Life Will Get Better: Simple Solutions for Parents of Children with Attention, Anxiety, Mood, and Behavior Challenges, by Nicole Beurkens, PhD.
Full disclosure time! This book was written by my LENS-doctor, whose guidance has been invaluable in my efforts to become a healthier person and a better advocate. This information is important so you know my bias, but also to understanding this review. I'll be brief in some sections due to the fact that they are old news to me.
So as the title may clue you in, this book is not specifically about autism. It's a general strategy guide to raising a special needs kid and keeping your sanity at the same time. There are two reasons for that. First, many of the strategies that work with autism also work with ADHD and other diagnoses, because the criteria that define those conditions are... rather overly broad. Which leads to reason two, this doctor doesn't believe diagnoses are terribly valuable as a source of information, because she has a better source: the kids themselves, and their parents.
This is, in fact, a facet of her philosophy in general, which I found so charming I'll just quote it to you from the book rather than paraphrase. "My philosophy is that first and foremost these are children-- they are not symptoms, problems or diagnoses." Basically, Dr. Beurkens believes in personalized care: finding out what challenges each person has, and trying her best to help with them by putting her knowledge base at their fingertips.
Her specific recommendations are fivefold: nutrition, sleep, movement, connection, and cognition. Or, basically: what you're eating, how you're sleeping, how much you're moving and exercising, how your interpersonal relationships are, and what you're thinking. Don't be fooled, this is not another "just eat better food and exercise more and you'll be fine!" leaflet. The doctor has concrete suggestions for supplementation (as some people on the spectrum/with developmental disabilities don't absorb nutrients very well), and she also doesn't limit "movement" to "exercise." Instead, she talks about ways to move more around the house, and to include the autistic person in the family's activities.
Likewise, the "cognition" section isn't "think positively, and everything will be fine!" It includes an explanation of personal agency, or "how much control I think I have over my life" and common ways that affects your child. There's a section on increasing flexibility, which autistic people in particular tend to have trouble with. There's also a section on mistakes. Specifically, a section telling you how to teach your child that mistakes are a good thing, a learning experience, and part of life. Unfortunately, culture often tells us that mistakes are failures and a sign that you shouldn't be trying. This is a harmful mentality for anyone, but it's particularly harmful to rigid-minded people like myself. We tend to develop perfectionist tendencies, feeling that only the best possible result is the "right" one, and anything less is failure. This is not healthy, and practically speaking, it's foolish, but it's what happens sometimes. With this book, a responsible parent (or very forward-thinking autistic adult) can curb that mentality.
A notable point regarding the book's contents: they're unlike any other book I've read on the subject. While there's often a lot of overlap in "parent experiences" books and "how to help your kid" books, this book instead focuses on the more unique (but effective) aspects of the author's perspective on helping special needs kids. The cognitive-behavioral sections caught my eye most, because they're what I think behavioral psychology should be doing for autistic people. But really, all of it is good advice and solid strategy. I didn't find a single section I disagreed with.
Which brings up another good point of this book. This doctor is convinced that it is never too early, nor too late, to start changing things for the better. She repeats this a few times throughout the book, which hopefully helps drive the point home. I didn't start getting treatment for my problems until I was 20-something, which is far, far too late for early intervention methods. However, using some of the things found in this book, I've had a lot of improvements to my life and functioning level.
My last note on this book is that it's meant to be readable. It doesn't go into lengthy scientific concepts, or use tons of jargon in hopes of sounding smart and authoritative. It's written for a layperson to use, with sparse citations peppered throughout. While I'm sure the good doctor could have easily cited sources every 5th sentence, this style of citation is much easier to read, and interested readers can reference the back of the book, where full references are given. But it says something that's there's only six pages of references in a book that's almost 300 pages long. This book is not interested in giving you a long list of homework, it simply wants you to know it is based on the current scientific work. And that work is available for you to read further, should you desire to do so.
Full disclosure time! This book was written by my LENS-doctor, whose guidance has been invaluable in my efforts to become a healthier person and a better advocate. This information is important so you know my bias, but also to understanding this review. I'll be brief in some sections due to the fact that they are old news to me.
So as the title may clue you in, this book is not specifically about autism. It's a general strategy guide to raising a special needs kid and keeping your sanity at the same time. There are two reasons for that. First, many of the strategies that work with autism also work with ADHD and other diagnoses, because the criteria that define those conditions are... rather overly broad. Which leads to reason two, this doctor doesn't believe diagnoses are terribly valuable as a source of information, because she has a better source: the kids themselves, and their parents.
This is, in fact, a facet of her philosophy in general, which I found so charming I'll just quote it to you from the book rather than paraphrase. "My philosophy is that first and foremost these are children-- they are not symptoms, problems or diagnoses." Basically, Dr. Beurkens believes in personalized care: finding out what challenges each person has, and trying her best to help with them by putting her knowledge base at their fingertips.
Her specific recommendations are fivefold: nutrition, sleep, movement, connection, and cognition. Or, basically: what you're eating, how you're sleeping, how much you're moving and exercising, how your interpersonal relationships are, and what you're thinking. Don't be fooled, this is not another "just eat better food and exercise more and you'll be fine!" leaflet. The doctor has concrete suggestions for supplementation (as some people on the spectrum/with developmental disabilities don't absorb nutrients very well), and she also doesn't limit "movement" to "exercise." Instead, she talks about ways to move more around the house, and to include the autistic person in the family's activities.
Likewise, the "cognition" section isn't "think positively, and everything will be fine!" It includes an explanation of personal agency, or "how much control I think I have over my life" and common ways that affects your child. There's a section on increasing flexibility, which autistic people in particular tend to have trouble with. There's also a section on mistakes. Specifically, a section telling you how to teach your child that mistakes are a good thing, a learning experience, and part of life. Unfortunately, culture often tells us that mistakes are failures and a sign that you shouldn't be trying. This is a harmful mentality for anyone, but it's particularly harmful to rigid-minded people like myself. We tend to develop perfectionist tendencies, feeling that only the best possible result is the "right" one, and anything less is failure. This is not healthy, and practically speaking, it's foolish, but it's what happens sometimes. With this book, a responsible parent (or very forward-thinking autistic adult) can curb that mentality.
A notable point regarding the book's contents: they're unlike any other book I've read on the subject. While there's often a lot of overlap in "parent experiences" books and "how to help your kid" books, this book instead focuses on the more unique (but effective) aspects of the author's perspective on helping special needs kids. The cognitive-behavioral sections caught my eye most, because they're what I think behavioral psychology should be doing for autistic people. But really, all of it is good advice and solid strategy. I didn't find a single section I disagreed with.
Which brings up another good point of this book. This doctor is convinced that it is never too early, nor too late, to start changing things for the better. She repeats this a few times throughout the book, which hopefully helps drive the point home. I didn't start getting treatment for my problems until I was 20-something, which is far, far too late for early intervention methods. However, using some of the things found in this book, I've had a lot of improvements to my life and functioning level.
My last note on this book is that it's meant to be readable. It doesn't go into lengthy scientific concepts, or use tons of jargon in hopes of sounding smart and authoritative. It's written for a layperson to use, with sparse citations peppered throughout. While I'm sure the good doctor could have easily cited sources every 5th sentence, this style of citation is much easier to read, and interested readers can reference the back of the book, where full references are given. But it says something that's there's only six pages of references in a book that's almost 300 pages long. This book is not interested in giving you a long list of homework, it simply wants you to know it is based on the current scientific work. And that work is available for you to read further, should you desire to do so.
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