Dare to Love: The Art of Merging Science and Love Into Parenting Children with Difficult Behaviors [Paperback]

Heather T. Forbes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009

Emerging science has helped us to understand children better from a neurological and behavioral standpoint. Yet, all the academic research coupled with the best diagnoses for children can still leave parents feeling completely powerless. In her book, Dare to Love, Heather Forbes, LCSW, describes in detail, through a series of questions and answers, how to merge science into everyday parenting. This book gives practical, effective, and loving solutions for any parent struggling with his or her child. It will leave you feeling empowered, hopeful, and excited to be a parent, again.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I feel hope now. This method feels right. My favorite saying is, Compassion is the highest form of wisdom. This method is the higher way. --Parent

I have tried so many parenting techniques and read so many books over the last 12 years. Nothing has helped. This method makes so much sense. Somewhere inside myself I suspected these things but all I had learned in the past made me reject these suspicions. You showed me it is love, understanding, and safety my daughter needs, not more consequences that don t work! --Parent

This parenting technique and philosophy is one of the most powerful and basic ways to be a parent. It reminds us that being a good parent involves keeping ourselves regulated and recognizing that our children want to be in a relationship if we can give them the love to overcome the fear. --Parent

I have tried so many parenting techniques and read so many books over the last 12 years. Nothing has helped. This method makes so much sense. Somewhere inside myself I suspected these things but all I had learned in the past made me reject these suspicions. You showed me it is love, understanding, and safety my daughter needs, not more consequences that don t work! --Parent

I feel hope now. This method feels right. My favorite saying is, Compassion is the highest form of wisdom. This method is the higher way. --Parent

About the Author

Heather T. Forbes, LCSW, is co-founder and owner of the Beyond Consequences Institute. Forbes has worked with nationally recognized attachment professionals in the field of trauma and attachment since 1999. She is an internationally published author on the topics of adoptive motherhood, raising children with difficult and severe behaviors, and self-development. Forbes lectures, consults, and coaches parents throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., working to create peaceful, loving families. She is passionate about supporting families by bridging the gap between academic research and 'when the rubber hits the road' parenting. Much of her experience and insight on understanding trauma, disruptive behaviors, and adoption-related issues comes from her direct mothering experience of her two adopted children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 147 pages
• Publisher: Beyond Consequences Institute; 1st Edition edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977704068
• ISBN-13: 978-0977704064
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have!, July 4, 2009

By 

Nancy Hammond (Spring Lake, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dare to Love: The Art of Merging Science and Love Into Parenting Children with Difficult Behaviors (Paperback)

I have Beyond Consequences volume 1 & 2. Dare to Love really gives more in depth answers. It pulled it all together for me. This method has saved my family and I wish every adoptive family and foster family would go through this training. Thanks for helping us even more!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped me understand my son, January 13, 2011

By 

Cynthia G. Stine "Book fan" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dare to Love: The Art of Merging Science and Love Into Parenting Children with Difficult Behaviors (Paperback)

I felt so alone, insecure and desperate when searching for help with my adoptive teenage son. Heather Forbes gave me hope and reassurance. I read the book in one night and started applying what I had learned the very next day. This book has changed my relationship with my son overnight! It is amazing! Even though there are still many challenges to face together, our relationship is 1000% better. I understand that some of his perplexing behavior is fear-based and it makes all the difference. I realize that he is not angry and defiant as much as afraid, deeply afraid. Heather Forbes really gets kids (and their parents) with troubling behaviors. I cried the first time I read her books because she understood me and my sweet (albeit angry and afraid) boy. My friends with birth children don't always understand our approach to our son - they are much more punishment and consequence oriented than us - but the results speak for themselves. Love always works - I just didn't know how to show my love to my son in a way he understood. I highly recommend this book - and Forbes' other books - for any parent with an adopted child. Adopted kids are different from "birth kids" and the approach must be different. And yet, it isn't that hard, either, when you truly understand the reason behind some of those challenging and difficult behaviors. Heather Forbes has a Yahoo group as well which has been enormously helpful to me for connection with other parents like me who love our kids with difficult behaviors. Don't listen to other parents or to your friends, listen to Heather Forbes. It really works for me.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars With this resource, we can ALL dare to love!, October 16, 2009

By 

Karen Adams (Northwest Tennessee) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dare to Love: The Art of Merging Science and Love Into Parenting Children with Difficult Behaviors (Paperback)

This book is a must-read for all foster and adoptive parents, child welfare workers, and other professionals working with kids that challenge our abilities to help, and highly suggested for ALL parents. I am a biological parent of adult kids, and a foster and adoptive mom of children with many issues and "labels." I wish I had Heather's information when I was raising my now adult kids--what a difference it would have made!

I have worked through my own "triggers" and learned to connect the experiences and feelings of my own childhood stuff to why I reacted to my kids' stuff in the way I did. This huge breakthrough is thanks to the concepts and understandings explained in Dare to Love (and the other books in the series: Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, Volumes 1 and 2). Get all three; you will be glad you did!

I am now joyfully and calmly parenting my nine year old adopted daughter, who has a long list of diagnoses, and spent her life from age 10 months to age 8 in the foster care system. Truly loving unconditionally is something most of us do not have a parenting "blueprint" for--Dare to Love will show you how to re-write your parenting blueprints, and really love yourself and your children in a powerful, healing way. I don't even want to THINK about trying to raise this precious child without this love-based approach; truly, finding Heather's work enabled me to be the mom I always knew I could be and always wanted to be.

Don't wait, as I did with my adult kids, hoping that traditional parenting approaches will help you create the family life you want and deserve. Read Dare to Love, read it again, and soak up the love and wisdom that Heather Forbes offers to all of us. You and your children are worth it!