Small Bargains: Children in Crisis and the Meaning of Parental Love [Hardcover]

William Garrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

A child psychologist shares stories of children in distress, including a young boy whose adoptive parents abandon him when they have a child of their own and a boy who adjusts to his short stature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing from his 15 years of experience as a child psychologist, Garrison has gathered portraits of filial relationships that test both the unconditional nature and the endurance of parental love. Among his patients are the adoptive parents who dump their difficult eight-year-old boy in a hospital; the miserably unhappy mother of an emotionally indifferent son with an esoteric mental disorder; the macho father of a boy who acts more like a girl; and the short father of a very short son. In describing these tales of parental expectations and disappointments, the book shows that parental love is given for selfish, as well as selfless, reasons. The words of the parents and the children, so authentically reported, are vaguely disquieting because of the tangle of pain and shame they reveal. Garrison does not preen over how he fixed these families up, but rather leaves readers to wonder whether they ever did find a way out.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Garrison examines nine cases from his 15-year career as a child psychologist in order to show how parents deal with children in varied crises. The parent-child relationship is unique, and when the child has a problem the relationship often becomes defined by that condition, he claims. The range of cases presented is quite broad. There is Paul, a 15-year-old, abnormally short boy whose parents encourage drug therapy to make him taller. Six-year-old Randy has an incredible IQ but no social skills; his mother emotionally withdraws from him because he shows no love to her. Two young women with cystic fibrosis are raised in opposite ways: one family caters to the disease, the other keeps life as normal as possible. When the girls die, the parents deal with the deaths in a surprising manner. Garrison provides observations, not answers. Recommended.
- Lisa J. Cochenet, Rhinelander Dist. Lib., Wis.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671786806
• ISBN-13: 978-0671786809
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,926,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)