Building Self-Esteem in Children Who are Adopted or Fostered. Sue Cornbluth, $22.95

How do you give your adopted or fostered child the best opportunities to grow up to be happy, healthy and successful? In this accessible book, psychologist and trauma expert Dr. Sue offers simple advice to those supporting children aged 7+. She explains why adopted or fostered children can often experience self-esteem issues, the impact it can have on their lives, and offers everyday strategies to help the child to move beyond their trauma and develop healthy self-esteem. Ideal for foster and adoptive parents as well as professionals supporting children and families, this book reveals the powerful role you can play in your child's well-being.

Connecting with Kids through Stories: Using Narratives to Facilitate Attachment in Adopted Children, 2nd Edition. Denise Lacher, Todd Nichols & Joanne May, $30.95

Children whose early development has been damaged by abuse or neglect are notoriously difficult to reach. CONNECTING WITH KIDS THROUGH STORIES is an accessible guide to Family Attachment Narrative Therapy for the parents of adopted or fostered children, and for the professionals who work with them. Providing a thorough theoretical grounding, and detailed information on therapeutic techniques and how to assess progress, the book shows parents how to create their own therapeutic stories to promote increased attachment and improved behavior in their child. The authors describe how different kinds of narratives can help with specific difficulties and illustrate their techniques with the story of a fictional family who develop their own narratives to help their adopted child heal.

Dancing Through the Snow. Jean Little, $8.99

Min has nothing. No mother. No birth certificate. No baby pictures. Not even a real birthday. The Children’s Aid people just gave her a fake birthday — the date she was found — not seeming to realize it was also the day she was lost. Now, after four different foster families, Min’s not surprised when she’s dumped back with Children’s Aid the week before Christmas. Still, a small part of her can’t help aching for a miracle … and now she’s found an injured dog that needs a miracle too.

The Defiant Child: a Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Douglas Riley, $17.95

The Defiant Child guides readers through the difficulties of raising a child or teenager who is attempting to ignore or defeat them at every turn. While it explains how defiant children and teens think, delving deeply into the mistaken ideas that lead them to believe that it is safe to ignore parents and challenge their authority, its chief purpose is to provide parents with a step-by-step plan to regain peace and harmony in the family.

Families Change: a Book for Children Experiencing Termination of Parental Rights. Julie Nelson, illustrated by Mary Gallagher, $13.50

All families change over time. Sometimes a baby is born, or a grown-up gets married. And sometimes a child gets a new foster parent or a new adopted mom or dad. Children need to know that when this happens, it’s not their fault. They need to understand that they can remember and value their birth family and love their new family, too. Straightforward words and full-color illustrations offer hope and support for children facing or experiencing change. Includes resources and information for birth parents, foster parents, social workers, counselors, and teachers.

Finding the Right Spot: When Kids Can’t Live with Their Parents. Janice Levy, illustrated by Whitney Martin, $13.95 ages 6-12

Finding the Right Spot is a story for kids who can’t live with their parents, regardless of the circumstances. It’s a story about resilience and loyalty, hope and disappointment, love, sadness and anger too.

Foster Parenting Step-by-Step: How to Nurture the Traumatized Child and Overcome Conflict. Kalyani Gopal, $17.95

When you decide to foster, you are faced with many difficult decisions, dilemmas and questions: How do you navigate the daily struggles of foster parenting? How can you nurture bonds with your foster child who is angry, sad, and defiant? How can you prepare to step back when it's time to let go?

FOSTER PARENTING STEP-BY-STEP is a concise how-to guide to fostering that summarizes what to expect as a foster parent, and gives immediate practical solutions. It outlines the different stages of a fostering relationship, raising common issues encountered at each age and how to tackle them. It also explains the impact of trauma on your child: how this can show itself through challenging behavior and how to respond to it. This book will provide fostering parents with the skills and knowledge to support the needs of the children in foster care. It will be invaluable not just to foster parents but also to those professionals supporting foster placements.

The Foster Parenting Manual: a Practical Guide to Creating a Loving, Safe and Stable Home. John Degarmo, $17.95

THE FOSTER PARENTING MANUAL is a comprehensive guide offering proven, friendly advice for novice and experienced parents alike. Distilling many years' experience into one book, John DeGarmo combines his own wisdom with that of fellow foster parents. He describes what to expect from the process, how to access help and how to ensure the best care for your child. He tackles thorny issues such as children's use of the Internet and social media, managing contact with birth parents and how to support your child at school. Most importantly, he provides advice designed to help your child feel safe, secure and loved.

