the opportunity to earn a free copy of the journal’s most recent “Parenting” issue.

To take advantage of our offering, all we ask of you is that you read our one-of-a-kind publication and write a short (450-600 words) review about the issue. We do not require you to be a literary genius or have any writing experience at all. We simply want real opinions from our beloved readers.

If you are interested in submitting a review for

Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing

(October, 2011) please email marketing@recoveringself.com with your full name, present mailing address and a short message indicating that you wish to write a review. We will only be selecting a limited number of submissions, so get yours in quickly!

I often get asked, when I am out and about, if my girls have the day off of school. As I reply with a “no, they are homeschooled”, we usually get that look of “oh you’re one of those families”. There is a stigma that follows homeschooling.  A lack of knowledge leads people to instantly label your family. What they don’t know is that homeschooling your children is a family choice and has many benefits.

I have never been one to follow the norms of society. I have always believed that we are given this life and with it come choices to create exactly what you want. I think this plays an important part when raising your children. It is important to instill a sense of freedom, allowing your children to be true to who they are. Homeschooling creates this environment.

My experience with public schools is that they create a robotic type of system—setting one set of standards and expectations for all students. It is imperative that children follow the line and if you are to step out of that line, hold on, cause it’s going to be a rocky ride. As your child enters the public school system, the programming starts immediately to conform the child to the societal standards. It becomes critical to become the best, and be the best at everything. The pressure of grades is applied; the pressure of fitting in and the pressure to be number one, all become priority. These behaviors feed the ego, creating an illusion that this is what’s important in life. Life becomes more about what you have and being the best, leaving little room for the real important things of life. Children start to lose their self-esteem as they are labeled wrong and troubled for being different.

As I have homeschooled my own children, I have learned that not all kids learn the same. My oldest daughter learns very quickly, can read anything, and have it memorized. She would be top of the class in public school. If your child is top of the class, you need not worry the school will send home rewards and praise you at each teacher conference. Now on the other hand, my second daughter learns very hands-on; she doesn’t care to read it and write answers, but to reenact and create her lessons. This would most definitely cause problems in public school.

If your child stands out, has a learning disability, or just dances to their own tune, then they are in for it. You can expect letters home, visits to the principal, and all sorts of disciplinary action. What is sad is that most children that are not following the prototype set up by their public school just need the room to breathe and be who they are.

Homeschooling allows this. It allows you to nurture the strengths of your children all the while feeding their passions, creating an empowered, confident child. Strengthening humanity one child at a time!

About the Author

Robin Marvel

Robin Marvel is a multi-published author and nationwide motivational speaker in the field of self-development. She has taken the negative situations she was dealt throughout her life and turned them into motivation and purpose, getting audiences on their feet participating in the empowerment of their lives. You can find her online at www.robinmarvel.com.

The road to self-improvement never comes to an end, but traveling it can get mighty rough. And it can be an especially difficult path for parents who decide to return to school while raising children—making time to study and to give your children the attention they need is sometimes impossible, especially if you’re also working for a living.

Finding balance between the various areas of your life is vital if you’re attending school and raising a family. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, but there are ways to make your daily routine a little less hectic and a little more joyful.

Take care of yourself

This should be near the top of your list, no matter how hectic your life is—and it’s the one thing that most parents forget. Raising a family while attending school is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do, and it’s one of the hardest. So, carve a few minutes out of every day to do something just for you: go to a quiet room and meditate, take a leisurely walk, or read a chapter of a good book. What’s important is that you give yourself a time to relax. The time you spend pampering yourself can be the calm in the storm that helps you recharge and face another long and busy day.

Be flexible

Juggling school, work and kids requires serious time management skills, but there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all. And trying to fit everything into one day can lead to frustration and, sometimes, feeling like a failure. It’s okay if you take a day off to study for an exam or if you take a weekend day trip with your children instead of studying. Giving yourself some slack every now and then can help you become more discipline, and even if your schedule is insane, making yourself and your children happy is your highest priority.

On the days when you have to manage a busy schedule, do what you can to be adaptable: ask for a flextime schedule at work, so that you can attend classes during the workday and still be home in time to help your kids with their homework. Or consider enrolling in an  online degree  program so you can study from anywhere and work at your own pace. Finally, you can fit studying into quality time with your children: you and your kids can talk about the assignments you’re working on, and you can both learn from each other as you study together.

Celebrate your victories

For parents returning to school, getting through classes can seem like a long slog. So, concentrate on your small successes in school, as well as the successes of your children. Praise your kids when they bring home an A on a test or an assignment, and encourage them when they show interest in extracurricular activities. And maintaining a positive attitude will rub off on your kids: the more you encourage them, the more they’ll encourage and praise you as you progress in your degree program.

