In the summer of 1978, I took my quarter horse to lead trail rides for kids at a Bible camp in rural Iowa. I had just found out my sister, Melody, had been diagnosed with the fastest-acting, worst-type of leukemia. My mom wrote me letters every day that I was away (nobody called long distance unless it was a true emergency in those days). I kept those letters and compiled them into the journey that was our lives that summer. Melody Heuss prayed that God would bring her closer to Him during a time when she felt she had drifted away from Him in her daily walk. I don't know what it would be like to choose my young husband's new wife. I don't know what it would be like to handpick a mother for my two small children; but my sister did. When she knew she was going to die, she convinced Carl, her husband and love of her life, to re-marry. Melody made a list of eligible women and then narrowed it down to one that Carl had never even met All the while she was having numerous bone marrow aspirations, blood transfusions, and chemotherapy that would turn her 28-year-old body into a bald, disease-ravaged weakling. Her inner strength, courage, and attitude brought inspiration to every single person who walked into her hospital room and life. Nurses, family and friends were changed forever by the way she handled her passing into the next life. This is a story told from Melody's mother, Ruth's, point of view, the writer of the letters. The frustrations and difficulties of watching her child suffer tugs on your heart. You will also get a glimpse of what I went through being away from home, and being torn between wanting to be in the hospital room, but knowing I was where God wanted me to be. Plus, you get to witness Susan, the young woman who had already endured many loses and heartbreaks of her own, step into this family on faith. Ruth personally witnessed the power and assurance of God's eternal love for us, even in her grief. On the early August morning of Melody's passing, Ruth received a "gift" most of us never get to see. It was a message from God, declaring the promise of life after death in a physical, tangible way. It was a real miracle that all Christians can believe in and cherish. Crystal Jolly

R.E.P.A.I.R. is a Six-Stage Program for abusesurvivors that will transform your life forever
Recognize and accept your adult problems stemmingfrom childhood sexual abuse.Enter into a commitment to transform your life.Process your issues with tools and techniques that willenable you to become healthy.Awareness to discover reality as you gather andassemble the pieces of the broken puzzle your life became.Insight into the complete picture helps you begin toreturn to what you were prior to being sexually violated.Rhythm recovers the natural rhythm you had beforethe incest happened, the blueprint that is the essence ofyour true nature, becoming who you really are.
Therapists' Acclaim for "REPAIR Your Life"
"Thank you Marjorie and God bless you for adapting thisprogram for our survivors to follow. You have given survivorshope to continue on their healing journey."
-Donna Gustafson, Executive Director, Sunrise Center Against Sexual Abuse
"Anyone wanting to recover from the life-long trauma ofchildhood sexual abuse will benefit from this book."
-Marcelle B. Taylor, MFT
"This program just has to work, because whether intuitivelyor through research, Marjorie McKinnon has assembleda highly effective program of recovery."
-Bob Rich, PhD
Please visit www.TheLampLighters.org for more information or tofind a group in your area.
Special editions available for young people: ask your bookseller for "REPAIR for Kids"and "REPAIR for Toddlers."
Another life-changing title from Loving Healing Press www.LHPress.com
SEL001530 Self-Help: Abuse - Sexual
SEL029000 Self-Help: Twelve-Step Programs

My Mother, My Daughter, My Self is a significant self-revelatory work which chronicles the separation process between mother and child, focusing most specifically on the mother/daughter relationship. The book asks a core question for all mothers and adult children: how do we perform the perplexing, sometimes terrifying act of separation from our mothers and our children while simultaneously marching toward the unknown terrain of individuality? How do we yield to this inevitable process of emotional separation from that which was once our own self? The author uses her own experiences as a daughter, as a mother of a newly-adopted baby, and as a psychoanalyst to explore an essential truth: that our relationships with our mothers affect our other significant love relationships, our values, our self-esteem, and our sense of satisfaction, often throughout the whole of our lives. She also uses the experiences of some of her patients, taken from her forty years as a practicing clinician, to provide further fascinating insights and illustration.Readers are gifted with both an internal parenting 'guide' as well as a deeply profound memoir about the internal process of being a mother that is so crucial, yet rarely looked at so intently.

Are you one of the countless people who grew up with emotionally immature parents? If you suffer from this troubling parent/child dynamic, you may still recall painful moments from your childhood when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of maturity in an effort to "compensate" for your parents' behavior. And while you likely cultivated strengths such as self-reliance and independence along the way- strengths that have served you well as an adult-having to be the emotionally mature person in your relationship with your parent is confusing and even damaging. If you are ready to gain the insight you need to move on from feelings of loneliness and abandonment and find healthy ways to meet your own emotional needs, this book will help light the way. You'll discover the four main types of emotionally immature parents: *Emotional parents, who may vacillate between over-involvement and abandonment, leading to frightening instability and unpredictability *Driven parents, who are often compulsively busy and can't stop trying to perfect everything, including other people *Passive parents, who may have a laissez-faire mindset and avoid dealing with anything upsetting *Rejecting parents, who may withdraw from any relationship with their child, showing either detachment or anger as primary responses All emotionally immature parents have one defining characteristic in common, even if they differ in style-none of them puts their child's needs first. This book will show you that you are not to blame for your parent's behavior. It also offers real skills for handling difficult family situations and moving on from the emotional wounds of your childhood. If you are ready to gain a greater understanding of both your parents and yourself, this book provides a much-needed guide.

