Next Steps in Parenting the Child Who Hurts

Written for adoptive parents and long-term foster carers, this clear, sensitive and practical handbook is designed to support adopted children and teenagers and their families. An adopted child may well have suffered abuse or neglect; he or she will have experienced separation, loss, and inconsistent parenting. This early trauma and upheaval is often expressed in emotional and behavioral problems, which are especially difficult for the child and his or her parents to cope with during the teenage years.Caroline Archer works with the organization Adoption UK, a group which recognizes that adopting children can require unusually subtle and complex parenting skills. Drawing on both firsthand experience and research, she presents strategies to improve adopted children's patterns of behavior, in what to them is a hostile world. The situations covered include sleep problems: anger, aggression and violence: lying and stealing: staying out late and running away; addictive behaviors and self harm; impulsiveness and risk taking; money issues; sex; suicide and compulsive eating disorders.