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.

Deepen your family's relationship with your grandparents using this beautiful deck of conversation cards. These conversation starters will help your family spark discussions with your grandmother or grandfather about their favourite memories and wisdom they've gained over the years. If you're eager to learn more about their lives and experience, but don't know where to begin, this deck will help you ignite the conversation. Thoughtfully designed by bestselling author Korie Herold, Meaningful Conversations with My Grandparents is the perfect gift for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, or any time of year. It's also designed to look beautiful on a dining table or coffee table even when not in use. Cards include questions, such as: Early Childhood: What was your house like growing up? What were your favourite toys or playtime activities? School Years: What did you think you wanted to be when you grew up? What were you like as a teenager? Work and Travel: What was your first job? What family vacations do you remember the most? Love and Family: What's your best relationship advice? How did you feel when you found out you were going to be a grandparent? Character and Values: What do you value most in life? What family values do you hope to pass down? Hypotheticals and Curiosities: What's something you wish you had done differently? What's the best advice you ever received? Special features include: Elegant designed box with gold foil Gold foil and hand-drawn illustrations printed on matte paper and heavy cardstock Carefully-developed designs and prompts allow to you reflect and remember "We are not taught how to have meaningful conversation," says author Korie Herold. "That's a skill gained over time, and it's my mission to help you learn it." The Meaningful Conversations with Grandparents deck can be used as a standalone item, or as a companion to the guided journals Grandma's Story and Grandpa's Story. Use the conversation cards to start discussions around the dinner table, and then if you're so inclined, purchase one of the guided journals to document your grandparent's answers as you go along.

Fathers, Prisons, and Family Reentry: Presencing as a Framework and Method asks scholars, policy makers, advocates, and practitioners to rethink family reentry in a new light, to seek to understand both the urgent and intolerable loss as well as the real and present potential of families. There are almost one million parents of minor-aged children currently serving time in U.S. prisons-most of them fathers. Based on post-phenomenological analyses, William Muth offers a new framework for conceptualizing family reentry as a present phenomenon. It seeks to reveal the intense ways incarcerated fathers and their families live their present-absence, and draws on these intensities to define a new role for researchers and practitioners: nurturing the potential of families in the here and now. The current situation is intolerable. A credible family reentry approach is urgently needed. This book is an attempt to address these families as they potentially are, and might become, if we would be willing to "meet them half-way," in the words of the poet Alice Fulton.

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.

The study of parents from their own perspective not just as socializing agents of their children has been long neglected. This book summarizes and presents the new and surging literature on parenting representations namely parents' views, emotions and internal world regarding their parenting. Within this area, several prominent researchers typically coming from the attachment tradition suggested various ways of assessing parenting representations, mostly by way of semi-structured interviews. This book presents their conceptualizations and includes detailed descriptions of their interviews and their coding schemes. In addition, a review and summary of the growing number of findings in this domain and an integrated conceptualization that serves a theoretical base for future research are presented. Finally, the clinical implications of the study of parenting representations are discussed at large. Clinical notions and conceptualizations regarding parenting representations are presented and thoroughly discussed including detailed case studies that demonstrate among other things intergenerational transmission of representations.

'A hugely impressive achievement.' - Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass At 8.00am on Monday 18th June 2001, Danielle Jones left home dressed in her school uniform - and promptly vanished. The 15-year old's body was never recovered, but Danielle's parents soon learned that her 'Uncle Stuart', a close family friend, had concealed a decades-long history of sexual violence against teenage girls. Despite the absence of a body, Stuart Campbell was sentenced to life in prison for Danielle's abduction and murder. But what set him on his path as a violent sexual predator? And how do you come to terms with his actions if he's your own flesh and blood? In My Brother the Killer, Stuart's older brother Alix Sharkey chronicles the violent childhood and troubled teens that helped shape a bright and handsome little boy into one of Britain's most notorious killers, and led to one of the UK's most unusual murder trials. Sharkey also poses several terrifying questions: what happens when you discover a deadly sexual predator in your family? Is it possible to trace the root of his heinous crimes? And with the clock ticking towards his possible parole, can Stuart Campbell be convinced to reveal the location of Danielle's remains? A devastating hybrid of true crime and family memoir, My Brother the Killer examines the true cost of keeping dark family secrets.