The Foster Parenting Toolbox. Edited by Kim Phagan-Hansel, $33.95

A practical, hands-on approach to parenting children in foster care, THE FOSTER PARENTING TOOLBOX provides the collected wisdom, experience, advice, and support of others who’ve walked in the same shoes.

Foster Parents. Rebecca Rissman, $8.95

With beautiful photographs and simple text, this lovely picture book explains foster care and foster parents and how all families are different to young children.

Happy Families: a Parents’ Guide to the Non-Violent Resistance Approach. Carmelite Avraham-Krehwinkel & David Aldridge, $17.95

Parenting a severely disruptive child can be exhausting and demoralizing to the point where breaking the cycle of bad behaviour seems an impossible task. Happy Families offers a realistic, step-by-step, practical approach to tackling destructive behaviour that helps parents regain control and establish harmony within the family.

Using hands-on techniques based on the principles of non-violent resistance, each chapter deals with a different stage of the process - from communicating to the child an unwavering determination that the situation will change and enlisting the support of family and friends, to taking positive action in a way that avoids escalation. General advice such as how to respond constructively and consistently to provocation is included throughout, and morale-boosting tips encourage flagging parents to persevere with the approach.

Helping Foster Children in School: a Guide for Foster Parents, Social Workers, and Teachers. John DeGarmo, $29.95

Helping Foster Children In School explores the challenges that foster children face in schools and offers positive and practical guidance tailored to help the parents, teachers and social workers supporting them. 

Children in care often perform poorly at school both in terms of their behavior and their academic performance, with many failing to complete their education. They will have often experienced trauma or neglect which can result in a number of developmental delays. By looking at why children in foster care do not perform as well as their counterparts, John DeGarmo, who has fostered more than 40 children, provides easy-to-use strategies to target the problems commonly faced. He emphasizes the importance of an open dialogue between teacher, parent and social worker, to ensure that everyone is working jointly to achieve the best outcome for the child. 

A Home for Ruby: Helping Children Adjust to New Families. PJ Neer, $13.95

Ruby, a spirited horse, never felt loved by her previous owners. She misbehaved all the time and eventually each owner sent her off to a different farm. One day she arrived at Meadow Green, a wonderful farm with many other horses. She thought for sure that she would be sent away again to another farm, so she continued to misbehave there. Jen was Ruby’s new owner and, through patience, Jen and Ruby became best friends. It took some time but Ruby realized that bad behavior was not the right way to get attention. Ruby learned that her new home with her new family was exactly where she wanted to be.

Through Ruby, children will see the importance of relationships and how to get along with a new family. At the end of the book there are helpful tips to open up discussions for parents, educators and children on adjusting to a new home.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, 30th Anniversary Edition. Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, $21.00; Audiobook (CD format) $39.99

Updated with new insights from the next generation, this bestselling book gives you the know-how you need to be more effective with your children — and more supportive of yourself.

The down-to-earth, respectful approach of Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish makes relationships with children of all ages less stressful and more rewarding. Now, in this revised edition, Faber and Mazlish share their latest insights and suggestions based on feedback they've received over the years. Their methods of communication — illustrated with delightful cartoons showing the skills in action—offer innovative ways to solve common problems.

I Still Love You: Nine Things Troubled Kids Need from Their Parents. Michael Ungar, $24.99

Family therapist Michael Ungar, internationally-renowned for his work on child and youth resilience, takes us into his world each Wednesday, when he meets with three families with very troubled children. In the book, Michael shares nine things that all troubled kids need from their parents that will help them turn their lives around and flourish: 

• Structure
• Consequences 
• Parent-child connections
• Lots of peer and adult relationships 
• A powerful identity 
• A sense of control
• A sense of belonging, spirituality, and life purpose 
• Fair and just treatment by others 
• Safety and support

Hopeful in tone, and using knowledge gathered from Michael's work around the world, the book shows that it is never too late to help our children change and reconnect with those who will always love them.

