A collection of essays about parenting teenagers co-edited by Gail Hudson who was a student in my Memoir class for two quarters. She's quite an established published writer so it was pretty interesting for her to be a class member with the likes of me. Her topic of interest, greater intimacy in marriage, I couldn't quite get it all the time.
A number of months ago, I started using parent group as my 'topic' in my memoir class. Somebody suggested I read this book. These stories are written by some famous and not so famous authors. I read it with the idea, will these authors be in situations like families that come to Parent Group (some were) and will they use the same techniques, will they 'get it'? (they didn't). Some came close but just didn't make that final step.
Our assignment this week was to write two pages that referenced outside sources. Not necessarily academic but things other than our own experience. A few essays in this book worked well. One was about a parent of a middle schooler who started failing school, she instituted the familiar parent/counselor signoff sheet for assignments. Which blew up in her face with in a violent abusive way. She took some action, but she didn't quite get to the point of setting the boundary that this behavior would NOT be tolerated and acknowledge her part. A story about a woman who had her two daughters in emotional growth school placements which she seemed to be completely undermining. A mom who couldn't quite understand that buying her daughter's dream boots didn't solve any of her daughter's problems.
Not quite, close but not quite.
I did spend a huge amount of time searching the book for a particular story. I did find it but I hate to think how many times I went through it. But it was a good sources for my assignment.
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