"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.

A heart-warming, fresh and original story about family and friendship from brand-new picture book author, writer and performer Jordan Stephens. Sunny loves jigsaw puzzles - the bigger the better. When she completes one, she gets a warm, happy honeybee buzz. One day, her Gran gives her a ONE-THOUSAND-PIECE puzzle. Piece after piece, all by herself, she puts together the picture, until ... DISASTER! The final piece is missing. Sunny may be small, but she is very determined - so she sets off to find it. As the day whizzes by in a whirl of new places and friends, Sunny discovers that looking for something is every bit as fun as finding it, and that perhaps the missing piece was there all along ...

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.

"Grandparents Cry Twice: Help for Bereaved Grandparents" is a book about grandparents' dual sorrow when a grandchild dies. They cry for their lost grandchild and they also cry for the terrible grief they see their own child having to bear. The author, Mary Lou Reed, writes of her experiences when her beloved grandson, Alex, died. Through her personal story she touches the universal in all grandparents' grief.

Make leaf rubbings, learn the neighbourhood bird songs together, turn an aquarium into a worm hotel, create a firefly lantern. There are garden projects, both for the outdoors - grow a container snacking garden, sweet potato vines, peanuts and more. Cooking projects both in the sunshine - baking in a solar over and in the kitchen - what child will ever forget the time the two or you made Potato Volcanoes with Lava? And lots of rainy day activities for time when nature's in a cranky mood.

Figuring out how to raise happy, healthy and successful kids can be overwhelming. Parents find themselves wading through tons of conflicting advice. Books that outline a "right way" of doing things can leave even the most dedicated caregiver feeling discouraged and inadequate when real life doesn't measure up. An experienced psychiatrist and founder of the Center for Reflective Communities, Regina Pally serves up something totally different in her book. She argues that the key to successful parenting is learning to slow down, reflect and recognise that there is no one key to doing it right. The Reflective Parent synthesises the latest in neuroscience research to show that our brain's natural tendencies to empathise, analyse and connect with others are all we need to be good parents. Full of practical, easy-to-implement strategies that apply to every stage of a child's development, and filled with engaging anecdotes, this book will help parents build loving, lasting relationships with their kids.

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.

'Charming, touching and very very funny' Jenny Colgan 'Simply too good' Daily Mail From the author of the Times bestselling A Chip Shop in Poznan ONE HOUSE. TWO HOUSEMATES. THREE REASONS TO WORRY: WINNIE AND BEN ARE SEPARATED BY 50 YEARS, A GULF IN CLASS, AND MAJOR DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. When hunting for a room in London, Ben Aitken came across one for a great price in a lovely part of town. There had to be a catch. And there was. The catch was Winnie: an 85-year-old widow who doesn't suffer fools. Full of warmth, wit and candour, The Marmalade Diaries tells the story of an unlikely friendship during an unlikely time. Imagine an intergenerational version of Big Brother, but with only two contestants. One of the pair a grieving and inflexible former aristocrat in her mid-eighties. The other a working-class millennial snowflake. What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go right? Out of the most inauspicious of soils - and from the author of The Gran Tour - comes a book about grief, family, friendship, loneliness, life, love, lockdown and marmalade.