Jakeman. Deborah Ellis, $11.95 (novel, pre-teen)

Jake and his sister Shoshona have been in foster care since their single mother was arrested three years before. Both have found their own ways to cope: Shoshona has become a bossy mother figure; Jake, who is a budding comic book artist, has created an alter ego named Jakeman. Four times a year Jake and his sister take the long overnight journey through New York State to visit their mother in jail - along with an assortment of nervous, angry, and damaged kids on the way to visit their own mothers.

But this trip will be like no other trip they've ever taken.

Jason’s Why. Beth Goobie, $8.95

Jason’s mom says he is a problem, and puts him in a group home. Now Jason has to live with boys and grown-ups he doesn’t know. There’s a bug bubble of mad inside Jason. It makes him yell and throw things. Jason wants to be good and move home again, but the mad bubble just won’t go away.

Keeping Foster Children Safe Online: Positive Strategies to Prevent Cyberbullying, Inappropriate Contact, and Other Digital Dangers. John DeGarmo, $22.95

Foster children are more likely than other children to be involved in risky activities online due to backgrounds of neglect and abuse, an absence of supportive adults, lower self-esteem, and greater exposure to drugs and alcohol. Covering all the dangers of online technology that your foster child might encounter, from cyberbullying and "sexting", to child grooming and online hoaxes, this book pays particular attention to dangers unique to foster families, such as the difficulties internet access poses for maintaining formal arrangements for contact with birth families.

DeGarmo equips foster parents and professionals with strategies to keep foster children safe online, giving tips on establishing expectations for internet usage, advice on how to prevent inappropriate contact and protect personal information, and explaining the importance of "netiquette". An indispensable guide to negotiating online dangers, this is required reading for all foster families as well as residential child care workers, social workers and other professionals working with children in care.

The Kids are All Right: a Memoir. Diana Welch, Liz Welch, Dan Welch & Amanda Welch, $29.99

Perfect is boring.” Well, 1983 certainly wasn't boring for the Welch family. Somehow, between their handsome father’s mysterious death, their glamorous soap opera star mother’s cancer diagnosis, and a phalanx of lawyers intent on bankruptcy proceedings, the four Welch siblings managed to handle each new heartbreaking misfortune together. But all that changed with the death of their mother. While nineteen year-old Amanda was legally on her own, the three younger siblings — Liz, 16; Dan, 14 and Diana, 8 — were each dispersed to a different set of family friends.

Told in the alternating voices of the four siblings, this memoir tells their poignant, harrowing story of growing up as lost souls, taking disastrous turns along the way, but eventually coming out right side up.

Kids Need to Be Safe: a Book for Children in Foster Care. Julie Nelson, $12.50 (ages 4-8)

Kids are important… They need safe places to live, and safe places to play. For some kids, this means living with foster parents. In simple words and full-color illustrations, this book explains why some kids move to foster homes, and ways kids might feel when they can’t live with their mom or dad. Children often believe that they are in care because they are “bad.” This book makes it clear that the troubles in their lives are not their fault; the message throughout is one of hope and support. Includes resources and information for caregivers, social workers, counselors, and teachers.

Lifesaving Lessons. Linda Greenlaw, $18.00

Linda Greenlaw isn’t a woman who shies away from a challenge — a nationally renowned swordfish boat captain made famous in the film The Perfect Storm, Greenlaw is also a bestselling author and a television celebrity. Through hard work and determination, she had created a life of peaceful independence, living on a rugged island off the coast of Maine. Then came Mariah.

A troubled fifteen-year-old, Mariah arrives on the island to stay with her uncle, an island newcomer and seemingly normal guy. The entire community is rocked when it is revealed that Mariah has suffered terrible abuse at his hands, and the island comes together to rescue the teenager from further harm. Alone and at risk, Mariah needs a guardian and the island residents nominate Linda, who is not exactly the picture of maternal warmth.

A remarkably candid and tenderly funny memoir, LIFESAVING LESSONS follows this unexpected mother-daughter pair as they navigate their new life together, learning to trust themselves and each other and forge the loving family that neither of them knew they needed.

Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, a Memoir. Paula McLain, $22.95

Like Family tells the story of three young sisters who are abandoned by their mother and father and raised as wards of the Fresno County, California, court. McLain's unflinching recollection of being shuttled from foster home to foster home strikes a universal chord, capturing the loneliness, uncertainty, and odd pleasures that are the very nature of adolescence.

