Silver Medal for Parenting in the Independent Publishers Awards "This is an outstanding book that addresses the challenges of chronic disease in children from multiple viewpoints with a great deal of practical knowledge. Given that Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood, this work will serve to guide families in navigating the sometimes challenging journey to ensure the best possible outcomes for all." - Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer for the American Diabetes Association Written by leading mental health professionals, this warm and accessible parenting book for children with chronic illnesses offers clear, practical guidance for all aspects of the journey. When you’re focused on ensuring your child gets the best possible treatments for their symptoms, it’s easy to overlook or dismiss the impact the illness can have on your relationships and emotions. This book places your psychological well-being front and center, so you can be the best caregiver possible for your child.
Written by leading mental health professionals, this warm and accessible parenting book for children with chronic illnesses offers clear, practical guidance for all aspects of the journey. When you're focused on ensuring your child gets the best possible treatments for their symptoms, it's easy to overlook or dismiss the impact the illness can have on your relationships and emotions. This book places your psychological well-being front and center, so you can be the best caregiver possible for your child.
Does your child have a health condition which requires special medical or dietary care? Whatever the health issue, you will learn the essential parenting skills you need to help your child comply with medical requirements, cope well with health challenges, and live a hope-filled life. Get practical and compassionate answers to your toughest questions as you discover effective ways to communicate about medical issues with children of all ages. This book will teach you how to: . Encourage your child to love life despite health challenges. . Handle refusal to take medication and do medical treatments. . Skillfully respond to your child's special emotional needs. . Avoid power struggles and other common parenting traps. . Promote responsibility without nagging or lecturing. . Navigate sibling, family and couple relationship issues. . Enable your child to make good self-care decisions.
[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 Parents of children with chronic illnesses experience 'extreme parenting'. Parenting under extreme circumstances, like an extreme sport, challenges us to find our true strengths, to push ourselves physically and emotionally. This book is a guide and a source of support for parents of children with long-term illnesses. Sharon Dempsey argues that by helping parents to cope with their child's condition we are ultimately helping the child, and that parents are better able to live a full, enjoyable life if they have an awareness of strategies and knowledge to cope with the difficulties of dealing with their child with a chronic illness. The guide is packed with practical advice, models of exploration and lists of action points, and will empower parents to be good advocates for their children. It will also provide health professionals with invaluable insights into the demands of living with chronic illness.
Chronic conditions and diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Europe, accounting for 86% of total premature deaths, and research suggests that complex conditions such as diabetes and depression will impose an even greater health burden in the future - and not only for the rich and elderly in high-income countries, but increasingly for the poor as well as low- and middle-income countries. The epidemiologic and economic analyses in the first part of the book suggest that policy-makers should make chronic disease a priority. This book highlights the issues and focuses on the strategies and interventions that policy-makers have at their disposal to tackle this increasing challenge. Strategic discussed in the second part of this volume include (1) prevention and early detection, (2) new provider qualifications (e.g. nurse practitioners) and settings, (3) disease management programmes and (4) integrated care models. But choosing the right strategies will be difficult, particularly given the limited evidence on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. In the third part, the book therefore outlines and discusses institutional and organizational challenges for policy-makers and managers: (1) stimulating the development of new effective pharmaceuticals and medical devices, (2) designing appropriate financial incentives, (3) improving coordination, (4) using information and communication technology, and (5) ensuring evaluation. To tackle these challenges successfully, key policy recommendations are made.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
The parents of chronically ill children deal with a vast array of issues regarding their child's wellbeing. In addition to the imminent and ongoing medical concerns, these parents face the challenge of managing child behavior problems as their children attempt to adjust to their illness and illness consequences. The present investigation views parents of chronically ill children as a broad population in order to more accurately assess the various psychological issues affecting these parents in order to fully understand the impact of a child's illness on their parents. Parenting stress and sense of self-efficacy were investigated as they relate to a chronically ill child's demonstrations of both pro social and problematic behaviors. One hundred and twenty-six parents caring for children with a wide range of chronic medical conditions participated in this nationally advertised survey. Results from the current study indicate that some of the behaviors demonstrated by chronically ill children significantly impacted parental reports of both perceived stress and sense of competency within their parenting role. The current study serves to not only increase our understanding of the impact of child behavior on parenting stress and efficacy, it further contributes to the empirical bases supporting the development of clinical interventions geared toward improving the well-being of parents caring for children with chronic conditions.
This is an inspiring, heartfelt story of a mother's journey in raising two children who were diagnosed with very serious health problems at birth. The mother has a unique perspective as both a psychologist and registered nurse as she and her husband diligently worked to provide the best life possible for each child. The determination and perseverance this family showed in fighting for each child's very existence is quite remarkable. The youngest child who was born with a severe case of cystic fibrosis required a liver transplant as a teenager and later a double lung transplant in his early twenties. He is now thirty years of age doing well and working as a registered nurse. His older brother who had breathing trouble at birth contracted a virus later in childhood that resulted in ulcerative colitis requiring a complete colectomy. He is now thirty-two years of age. He is thriving and doing well working in the medical field. A nice dimension to the book is that each boy is interviewed and asked what it was like living with a chronic illness as a child and now as an adult. Each boy's advice to parents of chronically ill children is meant to be of support to parents in their life journey in raising their child.
For families with a seriously ill parent--advice on helping your children cope from two leading Harvard psychiatrists Based on a Massachusetts General Hospital program, Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child When a Parent is Sick covers how you can address children's concerns when a parent is seriously ill, how to determine how children with different temperaments are really feeling and how to draw them out, ways to ensure the child's financial and emotional security and reassure the child that he or she will be taken care of.
