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Helpful Tips When Burying or Cremating the Remains of Family Member
Common Options for a Grave Headstone
When an individual has passed on, many are buried underground in cemeteries. With cemeteries becoming overcrowded, how will an individual recognize the grave site of their friend or loved one? A marker is...
REVIEW: TV Critic Reviews… “Higglytown Heroes”
As aunt of a preschooler and an aspiring voiceover actress (I knew all those hours of watching Bugs Bunny would come in handy), I know all the kids’ shows as well as every kids’ DVD out there. My TV Critic column will be a regular family-fare...
"Sexless Marriage : Does Your Sexless Marriage Have You Thinking About Divorce?"
If you are in a sexless marriage and are unhappy because of it, don't worry, it isn't unrecoverable but it is serious cause for concern. You may even be thinking that you need a divorce because of your sexless marriage, that's only natural. But, in...
Surviving Family Financial Hardship: My Story
My daughter is 18 years old this year, older than I was when she
was born. For years we lived on a very low income and barely
made ends meet.
She watched me work my way through college, studying hard, often
working more than one job to...
Ten Suggestions For The Overscheduled Child
Ever wonder what happened to the family dinner hour? Or for that matter the family dinner half hour? Monday is Soccer Practice, Tuesday is Piano lesson, Wednesday is Church Activities, Thursday is a Soccer Game, Friday a birthday party to...
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Mental Detectors Not Metal Detectors:: Family Problem-Solving
At our workshops around the country, youth professionals continue to report seeing more and more children from deeply troubled homes. If you are not a mental health worker, your college training may not have prepared you for working with children whose behavior is driven by the trauma they endure at home. This issue gives you a few of the basics all youth professionals need to know in order to maximize their ability to successfully do their job with children from deeply troubled homes. However, please note that these introductory basics are just the
start of the information you'll need.
As more and more contemporary children seem to have major family problems compared to years past, it is absolutely critical that both you and your team thoroughly know mental health basics. Since studies emphasize that seeing and helping distressed youth are the primary ways to prevent school shootings, that's another reason that non-mental health youth professionals like educators must upgrade their skills right away. As Richard Lawrence of St. Cloud State University has noted, "We need more mental detectors, not metal detectors in schools."
See the Pain
How are your "mental detection" skills? Some youth professionals never notice that they're working with children in distress. Not noticing makes it more likely that you might add to the child's burdens, and these children already carry a heavy load. You may also miss any cues that show that this is a child who could one day explode in violence. Learn to look deeper into problems like sleeping in class, depression, back talk, irritability, and poor performance, to consider if family problems could be the cause. For example, a child may sleep in class not because she's "just a lazy kid" but because it's the only place she has free from the all-night roar of Dad hitting and berating Mom.
You Can't Fix It
If you are not a family therapist, be careful about focusing your efforts on changing the family. Veteran counselors struggle to impact severely troubled families. Non-family counselors are unlikely to have the desired impact because they lack the time, expertise, and training to succeed. As a non-mental health worker, your expertise lies with children. Put your energy there instead. You can certainly encourage the family to seek counseling, but understand that family therapy should not be provided by people outside the mental health field.
Offer Accommodations
The night after a beating, it can be tough to focus on math. If you have data to indicate abuse, of course you report it, but if you only suspect trauma, be prepared to offer
accommodations. If you give traumatized youngsters time to process and recover from recent crises, they will work as hard as they can on days that they are able. Can you fairly ask any more of a human being than that? Since school shooters often feel persecuted or badly treated by others, here is another reason to show you are sensitive and caring instead of adding to the perception that people are mean and just don't care.
Fill in the Gaps
If you can't get the family to do their job, then you fill in the gaps. For example, you may help a child devise a plan to wake up for school each morning, but have granola bars, sox, and other items that the child may need in order to function throughout the day at your site. It's tragic that you must cover for the family to such an extent but if you don't, the child will continue to suffer, and may be so distracted by his unmet physical needs that he can't benefit from the services your site offers. Since studies show that many school shooters were having trouble coping, that is another compelling reason to fill in the gaps.