Living Alongside a Child's Recovery: Therapeutic Parenting with Traumatized Children. Billy Pughe & Terry Philpot, $33.95

Living Alongside a Child's Recovery asserts that a good understanding of child development and attachment theory is essential to effective therapeutic parenting of a traumatized child, and the book details the roots of trauma as well as the impact this has on a child's ability to maintain normal family bonds, whether with birth parents, foster parents or with staff in a residential setting. It also explains the practicalities of carrying out effective therapeutic parenting, including how to design a therapeutic physical environment, the importance of routine and security, how to approach issues of hygiene and organizing mealtimes. The authors examine individual and group work settings, and also explore transitions; how to manage a child's move to a permanent placement while at the same time ensuring that their needs are prioritized.

Love and Mayhem: One Big Family's Uplifting Story of Fostering and Adoption. John DeGarmo, $22.95

Many people say being a parent is the toughest job there is. John DeGarmo, foster and adoptive parent, tells us just how tough it can be, having parented over 40 children. At times he and his wife, Kelly, have cared for up to nine children at a time, many with severe trauma and learning difficulties. 

Love and Mayhem is an honest and open account of the struggles, sadness and joy that comes with the job of being a parent to a traumatized child. From the sleepless nights with babies withdrawing from drug-addiction, to the heartbreak when a child moves on to another home, and the loving chaos times that come with a large and blended family, John DeGarmo fights for the many children who have come through his home. Ideal for foster families, general readers, fostering agencies and social workers who are looking for a true to life memoir of what it really is to be a foster parent.

The Moccasins. Earl Einarson, illustrated by Julie Flett, $10.95 ages 4-9

This is the endearing story of a young Aboriginal foster child who is given a special gift by his foster mother. Her warm and thoughtful gift encourages her young foster child and brings him acceptance and love.

My Feeling Better Workbook: Activities that Help Kids Beat the Blues. Sarah Hamil, $21.95

There are many ways to help children who are sad and depressed, and you might not even realize how much you can do to make your child feel better. By working through this book, guiding your child through just one activity a day, you can empower him or her with the skills necessary to overcome sadness and low self-esteem and live an active, joyful life.

My Lifebook Journal: a Workbook That Helps Kids Adjust to Foster Care. Therese Accinelli, $21.95

Children placed in foster homes face many difficult changes over which they have no control. They must learn to quickly adjust to a different family, a new set of rules, and possibly a new school and community. These changes can be overwhelming for kids, and the sadness, fear, and anger they may feel can prevent them from making a successful transition into foster care.

The simple activities in My Lifebook Journal offer children the tools they need to adjust to their new situation in a healthy way. Using the worksheets in this book, kids can journal about their positive experiences and memories, learn to develop a strong sense of self, identify the people they can rely on, and learn coping skills for dealing with feelings of anger and sadness. Writing down and exploring their thoughts and feelings in just a few minutes each day can help children better understand themselves and their biological and foster families. The resiliency and self-confidence that these activities develop will help children handle not only the transition into foster care, but also the many positive changes in their lives still to come.

No Biking In the House Without a Helmet. Melissa Fay Greene, $28.95

National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene and her husband so loved raising their four children by birth, they didn’t want to stop. When the clock started to run down on the home team, they brought in ringers. When the number of children hit nine, Greene took a break from reporting. She trained her journalist’s eye upon events at home. Fisseha was riding a bike down the basement stairs; out on the porch, a squirrel was sitting on Jesse’s head; vulgar posters had erupted on bedroom walls; the insult niftam (the Amharic word for “snot”) had led to fistfights; and four non-native-English-speaking teenage boys were researching, on Mom’s computer, the subject of “saxing.”

“At first I thought one of our trombone players was considering a change of instrument,” writes Greene. “Then I remembered: they can’t spell.”

A celebration of parenthood; an ingathering of children, through birth and out of loss and bereavement; a relishing of moments hilarious and enlightening — No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is a loving portrait of a unique twenty-first-century family as it wobbles between disaster and joy.

Nobody Knows. Shelley Tanaka, $9.95 (novel, 10+)

It's autumn in Tokyo, and 12-year-old Akira and his younger siblings, Kyoko, Shige and little Yuki, have just moved into a new apartment with their mother. Akira hopes it's a new start for all of them, even though the little ones are not allowed to leave the apartment or make any noise, since the landlord doesn't permit young children in the building. But their mother soon begins to spend more and more time away from the apartment, and then one morning Akira finds an envelope of money and a note. She has gone away with her new boyfriend for a while.