Cowboy grandma is the true story of Wendy Ault, who dreamt of being a cowboy and found her passion for it at 65. This message of the story is that it is never too late to follow your dreams.

In this important sequel to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents. Growing up with emotionally immature parents (EIPs) can leave you feeling lonely and neglected. You may have trouble setting limits and expressing your feelings. And you may even be more susceptible to other emotionally immature people as you establish adult relationships. In addition, as your parents become older, they may still treat your emotions with mockery and contempt, be dismissive and discounting of your reality and try to control and diminish your sense of emotional autonomy and freedom of thought. In short, EIPs can be self-absorbed, inconsistent and contradictory. So, how can you recover from their toxic behaviour? Drawing on the success of her popular self-help book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers yet another essential resource. With this follow-up guide, you'll learn practical skills to help you recognize the signs of an EIP, protect yourself against an emotional takeover, reconnect with your own emotions and needs and gain emotional autonomy in all your relationships. This is a how-to book, with doable exercises and active tips and suggestions for what to say and do to increase emotional autonomy and self-awareness. If you're ready to stop putting your own needs last, clear the clutter of self-doubt, and move beyond the fear of judgment and punishment that's been instilled in you by emotionally immature parents, this book will help you find the freedom to finally live your life your way.

William McInnes, one of Australia's best-known storytellers and actors, has turned to a subject that is close to his heart. Fatherhood is about family, about memories of his father and the memories he's creating as a dad himself, with his own son and daughter. Warm, witty and nostalgic, these tales are just like a friendly chat over the back fence, or the banter of a backyard BBQ. They will stir your own memories: of hot summer days and cooling off under the sprinkler while Dad works in the garden with the radio tuned to the sports results; that time Dad tried to teach you to drive - and then got out of the car and kissed the ground; or taking your own kids on a family road trip. Fatherhood is full of memories: the happy, the hilarious, the sad, bad, and the unexpectedly poignant moments. You will laugh, you may even cry - but you will recognise yourself and those you love somewhere in these pages.

For most of her adult life, Dara Kurtz kept a Ziploc bag of letters written by her mother who passed away from cancer when she was twenty-eight years old. The bag also included other letters written by her long-departed grandmothers. These letters gave Dara a glimpse into their lives and personalities at the time the letters were written. They offered her so much wisdom and relevance and taught her so many beautiful, life lessons that Dara decided to share their story, the incredible love between Jewish mothers and daughters, and the wisdom passed on from one generation to the next. As a mother, Dara has passed down these family traditions and wisdom to her two daughters, who now carry on the legacy contained in the Ziploc bag bridging the generations of women in their family. She unexpected discovered that this is best done through the lens of love and through the hand-written word.

From the time he was old enough to remember, Jim Hock was told stories of his dad's glory days playing football in LA. A member of the 1950s LA Rams, John Hock, Jim's dad, was a member of Hollywood's Team, a football team that redefined what a sports team looked like, sounded like, and acted like, all while revolutionizing the sport of football. But Jim didn't know John the football star, he just knew the sweet, funny guy he called Dad. In a warm and aching memoir of childhood, good dad's, and what it is to realize that your parents had a life and successes before you came along.

What happens when after ten years of what you thought was a happy and normal family life your wife suddenly turns your world upside down and leaves, leaving you, heartbroken and in shock and with two expectant young children to care for and raise? First you hit the bottle, get seriously drunk and hit a downward spiral in free fall, heading for certain disaster. Then, once you've hit rock bottom, you take stock of the situation, pick yourself up, dust yourself down and begin the long and difficult climb out of the abyss, putting life together again piece by arduous piece. This is what happened to Brian Rowlands and this is his true story. Beginning with the end of his marriage, this book charts his and his children's journey along the long and very rocky road they encountered as they struggled to re-build their shattered lives and put some kind of stability and substance back in place. Filled with many highs and lows and told in an honest and open manner this book charts the last ten years in this single parent family's remarkable life. From heartbreak to happiness, through disastrous relationships, difficult medical problems and eleven different homes in five years, their story will entertain, enthrall and shock. Drawing the reader in, once started it is a book that the reader will want to go on reading, page after page, leaving you begging for more and wanting to know just what happens next.

