Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #301354 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 278 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Each year, 40,000 babies with disabilities are born, and another 80,000 children will develop a major developmental disability by the age of 10. You Will Dream New Dreams: Inspiring Personal Stories by Parents of Children with Disabilities includes pieces like "Hard Choices," on the painful decision to place a brain-damaged child in a group home, and "Getting to Know My Son," on a mother's struggle to accept and love a child with Down's syndrome. Compiled by clinical psychologist Stanley D. Klein and Kim Schive, a former editor of Exceptional Parent magazine, the book offers emotional support to disabled children's families and should help educators and health-care professionals better understand these parents' perspectives.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Knowing that "parents' strongest allies will always be other parents," Klein and Schive have collected from all over the country stories by parents of children with special needs. You Will Dream New Dreams is a remarkable parent's support group in print. The shared narratives come from those with newly diagnosed children, adult disabled children, and everything in between; their stories are short and unfold in plain language just what the parent suffering from informational and emotional overload needs. These experiences offer hope and encouragement and serve as a reminder that there are others out there who can help. The appendix includes resources to help parents track down local information and support. Klein is a cofounder of Exceptional Parent magazine and Schive is an associate editor there, so one can assume that this book will get ample publicity from that publication, the one most read by the target audience. This one will be requested. Essential for all consumer health collections. KellyJo Houtz Griffin, Eatonville, WA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Gift from 62 Parents
It's been 22 years now since my son was a seemingly normal, happy toddler. It's been eighteen years since I first heard the word "autism" used to describe my baby. It was a grief from which I thought I would never recover--never feel good again--unless he recovered and had a typical life. It took me two years before I could get the word "autism" out of my mouth. Like the other 62 writers in You Will Dream New Dreams: Inspiring Personal Stories by Parents of Children With Disabilities, my life was suspended in time. Hope was in short supply. When my life resumed, I had a new and uncertain calendar before me which unfolded with my son's condition.

I can recall the first time I saw a copy of Exceptional Parent magazine in a doctor's office. I was afraid to open it. I was terrified to consider that I might become a regular reader. Months later, I did open that magazine and closed it nervously after glancing at its table of contents, mortified that I could possibly belong to the club of its subscribers. Eventually, I did read it a little at a time and I found guidance and comfort there. What really helped was the first person accounts by other parents who had survived the crisis.

I noticed that these were people who had rejoined time, found hope and even joy again, and discovered who they had become. That magazine has given voice to so many parents over the years. In fact, it helped me years later to develop my own voice as a father, in the Fathers' Voices Column edited by James May of the National Fathers' Network. Eventually, I met the founder and former editor-in-chief of Exceptional Parent, Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D., who together with Kim Schive has brought us a new and I believe a lasting contribution. Stan has been a colleague and a friend who has helped me to develop my work further as he has done with numerous parents and people with disabilities. I am an admittedly biased reviewer, and so be it.

In You Will Dream New Dreams, readers will find real-life stories by mothers and fathers of kids with cerebral palsy, juvenile diabetes, autism, mental retardation, and a host of other life-altering chronic conditions and injuries. Their messages resound with courage, encouragement, and hope. Like the other essay writers, I am proud to have my words included in this volume--proud to be part of something bigger and more important. Pick it up, if you are a parent, and in each essay you are drawn to, you will revisit and discover a part of your story. Stay with this process and you can put together your story and develop it further as life goes on with your family. Find a piece here and a piece there that resonates deep within.

There is a Native American proverb that advises that you cannot understand another person unless you walk a mile in his or her moccasins. So listen to life inside these moccasins, if you are a professional, and you can learn how to listen better to parents. They will tell you their stories, and in doing so will be able to eventually dream new dreams. This is a valuable book for relatives and friends to help hem understand the treacherous emotional landscape for a parent whose child has special needs.