Akira bravely shoulders the responsibility for the family. He shops and cooks and pays the bills, while Kyoko does the laundry. The children spend their time watching TV, drawing and playing games, wishing they could go to school and have friends like everyone else. Then one day tragedy strikes.

Based on a true story, from the award-winning film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, this is a powerfully moving novel about four children who become invisible to almost everyone in their community and manage — for a time — to survive on their own.

One for the Murphys. Lynda Mullaly Hunt, $18.00 (novel, ages 11-16)

A moving debut novel about a foster child learning to open her heart to a family's love. 

Carley uses humour and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household. Despite her resistance, the Murphys eventually show her what it feels like to belong — until her mother wants her back and Carley has to decide where and how to live. She's not really a Murphy, but the gifts they've given her have opened up a new future.

1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2 – 12, 5th Edition. Thomas Phelan, $17.99; DVD $55.95

Using behavior modification techniques, Thomas Phelan has created an easy-to-follow program for disciplining children without yelling, arguing or spanking. The revised 5th Edition has been expanded to include dozens of suggestions from readers; research and an updated list of resources.

1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 Workbook. Thomas Phelan & Tracy Lewis, $17.95

This user-friendly manual includes chapter reviews, case studies, self-evaluation questions and planning exercises to help parents get the most out of the 1-2-3 Magic program.

Our Gracie Aunt. Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Jon Muth, $6.50 ages 5-9

Johnson and his sister Beebee seem to be all alone in the world. Their Mama has gone away and left them on their own. Then a social worker comes and takes them to stay with their Aunt Gracie. This child’s-eye view of a brother and sister entering foster care is an exploration of change, trust, forgiveness and the true meaning of family.

Preparing for Adoption: Everything Adopting Parents Need to Know about Preparations, Introductions and the First Few Weeks. Julia Davis, $22.95

When you decide to adopt a child, you might assume that all the important work begins when the child comes to live with you. In fact the preparation stage before is crucial in ensuring that the adopted child will arrive to a safe and secure family. Preparing for Adoption provides clear advice on how to prepare for your adoptive child and create a strong foundation for a healthy and loving relationship. Julia Davis explains how many different factors can shape preparations for adoption, such as finding out about your child's history and using this information to establish a family environment which will meet your child's specific attachment needs. There is also advice on how to prepare your home to create a sense of safety for your child and how to prepare your family to support you as adoptive parents. 

Primarily for adopters, foster carers and professionals supporting adopters, this book offers ideas and strategies to help parents prepare a happy and settled home for children before their arrival and ways to parent them in the early days of becoming a family that addresses their attachment needs.

Reparenting the Child Who Hurts: a Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma and Attachments. Caroline Archer & Christine Gordon, $28.95

Finally, a parenting book which demystifies the latest thinking on neurobiology, physiology and trauma and explains what the research means for the everyday life of parents of children who hurt. As experts on adoption and fostering who are adoptive parents themselves, Caroline Archer and Christine Gordon explain how this knowledge can help parents to better understand and care for their child. They explain why conventional parenting techniques are often not helpful for the child who has experienced early trauma and explore why therapeutic reparenting is the only way to help repair the unhealthy neurobiological and behavioural patterns which affect the child's development. They do not shy away from how difficult reparenting is, acknowledging how hard it can be to recognize our own fallibility as parents and to change our own parenting patterns. The authors also offer hard-won advice on a range of common parenting flashpoints — from defusing arguments and aggression to negotiating bedtimes and breaks in routine, and making sure that special occasions are remembered for all the right reasons.

REPARENTING THE CHILD WHO HURTS is a humane, no-nonsense survival guide for any parent caring for a child with developmental trauma or attachment difficulties, and will also provide information and insights for social workers, teachers, counsellors and other professionals involved in supporting adoptive and foster families.

Resilient Grandparent Caregivers: a Strengths-Based Perspective. Bert Hayslip Jr. & Gregory Smith, Editors, $53.50

The study of grandparents raising grandchildren has tended to have a negative bias, emphasizing the difficulties such people face and the negative impact that grandparent caregiving has on them physically, socially, and emotionally. This book seeks to reverse this trend by taking a positive approach to understanding grandparent caregivers, focusing on their resilience and resourcefulness. This method reflects a strengths-based approach and the importance of benefit-finding and positive coping. Chapters feature information from both qualitative and quantitative studies and are written by a diverse range of professionals, such as counselors, psychologists, geriatric social workers, and nurse practitioners, to provide multidisciplinary perspectives for practitioners working with grandparent caregivers.

