Parenting books and resources

Different Dads

Fathers' Stories of Parenting Disabled Children

Edited by Jill Harrison, Matthew Henderson and Rob Leonard

'It is a great idea to draw together stories of fathers' experiences in bringing up disabled children. One of the ways parents manage to cope is to know that others have been through the same experiences. Then you learn that it isn't just about coping - there are positive stories to tell.'

Big Steps for Little People

Parenting Your Adopted Child

Celia Foster

'…all those involved in the adoption of children, old hands and new, will be stimulated and encouraged by this infectious read.'
- from the Foreword by David Howe, Dean of the School of Social Work and Psychosocial Sciences, University of East Anglia

Can't Play Won't Play

Simply Sizzling Ideas to get the Ball Rolling for Children with Dyspraxia

Sharon Drew and Elizabeth Atter

Learning to roller skate or ride a bike should be an enjoyable experience, but for a child with developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD, also known as dyspraxia), these activities can lead to frustration and failure. Can't Play Won't Play is full of practical information, tips and hints to enable children with DCD to access and enjoy activities that other children take for granted.

Caring for Myself

A Social Skills Storybook

Christy Gast and Jane Krug
Photographs by Kotoe Laackman

"This is a resource for young children that is certain to stand the practical tests of time and application! Simple and complete, parents and professionals will find themselves reaching for it time and again."

Children and Spirituality

Searching for Meaning and Connectedness

Brendan Hyde

Brendan Hyde identifies four characteristics of children's spirituality: the felt sense, integrating awareness, weaving the threads of meaning, and spiritual questing . These characteristics can be observed in children if those who work with them know what to look for and are alert to the time, place and space in which children find themselves.

Children with Complex and Continuing Health Needs

The Experiences of Children, Families and Care Staff

Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor

'This book draws on the experiences of a number of families to provide a valuable and deeply moving insight into what it means to raise a child with complex needs. It highlights both the joys and the challenges that families face. In doing so it raises important issues about how services in the UK are currently responding to children with complex needs and their families as well as pervasive disablist attitudes within society. This book will provide students and practitioners from a range of disciplines with a valuable window into families' lives and challenge them to reflect on how they are supporting them.'

The Colors of Grief

Understanding a Child's Journey through Loss from Birth to Adulthood

Janis A. Di Ciacco PhD

Following a life shattering experience, a child enters upon a confusing emotional journey that can be likened to a prism of many colors of dark feelings like sadness and fear, but also warm feelings of love and courage. The way they deal with these feelings has a lasting impact on their life as they grow.

Create a Reward Plan for Your Child with Asperger Syndrome

John Smith, Jane Donlan and Bob Smith

Reward plans encourage positive behaviour using the incentive of earning rewards. This book provides a thorough nuts-and-bolts guide to creating a reward plan for your child with Asperger Syndrome (AS) to help him or her develop positive behaviours, such as social and communication skills.

Extreme Parenting

Parenting Your Child with a Chronic Illness

Sharon Dempsey

'[A] valuable addition to the literature on chronic paediatric illness... The book provides an in depth understanding of the path through chronic illness, illustrating the obvious effects on the child, but also the parents, siblings and the family as a whole across the spectrum from the psychological and social to the physical... There is much to be learnt from this book and it deserves careful reading.'
- from the Foreword by Hilton Davis, Emeritus Professor of Child Health Psychology, King's College London

Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Adoption

What Children Need to Know

Fanny Cohen Herlem

Why was I abandoned?
Why did my parents adopt me?
What if I want to meet my biological parents?
Children who find out they are adopted have many questions that are difficult for a parent to answer. This book explores children's thoughts and feelings and provides parents with guidance on how to respond to difficult questions.

Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Divorce

What Children Need to Know

Fanny Cohen Herlem

Is it my fault that my parents are getting divorced?
Do I have to choose between my mum and my dad?
Is it normal to feel angry with my parents?
When faced with their parents' divorce, children have many concerns and questions that are difficult for a parent to answer. This book explores children's thoughts and feelings and provides parents with guidance on how to respond to difficult questions.