Returning to school while raising a family is bound to be overwhelming at times, but learning your strengths and weaknesses can help you overcome every obstacle you face throughout your education. Be kind to yourself and your family, recognize your successes, and remember that your work will pay off in more ways than you can imagine.

About the Author

Harper Mac

Harper Mac loves to write about education. Making time to study and play with her children can be difficult to balance. She feels as if finding the balance is very important to personal health. She loves to learn more about eco-friendly living in her spare time.

AD/HD SUCCESS! Solutions for Boosting Self-Esteem: The Diary Method for Ages 7-17

Are you willing to spend 10 minutes a night working with your son or daughter on goals and strategies for dealing with AD/HD?  If so, you are eligible for a free copy of AD/HD SUCCESS! Solutions for Boosting Self-Esteem by Karen Bellak-Adams (a $23 value!).

For a limited time we are offering complimentary review copies of AD/HD SUCCESS! Solutions for Boosting Self-Esteem  in order to get feedback from families who try our workbook for 30 days and complete a very brief questionnaire after that.

Here’s how it works:

• Visit this page and click on the button to order your review copy of AD/HD Success!
• Spend just 10 minutes per day working with your child on the Workbook for 30 days in a row
• After 30 days, we’ll ask you to answer 5 short questions which won’t take you more than 10 minutes
• If we receive answers to the questions, you won’t be charged for your copy of AD/HD Success Workbook

Hope this finds you all well and thriving.

After our July issue (Vol. 3, No 3) themed “Disease-Addiction”, we are now open to submissions for our October issue which focuses on “parenting”. Some of you have already sent in great entries on various aspects of parenting. We look for forward to receiving more gems from you as we know that parenting is a vast topic closely aligned with “child development” and “spirit of the family”. Whether it’s physical training, good nutrition, care and support for the ill, confidence building, or spiritual enrichment, parents and/or guardians have the key role to play in securing the life and future of a child. Even in grown-up life, children and parents retain a unique relationship. Whether as a child or parent, or both, we have valuable information and inspiring stories to share. So let your stories, views, and memories come alive through RTS.

We are looking for both poetry and prose (more prose) including interviews for various sections. Submissions will remain open through August 2011. Please write now to editor@recoveringself.com to submit your parenting article or idea for one.

In healing word and spirit,

Ernest Dempsey
Editor
Recovering the Self

Helping kids deploy for a parent’s departure is a tough and sometimes heartbreaking process, but it has to be done every day by many military families. When done right, kids can feel more secure before and during the deployment of mom or dad, and they can adjust more easily during the deployment.

There’s no easy way to prepare kids for a parent’s deployment, but there are some things that can make the process easier. Here are some tips to help kids get ready for a parent’s deployment:

• Talk about it early and often, but not so often that it becomes the only topic of family conversation. As soon as you know about when deployment will start, talk with your children, especially if deployment will mean major changes to their routine. Talk about it often enough that they know it’s okay to bring it up if they have concerns or fears as the time draws nearer.
• Be honest, but not too honest. The weeks leading up to deployment are emotional and scary for parents, as well as for children. It’s okay to let your children know a little about what you’re feeling, too, but you do need a good balance here. Above all, make sure children can’t sense nervousness that you’re trying to hide, since this can just make the problem work.
• Speak in their language. Talk to each of your children in an age-appropriate way about what will happen when mom or dad leaves. Older children are big enough to understand some of the real truth, but for the younger ones, just telling them mommy or daddy has to leave to help other people can be enough.
• Spend extra time together as deployment gets closer, but don’t disrupt the routine too much. Eat lunch at school with your kids, and go to all their soccer games. Help them make a photo collage of you for their bedroom, and one of them for you to take along with you. Special activities and time together can be touchstone memories while you’re gone.
• Alert support people in their lives about your upcoming absence. Teachers, coaches, and friends’ parents should all know about your upcoming deployment, since these people can often notice something wrong when your child feels down. Plus, they can help keep the routine the same when you’re gone, which is helpful for most children.
• Talk about the new routine, and try to help them settle into it before you leave. If a relative is coming to stay with you, your children are switching schools, or kids are going to live with their grandparents while you’re deployed, try to make the changes happen a while before you leave. That way, you can be there to help kids settle into their new routine, and they’ll feel more comfortable with it when you’re gone.
• Give older kids dates. Like counting down until Christmas, older kids will enjoy counting down until you come home. Letting them know the date of your deployment a little ahead of time can help them feel more prepared and at ease with the idea, as well.
• Make sure there’s emergency money for the family in place, so you have less to worry about. If you can’t save up an emergency fund, provide your child’s primary caregiver with a low-interest credit card to be used for emergencies or even basic expenses, like new school clothes.