This powerful and unusual story contrasts The Bicknells, a wealthy and influential family in Rosedale, Toronto, Ontario, into which I was born out of wedlock, with a farm couple from near Brockville, Ontario who adopted me in 1935. At the age of sixteen I began to feel unsettled and lost. Eighteen years later I finally acted on that feeling and began the search for my lost parents. Using documents I found in a box in the closet of my adoptive mother after her death, I have retrieved the moment when a sleek limousine emerged from the dust of a gravel road delivering me to my new parents. The book follows that limousine back as I searched for my birth mother, taking me into mystery, intrigue and cover-up by the legal system but bringing me finally to a supper dance in the Crystal Ballroom of the historic King Edward Hotel in Toronto, where by chance, my birth parents were reunited. The memoir is a story of loss and recovery but it is also a story of love, strength and redemption

Parents serve as their children's first teachers. What they learn at home helps them build on their learning and education at school. In A Parent's Guide to a Peaceful Home, author Patricia Braxton provides a guide to helping parents manage their home in a peaceful, loving way in order to ensure success for their children at home and at school. This handbook presents Braxton's TAD (Toward Affective Development) model, which gives practical advice to help parents teach their children responsibility, respect, discipline, and other positive character traits. It also teaches parents how to relate to each other properly and how to affect change from within. Through TAD, Braxton works to change the face of families in a positive way. The steps detailed in A Parent's Guide to a Peaceful Home can facilitate an atmosphere where love, compassion, respect, and other virtues are taught by example and reinforced to produce a lasting, peaceful home.

With socio-economic and demographic changes taking place in contemporary societies, new patterns of family relations are forming partly due to significant family changes, value shifts, precariousness in the labour market, and increasing mobility within and beyond national boundaries. This book explores the exchange of support between generations and examines variations in contemporary practices and rationales in different regions and societies. It draws on both theoretical perspectives and empirical analysis in relation to new patterns of family reciprocity. Contributors discuss both newly emerging patterns and more established ones which are now being affected due to various opportunities and pressures in contemporary societies. The book is split into two parts, the first (Chapters one to four) reviews key theoretical and conceptual debates in this field, while the second (Chapter five to nine) offers insights and an understanding of exchange practices based on case studies from different regions and different relationships.

Powerful, emotive, unforgettable -- Mama speaks to all mothers in the international language of love. This is a stunning collection of vivid portraits and intimate reflections on motherhood from around the globe. Mama uniquely portrays the emotions and experiences that unite mothers from different times and diverse cultures. Twenty-one striking watercolour portraits and lively pencil sketches by acclaimed artist Quentin Greban are paired with Helene Delforge's lyrical words to create a thought-provoking celebration of motherhood in all its complexity: the satisfaction and the sadness, the frustration and the fun -- and, always, the love. This moving and joyful book is a perfect gift for mamas everywhere.

'Brown Baby is a beautifully intimate and soul-searching memoir. It speaks to the heart and the mind and bears witness to our turbulent times.' - Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other How do you find hope and even joy in a world that is prejudiced, sexist and facing climate crisis? How do you prepare your children for it, but also fill them with all the boundlessness and eccentricity that they deserve and that life has to offer? In Brown Baby, Nikesh Shukla, author of the bestselling The Good Immigrant, explores themes of sexism, feminism, parenting and our shifting ideas of home. This memoir, by turns heartwrenching, hilariously funny and intensely relatable, is dedicated to the author's two young daughters, and serves as an act of remembrance to the grandmother they never had a chance to meet. Through love, grief, food and fatherhood, Shukla shows how it's possible to believe in hope.

If you have an adult child, you know that parenting doesn't stop when a child reaches the age of eighteen. In many ways, it gets more complicated. Both your heart and your head are as involved as ever, whether your child lives under your roof or rarely stays in contact. In Doing Life with Your Adult Children, parenting expert Jim Burns helps you navigate the toughest and the most rewarding parts of parenting your grown kids. Speaking from his own personal and professional experience, Burns offers practical answers to questions such as these: Is it OK to give advice to my grown child? What's the difference between enabling and helping? What boundaries should I have if my child moves back home? What do I do when my child doesn't seem to be maturing into adulthood? How do I relate to my grown child's significant other? What does it mean to have healthy financial boundaries? How can I support my grown children when I don't support their values? Including positive principles on bringing kids back to faith, ideas on how to leave a legacy as a grandparent, and encouragement for every changing season, Doing Life with Your Adult Children is a unique book on your changing role in a calling that never ends.

"When A Father Fails" is the life story of an urban pastor who was a public image but a private failure. Follow his journey as he honestly shares the reasons for his failure and his struggle to overcome his past transgressions. This book was written as a salute to all children who strive to overcome their father's own failures in their life. This book is also intended to lift the spirit of those wounded by life and to encourage every invisible father to pursue reconciliation with their children today.

Was he thinking, do I have to be this kind of boy to survive? Is this what being a boy is? As a boy growing up on the south coast of England, Howard Cunnell's sense of self was dominated by his father's absence. Now, years later, he is a father, and his daughter is becoming his son. Starting with his own childhood in the Sussex beachlands, Howard tells the story of the years of self-destruction that defined his young adulthood and the escape he found in reading and the natural world. Still he felt compelled to destroy the relationships that mattered to him. Saved by love and responsibility, Cunnell charts his journey from anger to compassion, as his daughter Jay realizes he is a boy, and a son. Most of all, this is a story about love - its necessity and fragility, and its unequalled capacity to enable us to be who we are. Deeply thoughtful, searingly honest and exquisitely lyrical, Fathers & Sons is an exploration of fatherhood, masculinity, authenticity and family.