Grief in Children

A Handbook for Adults
2nd edition

Atle Dyregrov

Praise for the first edition:
'This is a very user-friendly book. It is presented in a way which enables the reader to browse or go direct to a certain section, but at the same time is engaging enough to sustain one's interest to read the whole book.'

Grief in Young Children

A Handbook for Adults

Atle Dyregrov

'This insightful text will be of great help to all who care for pre-school children - parents, kindergarten teachers, ministers of religion, police, welfare workers - the list is endless. If they learn the values reflected in this small book, then bereaved children everywhere will grow up with far fewer hang-ups about the only certainty in life.'
- from the foreword by Professor William Yule

Help your Child or Teen Get Back On Track

What Parents and Professionals Can Do for Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems

Kenneth H. Talan, M.D.

Ken Book Award Winner 2008
Gold Medal Winner in the 2008 IPPY awards
Help Your Child or Teen get Back on Track offers specific self-help interventions and a wide-ranging, practical discussion of the types of professional help available for a child or adolescent with emotional and behavioral problems.

Kids Need...

Parenting Cards for Families and the People who Work With Them

Mark Hamer

What is the difference between children's 'needs' and 'wants'? How should parents respond to the demands of their children? Do all children need the same things?
Kids Need… cards present a creative approach to exploring children's needs and parents' knowledge. Each card features a child's 'need', for example 'a room of their own', 'pocket money', 'to make mistakes' or 'to be criticized', and participants are invited to place cards under one of the three header cards: 'Kids Need', 'Kids Sometimes Need' and 'Kids Don't Need'. The cards are designed to be flexible and adaptable, and can be used to encourage general discussions, as therapeutic tool, or as an aid to the assessment of parenting skills.

Overcoming Loss

Activities and Stories to Help Transform Children's Grief and Loss

Julia Sorensen
Illustrated by Maryam Ahmad

Overcoming Loss is a photocopiable resource that addresses childrens' feeling of loss, which can arise from changing communities, schools, moving house, divorce or the death of a parent or grandparent. Children are limited to a vocabulary of broad emotions like 'happy', 'sad' and 'angry', and are often unable to articulate their grief in words. This can impair their long-term emotional development.

Parental Learning Disability and Children's Needs

Family Experiences and Effective Practice

Hedy Cleaver and Don Nicholson

Parents with a learning disability face a high risk of losing their children, and current support for them is inadequate. This book, based on original research, looks into current social care practice and the support systems available to parents with learning disabilities, evaluating their effectiveness and examining their impact on the families affected.

Small Steps Forward

Using Games and Activities to Help Your Pre-School Child with Special Needs
2nd edition

Sarah Newman
Illustrated by Jeanie Mellersh

Praise for the First Edition:
'… A warm feeling of positive reassurance and guidance runs throughout the book. [It] offers practical and emotional help, not only to a child's family, but equally to health and educational workers starting out within this field. This book should have a prominent place in every toy and leisure library as well as within childcare agencies.'
- Play Matters

The Spiritual Dimension of Childhood

Kate Adams, Brendan Hyde and Richard Woolley

This book takes an in-depth look at spirituality and its continual expression in children, to support those working with children in developing their own perceptions and interaction with them.
The authors outline exactly what is understood by contemporary spirituality, and discuss the importance of context in a consideration of spirituality. They explore key issues in understanding children's spirituality under three broad headings: children's voices - how they are often lost in the context of spirituality and what the implications of that loss are; children's worlds - how children draw on the spiritual as a means of addressing notions of meaning and value in life; and children's lives - how context shapes the spiritual dimension.