Being a caregiver is a difficult role. It requires pateince, tenderness, selflessness, and hard work. Providing care for another human being, whether a parent, loved one, or as a professional requires a level of self love and self care as well that can not be ignored. While it may be a rewarding experience to care for a loved one, it can also be a stressful, both emotionally and mentally. It is easy to get caught up in taking care of someone else that you forget to take care of yourself and your own physical and emotional well being as well. How do you navigate your role as caregiver without losing yourself? Conscious Caregiver can help readers navigate caring for their loved one, whether that means full-time in house caregiving or hiring support from outside services. With information on talking to their loved ones about their situation, how to handle the emotional stress, practical information on medical needs and finances, and how to take time away to care for themselves, Conscious Caregiver can help them care for their loved one and themselves at the same time.

'A total triumph', 'Romantic and heartbreaking and uplifting all at once', 'Highly recommended' *The Independent best 'never-too-late' story of 2021, and one of the 8 best uplifting books of the year* IS IT EVER TOO LATE TO BE LOVED? 'Wonderful . . . An utter treat' KATE MOSSE 'A heartfelt coming-of-age story . . . Remarkable' LAURIE FRANKEL, New York Times bestselling author 'A heart-warming, joyous love story - original, hopeful and totally charming' ADELE PARKS 'I loved it! Really heart-warming and joyful, but also so poignant. I cannot recommend this book highly enough' LORRAINE KELLY 'Albert is one of the most endearing characters I've met in a long time . . . Proof that it's never too late to find a happy ending' SUSAN WIGGS, New York Times bestselling author 'A bright, clear, sharply intelligent writer' JENNY COLGAN 'Will put a smile on everyone's face . . . A great big hug of a book!' - MICHAEL BALL, Radio 2 'Wonderful. Written with such a good heart, filled with joy and strength and optimism . . . inventive and fun but most importantly, true.' RUSSELL T. DAVIES 'A beautiful, timely page-turner, straight from the heart . . . The perfect summer read' MATTHEW BOURNE 'Brilliant . . . [I] recommend to all!' MATT LUCAS ***** ALBERT ENTWISTLE WAS A POSTMAN. It was one of the few things everyone knew about him. And it was one of the few things he was comfortable with people knowing. 64-year-old Albert Entwistle has been a postie in a quiet town in Northern England for all his life, living alone since the death of his mam 18 years ago. He keeps himself to himself. He always has. But he's just learned he'll be forced to retire at his next birthday. With no friends and nothing to look forward to, the lonely future he faces terrifies him. He realises it's finally time to be honest about who he is. He must learn to ask for what he wants. And he must find the courage to look for the man that, many years ago, he lost - but has never forgotten . . . Join Albert as he sets out to find the long-lost love of his life, and has an unforgettable and completely life-affirming adventure on the way . . . This is a love story the likes of which you have never read before! ***** 'Albert is such an endearing character - flawed, funny and awkward, but completely relatable. A wonderfully warm story that completely drew me in' RUTH HOGAN 'A rollicking love story' IAN McKELLEN 'Albert is the most delicious character and you'll be with him every step of the way' SUN 'A charming adventure with love at its heart' MY WEEKLY 'A life affirming story of lost love' THAT'S LIFE 'A unique and moving story' CANDIS 'A heart-warming and uplifting read' ATTITUDE 'You will weep and yet have your heart filled with joy' ARLENE PHILLIPS 'I raced through this heart-warming story' JUSTIN MYERS 'Prepare to fall in love with Albert Entwistle! Touching and tender' S. J. WATSON 'Albert is delightful and charming, and the book is too' JONATHAN HARVEY 'I so enjoyed this - a warm-hearted, moving and thought-provoking joy about an elderly postman's awakening to life and love' FANNY BLAKE 'A total triumph. Romantic and heartbreaking and uplifting all at once.' LAURA KAY 'Tender, witty, uplifting' KATE EBERLEN As seen and heard on THE GRAHAM NORTON RADIO SHOW, BBC Radio 4's WOMAN'S HOUR, RESONANCE FM, BBC Radio 2'S THE MICHAEL BALL SHOW, TalkRADIO'S THE BADASS WOMEN'S SHOW, TIMES RADIO with GILES COREN and many more . . .