mitch Kilgore, a clinical social worker and school social worker/mother and son team, Where Is My Mommy? helps children work through loss and grief. Can be used by therapeutic child care programs, school and preschool counselors and social workers, in support groups and individual counseling, and by family members, guardians and foster parents. Especially helpful in situations without closure such as abandonment.

For more information, see the book description.

Something Is Wrong at My House

If you work with children, you know how they suffer when things go wrong at home. If you work with the social service agencies, nonprofits or educational institutions that serve abused women, you know it’s almost impossible to conceal abuse from their children. Written by someone who is passionate about how domestic violence can damage children, Something Is Wrong at My House (revised edition) takes a complex and frightening problem and explains it in terms appropriate for the young.

Formatted so that the same book can be used with toddlers through school-age children, Something Is Wrong at My House provides simple text under illustrations on each of the two-page spreads, with more detailed text on the facing page.

First published in 1984, the English edition of Something Is Wrong at My House has now been revised and expanded by the original author, Diane Davis. Updated illustrations have been created by Keith Neely. The original edition is still available in Spanish.

For more information, see the book description.

Mommy! I Have to Go Potty!

Is your child ready for toilet training? Are you trying, but not succeeding?

Pick up Helen F. Neville’s revision of Mommy! I Have to Go Potty!.

This classic, praised since 1996 for its realistic and step-by-step approach, has been updated and expanded. It now offers a chapter on training the child with special needs, another chapter on working with child care providers, and valuable information on how a child’s temperament affects the pace of training. You’ll also find a chapter on early training, common in some other cultures and now being tried in the U.S.

For more information, see the book description.

Así me siento yo

Bilingual and migrant students’ programs are among those ordering Así me siento yo, the Spanish edition of Janan Cain’s beloved bestseller, The Way I Feel.

Ideal in language classes for teaching the words for emotions, Así me siento yo was translated by Yanitzia Canetti, who has created the Spanish editions of such children’s favorites as Berenstain Bear and Curious George books. It is appropriate for pediatric and mental health clinics, special needs programs, shelters and other facilities where children need to be able to express how they feel.

Approved by the California Department of Education for classroom use, Así me siento yo can be ordered with a teacher’s guide.

For more information, see the book description.

Why Don't You Understand?

You wonder whether anyone will ever understand you? And what it takes for you to understand others?

Then you’ll want to read Susie Leonard Weller’s new book.

Whether you get along with partners, children, and colleagues may depend on how your brain—and theirs—process information. And there’s more to it than “left brain” and “right brain.” In Why Don’t You Understand? Improve Family Communication with the 4 Thinking Styles, Weller explains how our thinking styles affect all of our interactions. Understanding how our brains work can make us better lovers, spouses, parents, friends and professionals.

As Michael Gurian, author of Nurture the Nature and Boys and Girls Learn Differently, said after reviewing Weller’s manuscript:

“This explanation of the four thinking styles is an important new tool in helping us understand each other. In everyday language, Weller shows how we can use the results of recent research to improve relationships between partners, between parents and children, and between siblings.”

For more information, see the book description.

Internet Safety and Your Family

If you worry about Internet safety, what do you think of first? Your kids? Then you’re just like most of us: concerned about what kids are seeing online, whether they’re being bullied, whether they’re being preyed upon.

Today, when almost every teenager and many younger children have 24/7 access to the online world, we need to think about much, much more than pornography filters and sleazy chat groups. Perhaps as important, what risks are we adults vulnerable to? With seemingly everything online today—and possibly archived forever—we need to understand what happens when we post a photo to a social networking site or add a comment to a blog. We may be unknowingly creating opportunities for identity theft, stalking and worse for ourselves—and our children.

That’s why Parenting Press has created a concise, easy-to-read overview of the most common Internet issues, including phishing, spoofing, spam, filters, blogs, gaming, social networking, online worlds, electronic bullying, identity theft, addictions and cyber crime. And better yet, it’s available 24/7. You can download Internet Safety and Your Family right now for just $9.95.

For more information, see the book description.

What Angry Kids Need: Parenting Your Angry Child Without Going Mad

Jennifer Anne Brown and Pam Provonsha Hopkins, authors of What Angry Kids Need, actually like angry kids.

“These are energetic, passionate children who understand that feelings need to be expressed, and that’s what they’re trying to do—however misguided they are in the methods they choose,” says Hopkins.

Kids who act out may also be misguided when they describe themselves as angry. Hopkins and Brown emphasize that you may act angry—in fact, you may believe you’re angry—when you’re really feeling rejected, frustrated, lonely, hurt or scared.

“These are emotions that make us feel vulnerable. Rather than admit that we’re feeling rejected, we may get angry,” the authors point out.

Kids often demonstrate anger more quickly than adults because of their limited life experience.

The authors identify four other developmental reasons for children's anger:

• Frustration tolerance. Kids have to learn to recognize cues of psychological distress; until they do, and until they learn to soothe themselves, they’ll have little tolerance for frustration.
• Impulse control. Children have less ability to control their impulses.
• Limited vocabulary. Children who lack the words to define and label their emotions are more likely to express themselves physically.
• Problem-solving. Angry children are often those who have not learned to identify a problem, its cause and possible solutions.

Developmental stages aside, some kids seem to be angrier than others. In What Angry Kids Need, Hopkins and Brown provide several possible explanations. For more information about these and how parents can work with angry kids, the Parenting Press publicity staff will be glad to provide contact information for the authors, who are mental health counselors in private practice in a Seattle suburb.

For more information, see the book description.

Is This a Phase? Child Development & Parent Strategies, Birth to 6 Years

What do new parents do more than anything else? W-O-R-R-Y.

They worry about if a baby is healthy, happy, and developing intellectually, they worry about what behavior is coming next and they worry if they’re making the right choices. In short, they want to know if what they’re seeing is just a phase or something to call the doctor about.

That’s why Helen Fowler Neville wrote Is This a Phase? Child Development & Parent Strategies, Birth to 6 Years. Neville, a veteran Bay Area pediatric nurse and parent educator, has created a reference that belongs in every nursery. Written with concise descriptions and dozens of charts and graphs that will make it quick and easy to use for both fathers and mothers, this reassuring guide explains what to expect at every developmental stage between birth and age 6. Then it walks parents and caregivers through three dozen topics common in the first six years of life: everything from attention span and impulse control to death, divorce, and the red flags that signal reading readiness issues.

For more information, see the book description.

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