Returnable Girl. Pamela Lowell, $9.99

Thirteen years old, Ronnie has been "returned" from multiple foster homes because of her impulsive lying and stealing. Her latest foster mom, Alison, is Ronnie’s very last chance—if she doesn’t want to end up in some awful residential treatment center … As Ronnie struggles to define herself, an important letter will present her with the most heart-wrenching decision of her life: to accept the woman who wants to adopt her, or to return to the mother who once abandoned her.

A Short Introduction to Promoting Resilience in Children. Colby Pearce, $24.95

A child's capacity to cope with adversity and 'stand on their own two feet' is seen as critical to their development, well-being, and future independence and success in adulthood. Psychological strength, or resilience, directly affects a child's capacity to cope with adversity.

This book provides a succinct, accessible and clear guide on how to promote resilience in children and achieve positive developmental outcomes for them. The author covers three key factors that affect resiliency: vulnerability to stress and anxiety, attachment relationships, and access to basic needs. For each, the author presents practical advice and strategies, such as how to regulate children's stress and anxiety, how to encourage and maintain secure attachments, and how to assure children that their needs are understood and will be met. The model presented will help parents and carers ensure their children grow up happy, healthy and resilient.

The Silent Summer of Kyle McGinley. Jan Andrews, $14.95 (novel, ages 13+)

Kyle McGinley doesn’t say a word. Fed up with being shuttled from one foster care home to another, he has stopped speaking. But at the home of Jill and Scott Wardman, with the help of a crow, and a swamp, and an excess of black paint, he begins to think maybe — just maybe — life could get better.

Sometimes It’s Grandmas and Grandpas Not Mommies and Daddies. Gayle Byrne, illustrated by Mary Haverfield, $18.99

Sometimes It’s Grandmas and Grandpas is a delightful and uplifting story of a young girl being raised by her grandparents.

A Star for Rae: a Book about Foster Children. Dylan, Cheryl and Michael Rieder, $7.99

Ten-year-old Dylan and his family have decided to share their home with a foster child. Soon after, a baby girl named Rae Anne joins their lives.

A touching look at foster care, A Star for Rae is designed to help young children understand what it means to offer a space in your home and your heart to another child.

Three Little Words: a Memoir. Ashley Rhodes-Courter, $12.99

Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system.

Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative, humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed — and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.

The Way Home. Becky Citra, $8.95 (novel, ages 9-12)

A pony called Lucky and a girl named Tory, are kindred spirits. They are both searching for a place to call home – wherever that may be.

What Angry Kids Need: Parenting Your Angry Child without Going Mad. Jennifer Brown & Pam Provonsha Hopkins, $16.95

In language every parent, caregiver and teacher can understand (even when exhausted and frustrated), this practical and compassionate book explains why kids get angry, what anger management skills they (and the entire family) can be taught, how adults can model anger management techniques—and how adults can cope when nothing seems to work. The authors, who emphasize the importance of patience and practice in developing the ability to handle anger, also explain the options available when more help is needed.

This is a terrific resource for parents, as well as anyone working with a child whose intense emotions leave you feeling depleted and looking for answers.

Why Can’t My Child Behave? Empathic Parenting Strategies that Work for Adoptive and Foster Families. Amber Elliot, $22.95

WHY CAN'T MY CHILD BEHAVE provides friendly, expert advice on how to respond to difficult behaviours and emotions for parents of children with developmental trauma. Each chapter focuses on the common difficulties faced by carers or parents and features quick, applicable ideas with exercises and illustrations. How do you react to a child's difficult behaviour? How do you deal with your own negative emotions? How do you know when to be empathic? The book looks beyond the traditional punishment/reward strategies and aims to provide an explanation for such questions whilst helping the child in the process. This book will prove to be an invaluable resource for parents, foster carers, social workers and professionals working with children who are adopted or fostered.

You Can Heal Your Child. Regalena Melrose, $19.50

A guide for parents of misdiagnosed, stressed, traumatized, and otherwise misunderstood children.