I can’t speak for you or Katie, but my happy dance left me feeling energized. Which is a good thing because Katie and I need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the new book…just as soon as the manuscript for my other project, The Caregiver’s Notebook, goes to Discovery House on September 1. Once that’s done, Katie and I will be hard at work to meet Kregel’s April 1, 2014 deadline for the Every Child Welcome manuscript. They haven’t set a publication date, but rest assured we’ll be announcing that date once it’s in place.
What’s In the Book?
Every Child Welcome is geared for volunteers who work with children’s ministry. It will be jam-packed with practical and doable inclusion strategies children’s ministry volunteers can implement so every child feels welcome. The book will include strategies to help volunteers:
Prepare ahead of time
When children arrive
Before, during, and after lessons and activities
Reinforce concepts at home
Keep kids safe
Communicate with parents
Find resources
Now that you are in the know, Katie and I are ready for another happy dance. Feel free to join us.
Are you a children’s ministry volunteer? What do you want to see in the book? Your suggestions will be considered, so please leave a comment!
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
Jolene Philo is the author of several books for the caregiving community. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. Sharing Love Abundantly With Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and Amazon. See Jane Sing!, the second book in the West River cozy mystery series, which features characters affected by disability, was released in November of 2022.
Different Dream is celebrating the release of “Does My Child Have PTSD?” with a book give away. Leave a comment by midnight on October 31, 2015 to enter.
Are your favorite special needs books from 2012 on the list? If not, leave a comment to add your picks to the mix. Thanks!
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
By
Jolene Philo is the author of several books for the caregiving community. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. Sharing Love Abundantly With Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and Amazon. See Jane Dance!, the third book in the West River cozy mystery series, which features characters affected by disability, was released in October of 2023.
Different Dream is celebrating the release of “Does My Child Have PTSD?” with a book give away. Leave a comment by midnight on October 31, 2015 to enter.
Today, May 24, is the 30th anniversary of our son’s admission to neonatal intensive care (NICU). He spent two and a half weeks recovering from a EA/TEF repair while we adjusted to a different parenting dream than we imagined when we learned we were pregnant.
It Seems Like Yesterday
Thirty years is a long time, but I remember the day as if it was yesterday. The sense of helplessness can still overwhelm me. Those memories of those weeks still make me cry. The thought of our son in pain still shudders my spine. We were so young, so far from home, and more alone than any other time in our lives. Our experience and the desire to make other parents feel less alone are why I wrote A Different Dream for My Child and Different Dream Parenting.
But This Is Today
Two books can’t reach every parent with a newborn or child in intensive care. So when a friend (one of the contributors to Different Dream Parenting) passed along the name of a website, www.survivalmodeparent.org. The site was created by the friend of a mother who had a long, hard hospital stay with her child. This friend decided to do something to help parents. She created the website which matches parents in NICU or PICUs at major children’s hospitals with volunteers in the area. Thirty years ago, an organization like that wasn’t possible. Today, thanks to the internet, it is.
You Can Volunteer
Thanks to the internet, you can learn how to volunteer with Survival Mode Parent, too. The organization needs volunteers to support parents with kids in intensive care. But they also need items for a fundraising raffle and for intensive care survival kits. Even if you don’t become a volunteer with this organization, check out this post about ways to support parents who have a child in intensive care and pick one of the things to do. Do it in honor of a parent who sat by a child’s bedside in the hospital. Or do it in honor of my son, Allen, who turned 30 yesterday and will be a first time daddy this September.
Leave a Comment
Have you spent time with a child in the hospital? Leave a comment about your experience and tell us what encouraged you the most during that stay. I’d start by telling the story of when we locked our keys in the car, and an old woman stripped down to her skivvies on a busy road in a vain attempt to reach them. But you wouldn’t believe the story, even though it’s true!
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
Good news, good news for those of you who are part of the wired generation! An electronic version of Different Dream Parenting: A Practical Guide to Raising a Child with Special Needs is now available for purchase on Amazon.
Purchase Your Different Dream Parenting eBook
The digital version of the book has been available since mid-February. But because it has it’s own page, the occasion went unnoticed until I finally checked with the publicist at Discovery House Publishers (DHP). Hopefully, DHP will soon link the two pages as I recently suggested. They’re usually very good about humoring my requests. But until they do:
To purchase the electronic version of Different Dream Parenting, click here.
To purchase the print version of my other book, A Different Dream for My Child, click here. (No electronic version yet, but DHP is working on it.)
To purchase all three – which I think would be really nice of you to do – click here, here, and here🙂
To leave a comment about this foray into shameless self-promotion, leave a comment below.
Watch the Different Dream Parenting Book Trailer
Discovery House Publishers recently put the finishing touches on a new book trailer about Different Dream Parenting, too. The YouTube video is embedded below, and it can also be found by clicking on the Buy the Book tab, but I really don’t want to mention that because I’m already over my quota of shameless promotion for one blog post.
Comments Welcome
Once you’ve checked out all the links and watched the book trailer, leave a comment to share your thoughts. And please, pass the Different Dream Parenting ebook news along to your wired friends.
