Coping with Family Changes: Getting Yourself Together When Things Come Apart

Family changes often present difficult challenges for children. Separation, divorce, incarceration, death, re-marriage and relocation through moving or military deployment are a few of the life events that change families and often create puzzling feelings for the children involved. Coping With Family Changes: Getting Yourself Together When Things Come Apart focuses on the five familiar stages of grief often experienced by children when their family structure changes. This resource offers a student survey, read-aloud story and 21 reproducible student activities designed to help children move through the grief process and adjust to their new circumstances. Helpful parent articles and reference material complete this "must have" book for all helpers of children.

About the Author :
Janet M. Bender, M.Ed. is a retired elementary school teacher and counselor with 30 years' experience in public education. She received her bachelor's degree from Winthrop University and her graduate degree from The Citadel in Charleston, SC. As one of the "pioneer" elementary counselors in her SC school district, she assisted in writing the job description and evaluation system for counselors, as well as launching a developmental guidance and counseling program for grades K-6. Mrs. Bender's contributions to the counseling profession include mentoring new counselors, consulting in multiple school districts, presenting Developmental Guidance and School to Work programs to educational organizations across the United States, and authoring eight other educational resources for working with children and parents.

Review :
As a teacher, school counselor and therapist who works with kids, I could never have enough resources. This workbook is amazing for anyone who works with kids whose families are changing. Although most of the ideas are geared towards those experiencing divorce in their families, it could also be stretched for changes due to incarceration, immigration status, those who have parents who travel for a long amount of time, etc. The book has activities to use with kids, along with resources to provide for parents. It's truly a wonderful resource to add to one's "bag of tricks." Vanessa DeJesus Counselor Children are very observant of the changes around them. Sometimes these changes directly effect them, and other times they are greatly impacting their friends. This book gives permission to explore all types of changes (divorce, death, moving etc). I absolutely love the workbook style, it helps the client become the author of their story. The prompts on the pages help the child navigate the change. Because it is in a book format it is something tangible that the child can hold and go back to later when the feeling or question arises again. I believe that this workbook would be powerful for parents to have on hand when they notice their child asking more questions about the change, or if there is a shift in behavior related to the change. I recommend this workbook style book for educators and school counselors too. The prompts may support you in supporting the students in your class. Stephanie Heitkemper Counselor