Evaluate and Upgrade Deficit Skills
Here is a very quick way to see if your team members are competent "mental detectors" able to spot children in distress. Can your team members name the 4 most common mental health/ family problems that children face? The answer is included in our Follow-Up Resources section immediately below, but before you scroll down to look, stop and consider if you know the answer. (Workshop past participants: you should all know this.) If all the members of your team cannot name these 4 problems, how can they spot children with these concerns? Teams that do not know how to spot distress lack the ability to prevent school shootings. Don't believe us? This assertion originates with the 2003 Secret Service/ U.S. Dept. of Ed study on school shooters. Upgrade deficient skills now-- for the sake of students who suffer-- and to more effectively ensure that a shooting never happens at your site. As the study indicates, metal detectors will never work as well as mental detectors.
About the Author: Ruth Herman Wells is the director of Youth Change Workshops (http://www.youthchg.com). She is the author of more than 20 books including the popular Breakthrough Strategies to Teach and Counsel Troubled Youth Series. She annually trains thousands of teachers, counselors and youth workers.
Source: www.isnare.com
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| Family.org |
| Offers practical help for marriage and child-rearing. Recent magazine articles, letters from Dr. James Dobson, news, and RealAudio broadcasts. |
| www.family.org |
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| FamilyFun: Fun stuff for Kids, Parents - and More Family Fun |
| Family Fun is your online source for arts and crafts, recipes, and parties for every holiday, plus hundreds of ideas for kid crafts, birthday cakes, ... |
| familyfun.go.com |
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| Family.ca |
| Take polls, rant and rave on Canada's family broadcaster site. Full of shockwave games, animation and information about the shows they carry. |
| www.family.ca |
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| Family.com - closed beta |
| Features a to do list, calendar, and recommended sites for health, shopping, and recipes. |
| family.go.com |
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| FamilySearch.org - Family History and Genealogy Records |
| Search for family ancestors. Billions of free family tree, family history, ancestry, genealogy and census records. |
| www.familysearch.org |
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| Family - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), ... Members of the nuclear family use descriptive kinship terms: ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Family (biology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| The concept of rank at that time was still in statu nascendi, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera, ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Family Guy |
| The official Family Guy website with everything you ever wanted to know about the show and more. |
| www.familyguy.com |
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| Parenting advice, child development and family reference at ... |
| FamilyEducation.com provides parents with educational printables, games, activities, parenting ideas, tips, family advice, and information on learning ... |
| www.familyeducation.com |
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| Family Life Today |
| FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ, provides practical, biblical tools to strengthen marriage and family relationships, including the ... |
| www.familylife.com |
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| WorldVillage - A Family Friendly Portal for Families, Kids, Adults ... |
| WorldVillage is for families, kids, adults, parents and teachers. Features include coupon codes, online games, downloads, internet monitoring and internet ... |
| www.worldvillage.com |
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| Open Directory - Home: Family |
| Family Check-up - Provides assessment activities and access to educational materials related to family health with respect to family life, finances, ... |
| dmoz.org |
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| Free Family Ecards, Family Greeting Cards, Family Greetings, Cards ... |
| Express your appreciation to your family/ loved ones for all that they have ... Reach out to your friend/ family/ loved one and let them know how much you ... |
| cards.123greetings.com |
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| kids and family news articles - arizona education - arizona family ... |
| Family News Articles - azcentral.com provides articles and reports on Arizona education and Arizona family events. |
| www.azcentral.com |
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| Google Directory - Home > Family |
| Many articles dealing with a wide range of topics from single parenting, family life, child development and stress management. ... |
| www.google.com |
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| Family Research Council: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 |
| Christian organization promoting the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built. Provides links, commentary, news, ... |
| www.frc.org |
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| Sesame Workshop - Home Page |
| The non-profit educational organization behind the show and related educational outreach. |
| www.sesameworkshop.org |
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| National Sex Offender Registry |
| Free national US search for registered sex offenders. Map registered sex offenders to see who lives in your area. |
| www.familywatchdog.us |
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| FHI Family Health International |
| Provides the highest quality research, education and services in family planning, STDs/HIV and family health to improve the health and well-being of ... |
| www.fhi.org |
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| National Family Caregivers Association |
| Caregiving advocacy organization with tips and statistics on caregiving in America. |
| www.nfcacares.org |
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