The Growing Family

Lifting one’s head up to view the family landscape can transpire questions such as, “Where am I?” “How did I get here?” “Why am I here?” and “Where am I headed?” observing the loved ones growing alongside. This may also form questions to which we reflect on the status of their formation. Take a short journey with this parenting handbook, Growing a Family. This will give inspiration to parents and family supports to obtain essential tools to help cultivate the roots of your garden. In it, you will travel through parenting subjects that are attached to personal stories orchestrated with experience and wisdom intended to surface an emotional rainbow. Uncover the gems hidden within your ancestry, gaining knowledge of the “why” when turning through the chapters on the foundation of yourself as well as the precious soul of your child. Dig into the importance of family values and stitching supports to add individual and family strength. You may find comfort in a greater power as you read spiritual happenings written with an open heart poured out in the “Power of Prayer.” Parents and caregivers of children all ages can find tools to use in the unexpected storms of life. Helpful strategies and observations are to be considered when reading about boundaries, babies to youth, and the importance of how we communicate when turning through the “Talk to Me” section of the book. Learn how to look for safety issues that may arise when leaving your children in the care of others with the “Working Parent” chapter. Grow knowledge of things that may cause harm to a family if the unexpected happens, causing a shift of unbalance uncovered in the “Blended Family” section. Laugh, cry, and internalize the creativity told through the words to inspire all of us to nurture our future gardens.

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Expanding on the stories in her popular column for the website Waging Nonviolence, Berrigan has crafted a welcome antidote to the various parenting fads currently on offer from French moms and tiger moms and mean moms. She offers a unique perspective on parenting that derives from hard work, deep reflection, and lots of trial and error.

Families blend together for a variety of reasons. Widowed or divorced parents choose to remarry. An ailing or elderly relative can no longer live alone and moves in with his son’s family. A family chooses to adopt a child. Economic circumstances force family members to combine households. Regardless of why it happens, creating a blended family is a process of transition that takes time, patience, humor, compassion, and a whole lot of conversation. In Growing Into a Family, author Cynthia Geisen guides children and the caring adults in their lives through the many questions and mixed feelings that blended families face. In the end, it is love, compassion, persistence, and a large dollop of humor that are really the tools that will help young readers find peace and joy in their family’s new realities.

Join our MVP Kids in welcoming new additions to their families. The expectation of growing a family is exciting and can also be unsettling for young children who wonder how their roles may change. Children voice their hopes and fears and parents offer reassurance and joy as babies are born, foster children are received, adoptions are completed, and marriages bring families together. There are many ways to grow a family, and MVP Kids celebrate them all

Is there a silver lining to growing up in a dysfunctional family? Twenty-four survivors recount their stories—and the strengths forged in the chaos. Living in a dysfunctional family isn’t easy. But while you can’t choose where you come from, you can choose the lessons you take away. Bestselling recovery author Karen Casey looks at stories of people who grew up in dysfunctional families and “the good stuff” that can, ironically, come from the experience. She interviews survivors who emerged from the fires of turbulent households affected by abuse, addiction, or other problems, and reveals how they came to process their often-harrowing personal trials and, against the odds, triumph over their difficulties—using skills they honed in response to their childhoods. In The Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family, Casey reveals the stories and the skills they developed to live more creative and fulfilling lives, and not just survive but thrive. “Using her interviews as groundwork, she explores the benefits that result from surviving in a dysfunctional family, including resiliency, perseverance, a sense of humor, forgiveness, kindness, and the ability to discern real love.” —Publishers Weekly “You just can’t go wrong with Karen Casey.” —Earnie Larson, author of Stage II Recovery

"Growing Together" charts baby's typical development by monthly chapters from birth to toddlerhood. Black & white and many color photos illustrate the growth of motor, language, social, and cognitive skills. Sears offers parents suggestions on helping baby reach his full developmental potential and attachment-style parenting.