Understanding 10-11-Year-Olds

Rebecca Bergese

Understanding 10-11-Year-Olds introduces the challenges that face children as they start to make their transition from childhood into adolescence.
Children at this age begin to express independence and confidence in their capability that may extend beyond their direct experience. Adults caring for their well-being need to monitor the new dimensions in the child's life, such as competitiveness and its impact on relationships at school and at home. Rebecca Bergese guides the reader through the broad range of emotional and social challenges experienced by children as they are encouraged to take on greater responsibility.

Understanding 8-9-Year-Olds

Biddy Youell

Understanding 8-9-Year-Olds describes how children grow and change as they move further away from reliance on home and family, out into the world of school and community.
Children of this age develop preferences as well as opinions based on their experience of new relationships and activities. For many children, it is a period of relative calm as they develop through new skills while accumulating knowledge. Biddy Youell looks at the ways in which eight and nine year olds experience their world and highlights some of the difficulties that may hinder their emotional, social or educational development.

Understanding Applied Behavior Analysis

An Introduction to ABA for Parents, Teachers, and other Professionals

Albert J. Kearney

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is based on the premise that behavior can be influenced by changes in environment and by the reinforcing consequences of that behavior. This introductory guide to ABA demystifies the basic terminology, the underlying principles, and commonly-used procedures of ABA using accessible, everyday language.

Understanding Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

A Common-Sense Guide for Parents and Professionals Common-Sense Approaches to Understanding and Management

Maggie Mamen

This easy-to-read guide offers a complete overview of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities (NLDs) and the wide variety of symptoms that different types of NLD present.
Maggie Mamen enables readers to select the most relevant strategies for coping with and managing their particular symptoms. She provides a wealth of practical advice on key skills such as developing written and verbal communication, understanding social clues, managing behaviour, self-regulation and improving organization. She also covers relevant teaching methods for the classroom.

All Dogs Have ADHD

Kathy Hoopmann

All Dogs Have ADHD takes an inspiring and affectionate look at Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), using images and ideas from the canine world to explore a variety of traits that will be instantly recognisable to those who are familiar with ADHD.

Alphabet Kids - From ADD to Zellweger Syndrome

A Guide to Developmental, Neurobiological and Psychological Disorders for Parents and Professionals

Robbie Woliver

From ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) to ZS (Zellweger Syndrome)-there seems to be an alphabet disorder for almost every behavior, from those caused by serious, rare genetic diseases to more common learning disabilities that hinder children's academic and social progress.

Challenging the Gifted Child

An Open Approach to Working with Advanced Young Readers

Margaret Stevens

Gifted children are quick on the uptake, can be frustrated by repetition and easily become impatient when unchallenged. Challenging the Gifted Child outlines a tried and tested approach for encouraging able children to focus their active minds in a productive way and discover the joy and value...

Dietary Interventions in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Why They Work When They Do, Why They Don't When They Don't

Kenneth J. Aitken

Following the increasing amount of scientific research relating to autism, various dietary approaches are being advocated to help those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This book provides an introduction to the clinical conditions that can cause autistic behaviour and what can be done to...

Girls Growing Up on the Autism Spectrum

What Parents and Professionals Should Know About the Pre-Teen and Teenage Years

Shana Nichols
With Gina Marie Moravcik and Samara Pulver Tetenbaum

Growing up isn't easy, and the trials and tribulations of being a teenager can be particularly confusing for girls with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This book covers all the concerns commonly faced by girls with ASDs and their parents, from periods and puberty to worries over friendships...

Hints and Tips for Helping Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Useful Strategies for Home, School, and the Community

Dion E. Betts and Nancy J. Patrick

If you have a child on the autism spectrum who struggles with the challenges of daily life, then this book is for you! Hints and Tips… is peppered with vignettes and stories of real-life situations and successes, and offers clever ideas for tackling everyday difficulties, such as...

What You Need to Know About Cannabis

Understanding the Facts

David Emmett and Graeme Nice

Does cannabis really trigger schizophrenia? Is it true that cannabis is a non-addictive drug? What's the difference between hash and skunk?
According to the UN's estimate, 160 million people around the world use cannabis; that's roughly 2.5 per cent of the world population. Despite these...