Now 62 other parents have a voice. When you have a voice, you have dignity. When you have a voice, you can make yourself understood. When you have a voice, you can connect with others; you can speak and listen patiently with your spouse. When you have a voice, you can command respect. You know when you have power, and you can accept when you are powerless. And maybe most of all, when you have a voice, you can heal your broken heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "The only true gift is a portion of thyself." In You Will Dream New Dreams, Stan Klein and Kim Schive have brought us a gift from 62 mothers and fathers. Take a look, open it up, you won't be sorry.
Special Children, Challenged Parents: The Struggles and Rewards of Raising a Child With a Disability

Worth buying and keeping, to use again and again!
YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS.
That is what all of us parents of disabled children need to hear and memorize, and accept.
Based on my own experience, the hardest part of having a "child with a label" is that one tiny little label can demolish dreams you've had for years. These dreams are not just goals, or aims in life, but the future we had counted on and desperately hoped for. Once the label is affixed to your child, though, you desperately hope and pray for any future at all. In order to move forward to that, one has to let go of most of the old dreams and a rebuild. THAT is the toughest part about life with a disabled child.
YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS.
And you will. This book is a compilation of many, many parents with children afflicted by various disabilities. Some will be milder than your child's, and some will be far worse. Some stories will make you laugh, some will tear your heart out and make you wonder why you're reading this book. But in the end, this book helps you to realize that you are in no way alone. Not only is God watching over you and carrying you through the roughest points, YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS shows you that you also have a huge camaraderie of other parents, going through similar fates as yours.
The book is arranged according to the age of the disabled child, from youngest to oldest. In the beginning, the letters are still too raw and full of pain. Again, you wonder why you're reading it. But then, in the middle, which is about where my life stands, you start to feel like, "Yes... this is me, this is what I am going through.... I am not alone." But the last third of the book is devoted to parents who have "been there, done that, and lived to tell about it". The amount of hope it offers is incredible. There is no advice as credible as that of someone who has walked the path before you, and these parents have done just that.
You will meet, in this book, a huge array of parents, all with one thing in common: their child or children who are "not normal," for lack of a better word. Some, you will agree with. Some, you will detest and find repulsive. Some, you will admire. But all will help you in one way or another, no matter what your child has been diagnosed with. Everything from mild afflictions to fatal conditions are covered.
I have read so many books on parenting a disabled child, since autism has entered my life without my permission. Many of the books that are written are about the "exception" to the rule, the one who got better, the one who was misdiagnosed, the one who 'such and such therapy' transformed, healed, cured, or what have you.
I am not a stupid or gullible person. I will not help my children by hoping to be the exception, but rather by assuming they are the norm amongst their peers. I have nothing to gain by reading of miracle cures that worked for a handful of kids. I have nothing to gain by comparing my child to "the exception", as chances are - - my child will not be the exception.
What I need to hear, feel and see is that my life is blessed by having this child in it. I need to see why, I know to know why, and I need to believe why. I need to function today and tomorrow by making it better for my child, and making her into the best that she can be, regardless of circumstances. I need not set myself up for disappointment when I could have just let my child learn, grow, and improve at her own rate, and be surprised countless times along the way, and just as proud as any other mom of an autistic child.
YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS does just that for me. It showed me that there are many kids with tougher labels out there who do so much better. But it showed me just as clearly that I am so lucky and blessed that my child is here, living, and healthy. I am so fortunate that my child loves to be held, or loves to be tickled. In many ways, I am blessed that my child does not realize that she is different from "the other children" right now.
This book has rejuvenated me, and renewed my determination to move forward with my little girl. While I still consider myself to be in the grieving stages, and while I do not expect my heart to stop breaking into a million pieces on a daily basis - - - since reading this book tonight, I feel stronger and more able.
Right now, I feel that my heart has been filled with love again, and "something" is holding the pieces together again.
As most of you either know or will realize - - in the kind of life we live - - -today, right now, tonight, this moment is what is most important. And this book can make that moment, however long or short it may be, a little better, and more bearable.

I highly recommend YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS.

Inspiration + Understanding for Special Needs Parents
You Will Dream New Dreams helped me deal with some of the feelings of grief and pain as the mother of a special needs toddler. I found hope, inspiration, and understanding in the experiences of other parents. I wish I had had this book when my baby was first diagnosed! You can read this book in small doses-one or two essays at a time--, which I found helpful as mom to a busy little one! P.S. - Don't forget the tissues when you read it.