These tips come from military families who have built their lives around parents who are deployed – sometimes both parents are gone at the same time! Before your deployment, use these strategies to get kids prepared and to help them settle more easily into a new routine when you’re gone.

About the Author

Daniela Baker

Daniela Baker is a social media advocate at CreditDonkey, a cash rewards credit cards comparison website.  She is also a mother of two and the spouse of a veteran.  She hopes this post will help your family cope with deployment.

Chynna Laird

Chynna Laird

One of my Christmas presents last year was the glorious opportunity of “child-free shopping”. I walked through the sliding double doors of a Winners store to start some serious shopping when I heard the anguished cries of a young child.

For some reason, I felt compelled to find the source of the cries. I walked over to the girls’ clothing section to find a young woman crouched over her daughter, who rolled back and forth on the floor—her eyes screwed shut and her hands clamped over her ears. Her mother whispered to the girl: “Chandra, it’s okay. We can go. You just need to calm down a bit so that Mommy can help you up.”

The mother’s eyes welled with tears as she tried talking her daughter down from her tantrum. People walked by them—some with smiles, some laughing with empathy, others simply clicking their tongues in annoyance as if Chandra’s screams somehow interrupted their search for the ultimum after-Christmas sale. Not one person stopped to ask if things were okay or if the mother needed help and it was an eye-opening scene for me.

What that young woman went through was so familiar to me. My daughter Jaimie and my son, Xander, both live with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Shopping with them has always been a challenge. We never knew, when entering a store with them, what sensory stimulations lurk in the shadows, waiting to set each of them off: a flickering light, a new smell, announcements made over the intercom, someone bumping into them accidentally… anything and everything can be a potential sensory trigger. We rarely got our shopping finished without one of them breaking down into an inconsolable fit we couldn’t calm them down from, abruptly ending our trip. And it could be quite a show for passers-by.

I remember how my face flushed as people smiled, laughed, or gave that head tilt that said, “Oh you poor thing!” I even had one lady say that all Jaimie needed was a “good spanking”. I was never embarrassed by Jaimie’s behavior, once we figured out what was wrong. And I never cared what people thought because, honestly, how could they know? How could an outside person truly understand what was happening unless they took the time to ask or, at the very least, listened as I spoke to Jaimie or Xander?

I never yelled at Jaimie or threatened her to be quiet. I never said the infamous phrase “Just you wait until I get you home, young lady!” I tried, desperately, like the young woman at Winners, to calm my child enough—to bring her focus back—so I could help her leave the “scary” place to get back to the “safer”, more familiar place. Watchers of Jaimie or Xander’s fits didn’t know it may have been their voices that set them off. Or, maybe, the house smells on their clothes Xander couldn’t deal with. Or that one flickering light off in the corner—undetectable to the untrained eye—that Jaimie wasn’t able to ignore.

With this experience under my belt, I approached the young woman—from a safe distance—and offered my help.

“No,” She said sternly. “No offense but your ‘help’ will only make things worse. Chandra can’t deal with strangers. She barely tolerates me some days. She has Autism.”

“My daughter has SPD,” I said. “I’ve had to deal with my fair share of sensory-related fits during a shopping trip.”

We talked for several minutes. I recalled how helpful it was for me having someone to talk to—a friendly voice—that calmed me down while I waited for Jaimie or Xander. It meant so much when someone cared enough to ask. I wanted to give that back to Chandra’s mother. It seemed to help a bit.

Chandra finally calmed down enough to be helped up so they could leave. Before they walked out the door, her mother touched my arm and said, “You know, it’s rare to have someone approach us the way you did and offer their help instead of treating us like we’re some free admission freak show. We appreciate it. Good luck with your kids.”

As I watched them walk out the automatic doors, two women—who’d watched from another section of the store—walked past me. One said to the other, “Man, if that had been my kid, I’d have taken her outside and tanned her hide until she stopped.”

Not Just Spirited: A Mom's Sensational Journey with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

I smiled. Most people aren’t intentionally rude; they’re simply ignorant to what it’s like having a special-needs child, especially one with sensory sensitivities. It wasn’t too long ago where I’d have thought the same things when I came across someone who struggled with their child in a store. Until I had Jaimie eight years ago, I had no clue.

There are many disorders, like Jaimie and Xander’s or Chandra’s, that aren’t obvious from the outside. What they struggle with isn’t obvious on their faces or somewhere else on their little bodies. Their disorders are buried deep within them—“invisible”—only giving a hint of their presence through the child’s overt behaviour or reactions.

