Book Review - Parenting the Hurt Child

Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow by Gregory Keck

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


During our long training sessions in preparation to complete a special-needs adoption, social workers recommended this particular book over and over again. I started to wonder what all the fuss was about, so I did a quick search on the library website, and found there was only one copy floating around. Yikes! I requested it right away.

It wasn't far into the book before I understood what was going on. Ah, I see. Our course of learning how to parent special needs kids? Yeah, it almost felt lifted from this book :)

That's not a criticism of either the book or the class, it just notes that everything that the social workers thought we needed to learn about parenting kids with issues was covered in this book, only to a far more in-depth degree than could possibly be covered in a class full of people asking questions.

This book is written more for parents who are already parenting these children and facing issues from the abuse, neglect, and other circumstances the kids have endured in the past, and so is chock-full of helpful suggestions for activities and conversations, ways to work around traditional parenting advice that can be awful for these kids, and ways to wrap your head around techniques that may seem counterintuitive to even the most willing parent. There are pages and pages I needed to xerox so I could be sure to have them on hand in the future, and additional pages and pages in the back of further resources that I would have copied... but discovered they were already a part of our big parenting handbook from the province.

If you are dealing with common issues such as attachment problems, lying, or control issues which crop up in many adopted kids, there are lots of coping strategies and advice to keep you from pulling your hair out. The book also touches on some of the more extreme cases, and gives great, real-world accounts written by both parents and kids who have been there of the real life techniques they used to make it through the hard times.

If you are still preparing to bring your kids home, as we are, this book is a way to get a great leg-up on knowing more details of things you can expect, so that you are already prepared when the stormclouds blow in. Kind of like stocking up your storm shelter for tornado season, but putting those supplies in your emotional bank instead.

I recommend this book highly to adoptive and prospective adoptive parents. The writing is approachable and not as academic and offputting as many books on this subject matter can be. It's a great conversational read, and while it isn't a light book by any means, it also isn't one you'll struggle to find your way through.



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