Child Development Parents

“Toxic Family Survival Guide” is for anyone who wants to give themselves a fighting chance at happiness and peace in their life, no matter what their early years subjected them to.

Your past holds power over your present. Childhood experiences shape your beliefs, actions, and relationships more than you realize. Do you struggle with self-doubt, insecurity, or uncontrollable emotions? These are echoes of unresolved childhood trauma, staining your adult life like unseen residue on a canvas. But there's hope. This book offers a compassionate approach to healing your inner child while equipping you with practical tools for emotional growth.

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol.

Why do some children thrive and others struggle? The answers may surprise you. New research indicates that the seeds for adult success are actually planted in the toddler years. Dr. Tovah Klein's research and firsthand work with thousands of toddlers explains why the toddler brain is best suited to laying the foundation for success. Dr. Klein reveals the new science behind drivers such as resilience, self-reliance, self-regulation, and empathy that are more critical to success than simple intelligence.

When Emma Johnson's marriage ended, she found herself broke, pregnant, and alone with a toddler. Searching for the advice she needed to navigate her new life as a single professional woman and parent, she discovered there was very little sage wisdom available. In response, Johnson launched the popular blog Wealthysinglemommy.com to speak to other women who, like herself, wanted to not just survive but thrive as single moms.

From within the hopelessness and terror of China's Cultural Revolution, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening, and the magical power of storytelling. "An unexpected miracle," raves the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "a delicate, and often hilarious, tale."

Michelle Rohlf's unwanted estrangement from her daughter Naomi strips her of everything: her grandchildren, her peace of mind, and most of all, herself. In spite of her broken heart and broken spirit, she embarks on a three-year journey of healing and forgiveness, discovering the impact her own upbringing had on her attachment to her daughter. Just as Michelle learns that her life isn't over because her daughter walked away, Naomi shows up, without apology or explanation. This is the story of a woman who had to lose her daughter in order to find the identity she'd never really had.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

When is the last time you heard about a parenting book–specifically about divorce–written from the perspective of the child? While there are plenty of resources for divorced couples, very few of them are written by a child of divorce.

Whether you've been looking forward to it or dreading it, the experience of coming home to an empty nest brings with it a well of emotions, realizations, and one gigantic, all-consuming thought: Now what? In Finding Joy in the Empty Nest, Jim Burns combines his personal experiences with his expertise as a family educator to help you navigate your new life as an empty nester and find joy in this new season of life.

This book examines the causes of delayed speech and the issues of toddlers who are late talkers. Parents will learn different ways to help their children through this difficult time, while also providing support, acceptance, and leading a normal life without making the child feel as if they must be fixed. No matter the cause of a child's inability to talk, several foolproof methods are offered to help them communicate.

How do today's parents cope when the dreams we had for our children clash with reality? What can we do for our 20- and even 30-somethings who can't seem to grow up? Who can we turn to when the kids aren't all right and we, their parents, are frightened, frustrated, resentful, embarrassed, and especially, disappointed? In this groundbreaking book, a social psychologist who's been chronicling the lives of American families for over two decades confronts our deepest concerns when our grown kids have failed to thrive.

Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.

Here, Dr. Patricia Love offers adults real hope - and help in overcoming the hurtful legacy of being a chosen child. Based on proven therapeutic techniques and using real-life case histories, her total program of recovery will help you identify the signs of emotional incest, confront your parents - and your past - with love and understanding, disentangle your life from theirs, and create a positive relationship with your parents - and your own children.

When Nancy Friday began her research for My Mother/My Self in the early 1970s no work existed that explored the unique interaction between mother and daughter. Today psychotherapists throughout the world acknowledge that if women are to be able to love without possessing, to find work that fulfills them, and to discover their full sexuality, they must first acknowledge their identity as separate from their mother’s. Nancy Friday’s book played a major role in that acceptance.

A response to all those grandmother books with flowers and puppies on the cover, Grandma Rules is a book for the hip, baby boomer grandma who realizes that after all the work she put into her own kids, she can take a break and have fun with her grandkids. A perfect gift for the greatest grandmothers you know, this book is laugh-out-loud funny while offering useful insights and tips on how to embrace the world’s greatest job.

Are you still waiting for your child to say the words "Mama" or "Dada" or string together a few words to form a sentence? As a parent, you want to ensure that your child receives the best start in life, which means learning the vital skills that will help them navigate through childhood and adolescence. But this goal is stifled when their development is delayed and they struggle to learn how to speak or use language as expected.

Back in 2005, the first edition of Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls—how they perceive the world differently, how they learn differently, how they process emotions and take risks differently. Dr. Sax argued that in failing to recognize these hardwired differences between boys and girls, we ended up reinforcing damaging stereotypes, medicalizing misbehavior, and failing to help kids to reach their full potential.

The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame. With warmth and candor, Sherrie Eldridge reveals the 20 complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love.