It’s easy to judge a child as “naughty” or “spoiled” because they’re having a fit in a public place, but it’s not always the case. Jaimie is an average eight-year-old in a lot of respects and will still try to exert her independence or test boundaries. But I’d say about 95% of her fits are the result of her anxiety over sensory stimulation (or lack of it) or not understanding how her body is supposed to be doing something, not because we’ve said “No” to her.

Parents of special-needs children don’t want sympathy; they want understanding for their children. So the next time you see a parent struggling with their child, try looking at the situation from an omniscient standpoint. You don’t have to go up and talk to them the way I did at Winners. Simply try seeing what’s beneath the surface. That’s where understanding stems from and that’s all we want for our children.

Knowledge breeds understanding and that’s so powerful.

You can read more from Chynna Laird at her website

Andrew Gibson

Let’s say that you have an out-of-control ten year old kid named Spike. How he got there isn’t clear. But out of control is out of control: that’s more than clear.  There is nothing you can do in the name or reward or punishment that makes a dent in his behavior . Heaven knows you have tried.  (see http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200109/why-our-kids-are-out-control.

Some people think that out of control just means you forgot to take Spike’s cell phone away when he got fresh; they think he’ll snap out of it when you do. They are wrong. If you take away his cell phone, he’ll attack you.  He uses implied (and not so implied) threats and has backed you into a corner. He also lies, cheats, steals and swears; and that is just before breakfast.

So not only is Spike out of control, he also owns you and the household you live in. He is in charge. You can get just as angry as you like but he is still in charge.

Think this scenario is unusual? It isn’t. It is very common. And you, the tax payer,  end up paying for it because you foot the bill when Spike is sent to a residential school.  The cost is about $75,000 per year per kid. Parents of Spike-like kids often contemplate having their child live somewhere else; maybe a residential school; maybe brother Fred’s. Just someplace else.

But guess what? The placements almost always fail.  Spike just learns to shut up so he can be discharged. Or he becomes as outrageous at brother Fred’s place as it was a yours and is thrown out. Regardless, when he returns home, he often starts up all over again.

If parents weren’t so desperate they wouldn’t think that the State  (or brother Fred) could be a better parent than they are. But since they feel like complete failures as parents, they don’t think clearly. They need to learn how to distance themselves from their kid.

Got An Angry Kid? Parenting Spike: A Seriously Difficult Child

The problem is these parents have been trying to put boundaries around their Spike. It doesn’t work. They need to put them around themselves. It is much more effective.  If they will, they actually can have a family again.

A good place for them to begin is to examine all the things they do for Spike which aren’t absolutely necessary. Then they should stop doing them. Parents are only obliged to provide the basics. When Spike decides to be decent, they can add the special things back in. Anything above basic he needs to earn by being respectful.  (see http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/storyid=2699753&page=1

This STOP plan is not a deal; they say nothing to Spike. They simply begin quietly to take back the control that they lost in a formerly futile effort to corral Spike.

Need more help?  Don’t know where to  start?   If you don’t have one already, get a copy of “Got An Angry Kid?”  Read it carefully. Follow it diligently. It is very parent-friendly.

Join “Spike’s Club” Get access to  lots of  supportive information on the Spike in your life. Communicate with parents  like you. Read exclusive articles. Participate in webinars.  Listen to interviews.

If following the program in the book by yourself is too hard, enroll in the  self-instruction version of PACT on-line. It will make the process easier. Your progress will be computed automatically for you. Directions are-step by-step.

by Andrew D. Gibson, Ph. D.

Susie Dunham

Visit the author’s website

• Schizophrenia and causes
• Early warning symptoms
• Personal resolutions as a mom/parent
• Drugs, treatment, and resources available
• Myths and confusion surrounding schizophrenia

Susan Frances Dunham, born in Cleveland, the first of two “later in life,” spent her pre-school years living in an apartment above her father’s furniture store . Eventually, her father was hired as a manufacturer’s rep in the furniture industry and her family moved to Port Clinton, Ohio, a small town on the shores of Lake Erie. Susie graduated from Port Clinton High School in 1972, and later graduated from Sandusky School of Practical Nursing in 1976. She worked as a nurse for three years in a hospital environment, five years in a nursing home setting and two years as a private duty nurse. In 1982, she married Markus a math teacher, and in 1984, their only child Michael was born. Susie now works as a manufacturer’s rep in the furniture industry, following in the footsteps of her family.

Beyond Schizophrenia: Michael’s Journey

Susan Frances Dunham
Modern History Press (2011)
ISBN 9781615990351
Reviewed by Carol Hoyer, PhD, for Reader Views (12/10)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com