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
Fascinating Stuff: The History of EA TEF Treatment
Hey everybody, welcome to this week’s EA TEF Awareness Month Tuesday feature! As you many recall, in the January 4th post, you learned 10 reasons to mark EA TEF Awareness Month. Last Tuesday, you learned how being the parent of a child with EA TEF inspired me to do what I do. You were invited to leave a comment at the end of that post to be entered into a drawing for a free book.
For this week’s post, I’d hoped one of DifferentDream.com’s EA TEF guest blogger moms would guest post. But their EA TEF Awareness Month has been consumed with EA TEF complications in their kids. So keep them in your prayers as they advocate for effective treatments.
Even though guest-blogger mom Christine is preoccupied with her son’s concerns, she found time to send a link she recently found. It gives the most complete summary of modern medical history of EA TEF treatment either of us have found. After poking around at the site and trying to contact it’s creators, I’ve concluded that they are no longer actively tending it. Still, it is worth reading. My gratitude for several generations of surgeons and for parents who consented to experimental surgeries and autopsies on their EA TEF babies (long before the condition was named and abbreviated) grew with each paragraph read. Our children are alive because of these medical pioneers and grieving, gracious parents.
A Personal Connection to Dr. Keith Ashcraft
In the introduction to the history, two surgeons are given credit for compiling much of the background information: Dr. Nate Myers and Dr. Keith Ashcraft. My jaw dropped when Dr. Ashcraft’s name popped up. In 1997, he removed two-thirds of our son’s lower esophagus because it was believed to be pre-cancerous. His skill, compassion, and manner with our then 15 year-old-son were impressive. So impressive that in 2007, I asked Dr. Ashcraft for an interview while researching what became my first book,A Different Dream for My Child: Meditations for Parents of Critically and Chronically Ill Children. Many of his insights are included in the book. He’s also the fellow in the picture above.
Our family is so grateful to the surgeons who gave our son a second chance to live: Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Pinch at the University of Nebraska Hospital in Omaha, Dr. James Hopkins at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, and of course, Dr. Keith Ashcraft at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
Is there a surgeon, GI doctor, nurse, therapist, or other health care professional you would like to thank? If so, leave a comment in the box below. Think of it as a chance to recognize those who gave your child the gift of life and to add your personal twist to the history of EA TEF treatment. I can’t wait to hear about the people who helped your family.
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop-up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
By
Jolene Philo is the author of several books for the caregiving community. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. Sharing Love Abundantly with Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and Amazon. See Jane Dig!, the fourth book in the West River cozy mystery series, which features characters affected by disability, was released in October of 2024.
Different Dream is celebrating the release of “Does My Child Have PTSD?” with a book give away. Leave a comment by midnight on October 31, 2015 to enter.
It’s probably at some other websites, too, but those will get you started.
What’s In Different Dream Parenting?
The book has 24 chapters, 4 appendices, 6 prayer guides, and an index. The chapters are divided into the following 6 sections:
Diagnosis: From Ambushed to Advocate
Hospital Life: From Confused to Confident
Juggling Two Worlds: From Chaos to Calm
Long-term Care Conditions: From Trepidation to Triumph
Losing a Child: From Loss to Comfort
Raising a Survivor: From Fragile to Fearless
Each section has four chapters. The first 3 chapters in each section address the practical concerns that populate life for parents of kids with special needs. The last chapter in each section tackles some of the spiritual issues parents face.
What’s Jolene’s Favorite Part of the Book?
My favorite part is the dedication:
To my father, who lived joyfully
and with dignity in the face of disability,
and to my mother, whose love for Dad never flagged
during thirty-eight years as his caregiver.
I’ve been waiting a long time to honor Dad and Mom. Doing so feels grand, even though Dad is no longer living and Mom has early stage Alzheimer’s.
How About the Author’s Favorite Review?
My favorite review, which is only one word long, also involves Mom. First, you should know that she taught elementary school for 38 years. That explains this feedback after reading A Different Dream for My Child in 2009:
“I didn’t find any mistakes.”
A few weeks ago, Mom read Different Dream Parenting in one day. When she finished, I asked, “What did you think?” hoping she would mention the dedication, yet realizing the Alzheimer’s was fogging her memory. All Mom said was, “It was nice.”
“Did you find any mistakes?” I asked.
“No.”
Pretty rousing review, don’t you agree?
How About You?
If you’ve read the new book and would like to express your thoughts, would you do me a favor? Go to the Amazon page for Different Dream Parenting, scroll to the bottom of the review section, and click on the “write your own review” button and have at it. While you’re at it, those of you who’ve also read A Different Dream for My Child can write a review about it at its Amazon page. Positive reader reviews (usually a tad longer than Mom’s one word masterpiece and slightly more informative) are what convince potential buyers to actually purchase a book.
There’s no way I can reach every parent of kids with special needs on my own. With your help, maybe we can reach them together. Thanks, in advance, for taking the time to write an Amazon review.
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
