Parenting Through Crisis: Helping Kids in Times of Loss, Grief, and Change

This book is most useful to parents dealing with specific crises. A good reference.

In this fantastic follow up to Kids Are Worth It! author Barbara Colorosso discusses how parents can help their children cope with changes like deaths within the family, divorce, remarriage, illness, and disability. The book is peppered with inspiring quotes, humor, and personal stories. The book gives great suggestions for parents to support their children through difficult times. The author uses what she calls the TAO of Family (Time, Affection and Optimism) as a guide for each of the subjects she discusses. She also reviews information on the three styles of families and the difference between discipline and punishment. She does expand on this by talking about restorative justice, which is very interesting. She does a good job of giving readers a sense of empowerment.My one minor complaint about the book (in fact, this is the only thing that has kept me from giving it five stars) is that some of the material was repetitive. She looks at each issue from a developmental perspective. She even considers the impact on the unborn in some chapters, which is impressive (I wish she had done so in all chapters). But she could have done one chapter on developmental stages instead, because the impact is quite similar regardless of whether the specific issue is divorce or death. I can't fault her for restating the information about types of families from Kids are Worth It! because that information is so useful it bears restating, and not everyone who reads this book will have read the first one.