Parenting Your Complex Child: Become a Powerful Advocate for the Autistic, Down Syndrome, PDD, Bipolar, or Other Special-Needs Child

I thought Peggy Lou's book was great!! I have a son with down syndrome and autism and this book gave me so much information. Peggy Lou gave me encouragement about getting out in the world and not to be afraid to help my son make a difference in our community.I home school my son so getting out is good for both of us! She has great ideas all the way through her book about doctor visits, school meetings, going out in public, strategies that helped her with caregivers and the list goes on. She seems to be a wonderful mother and advocate!!!

Here's a powerful, different system for gathering information about a child and planning for daily life: Morgan is both the parent of a complex child and a professional working with special-needs clients, so her dual expertise lends to a book which covers working more effectively with doctors, caregivers, and others. Create a life that supports both child and the entire family using the tips in Parenting Your Complex Child.

I am a friend of Peggy Lou Morgan and Larry her husband. I have worshiped with her in church and my wife, Dorothy, and I have been guests in their home. A more lengthy review will be posted on Peggy's blogsite. This is a painful and personal account of her struggles to lovingly care for a human being others woould think unlovable. Her persistent struggle with herself and the world of professionals is carefully documented. This book should be required reading by the professionals whose lives touch the world of the "Billy Rays" and their caregivers. Her journey reminded me of the observation made by Professor Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University. He wrote of his worship experience with "retarded" people, people with Downs syndrome and the like. What he wrote stuck with me. He wrote that they have more to teach us about ourselves than themselves. What we truly are comes to the surface as we try to relate to them as Christ taught us. In essence it is this: To love another as Christ loved us is so difficult that we are made to realize that we must have the Lord's Spirit in us to even come close to being a loving person. The "Billy Rays" of the world, and other difficult persons, may be used by the Lord to test us. Only such encounters with "the fourth kind" (?) will we know if we pass the test of love.

This book is so practical, with great insights from personal experience, written intelligently and with compassion, and contains excellent suggestions and insights, not only for parents, and relatives of special needs children, but for professionals. This should be in the library of both the parents who have such children, and the professionals who work with them.

This book not only presents a real world solution of advocacy for parenting; but also for professionals, relatives, and others who really need to know the right questions to ask before forming opinions.