Book Review - raising cain
- Caring for Troubled Youngsters/Repairing our Troubled
System
Disclaimer: This book review is my opinion of
the book. If you have a different opinion of the book that is great. I know I have loved
several movies and books that other reviewers have not liked and disliked movies and books
that receive great reviews. I think we all have. If you would like to submit your own
review, I may consider posting it. Otherwise feel free to share you reviews on the Forum.
Thanks.
The primary audience of "raising cain" is foster and adoptive parents
though the author dedicates the book "To all helping professionals whose labor
of love includes troubled foster and adopted children" and most of the
behaviors and many of the issues can relate directly to residential care.
Cain is the person in the Bible that killed his brother Abel and the author
describes him as the "first emotionally disturbed child" He uses Cain as
a metaphor for for troubled foster children, I think, because of their
behavior they are sometimes forced to wander through the foster care system in
the same way that Cain was forced to wander the earth as a marked individual
for his behavior.
I enjoyed "raising cain" not so much because it is a great resource to help
me deal with difficult behavior but more as an affirmation that behaviors and
trends I have noticed in the troubled children I have worked with are real,
others recognize many of the same flaws that I have noticed in the system, and
that there are others that want to work together to improve the system.
Though the book does offer some very good suggestions for dealing with
specific behaviors as well as difficult behavior in general.
The book only has six chapters, but each chapter is divided into
subchapters that address the individual behaviors, situations and
interventions.
The first chapter is titled, "The Children: Troubled Like Cain, Marked By
Their Past" It identifies and discusses 14 of the most common behaviors
that troubled foster and adoptive children have. For example: Eating
Disorders, Feeling of Being a Victim, Inability to Profit from Experience,
Emotional Immaturity, Family Phobia, etc. I often found myself relating
this to several of the children I have worked with as I was reading it.
Chapter two, "Our Foster and Adoptive Families" This chapter
discusses many of the issues that tend to either prevent people from wanting
to become or stop being foster and adoptive parents. Though I would add
that many of the issues are the same for houseparents and other residential
childcare staff. Topics include: Victimization of foster and adoptive
mothers by the disturbed child (I have seen this many times in my career.
More often than not, even though I am the main disciplinarian in the home, the
child almost always takes issue with my wife. Usually if there is a
complaint to administration it is about my wife.) Living a fish bowl
existence, Dealing with the occasional unhelpful, helping professionals, etc.
Chapter three, "Family-Based Strategies for Helping Troubled Youngsters"
This chapter includes a very comprehensive list of questions that can be asked
when trying to come up with strategies for dealing with difficult behavior.
I think these questions can really be helpful in getting to the origin of the
problem behavior rather than just focusing on the results of the behavior
Chapter four, "Sample Strategies" This chapter offers several
examples of how a foster/adoptive parent addressed a behavior in a somewhat
unconventional manner. Some of them I thought were not only "out of the
box" but out of the world and impractical others made total sense to me.
The greatest asset of this chapter is to help you to think "out of the box"
and realize that sometimes extreme behaviors need extreme solutions (AND I
DON'T MEAN ABUSIVE or PHYSICAL. Just unconventional.)
Chapter Five, "Raising Cain With The System" and chapter Six, "Raising Cain
Better" deal mainly with policy and possible reforms of the system.
Often subjects many houseparents couldn't care less about, though I do enjoy
discussion on policy.
The book is published by Wood & Barnes Publishing, Oklahoma City, OK.
Copyright 1998. It comes in soft cover and
is 135 pages long. I paid $17.95 plus shipping for my copy but today I
discovered that it can be purchased direct from the publisher at
www.creativesolutionscatalog.com for $7.00 plus shipping.
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