If We Could Hear the Grass Grow

Fülszöveg

Eleanor Craig began working with children at twelve, when she and a friend ran a Saturday playschool for neighborhood children, charging thirty-five cents for the morning, and subcontracting with a younger sister to take the children to the bathroom for five cents per journey. Since then she has worked in schools, clinics, and prisons as a counselor, teacher, and therapist; and has visited facilities for special children in many countries, including China, Korea, and Japan. The author has a B.A. in education and an M.S. in counseling, and won an NDEA Fellowship for rehabilitation of emotionally disturbed children. She directed the summer camp described in this book for four years, and it continues to this day. Her other books include PS. Your Not Listening, a best seller describing her teaching experience with troubled children, and One, Two, Three: The Story of Matt, a Feral Child, an in-depth portrait of the relationship between a needy mother and her deeply disturbed son. Her... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Eleanor Craig began working with children at twelve, when she and a friend ran a Saturday playschool for neighborhood children, charging thirty-five cents for the morning, and subcontracting with a younger sister to take the children to the bathroom for five cents per journey. Since then she has worked in schools, clinics, and prisons as a counselor, teacher, and therapist; and has visited facilities for special children in many countries, including China, Korea, and Japan. The author has a B.A. in education and an M.S. in counseling, and won an NDEA Fellowship for rehabilitation of emotionally disturbed children. She directed the summer camp described in this book for four years, and it continues to this day. Her other books include PS. Your Not Listening, a best seller describing her teaching experience with troubled children, and One, Two, Three: The Story of Matt, a Feral Child, an in-depth portrait of the relationship between a needy mother and her deeply disturbed son. Her current work on behalf of children whose mothers are in prison is funded by a grant from the Coalition of Children and Youth.
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"Each day I saw more clearly what I wanted. To have a day camp for troubled children. And spend one last summer with my children in this house. A final chance to reweave more smoothly the family ties that bound us." It was a summer that will touch your heart. Now, in the same honest, thoughtful style that made her previous book, PS. Your Not Listening, so successful, Eleanor Craig, gifted family therapist, teacher, and author, tells the wonderfully moving true story of her experiences running a day camp for emotionally disturbed children at her Connecticut home. If We Could Hear the Grass Grow is a funny, sad, fascinating account of what it's really like to cope and communicate with severely antisocial children on a day-to-day basis, deal with their violence, help ease their pain, and free their astonishing— often hidden—capacity for love and sharing. Eleanor Craig shows us how these seemingly unreachable children can be reached and, most important, can achieve remarkable growth when handled by a committed, sensitive teacher. Among her "special kids" are:
Rodney; the "Big Man," older than his years, tough, uncontrollably aggressive, and as much in need of love as of discipline. Maria, sweet, undemanding, and troubled, one of a large Hispanic family where the father has a history of manic depression and of being physically abusive. She spends much of her time in fervent prayer. Frankie; overweight and immature, who acts out his mother's agoraphobia by refusing to leave her side, day or night. Adam, abandoned by his young, mentally ill mother, and unable to communicate except in comic book babble. Vissza