"Parenting a Child Who Has Intense Emotions" by Pat Harvey & Jeanine Penzo

[Latchkey]

Parenting a Child Who Has Intense Emotions: Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills to Help Your Child Regulate Emotional Outbursts and Aggressive Behaviors –
by Pat Harvey ACSW LCSW-C (Author), Jeanine Penzo LICSW (Author)

Summary from Amazon:
Temper tantrums in the supermarket. Tears that seem to come out of nowhere. Battles over homework that are more like wars. When your child has problems regulating his or her emotions, there's no hiding it. Children with intense emotions go from 0 to 100 in seconds and are prone to frequent emotional and behavioral outbursts that leave parents feeling bewildered and helpless.
Other parents may have told you that it's just a phase or that your child needs discipline. In reality, your child may have emotion dysregulation, a tendency to react intensely to situations other children take in stride. Parenting a Child Who Has Intense Emotions is an effective guide to de-escalating your child's emotions and helping your child express feelings in productive ways. You'll learn strategies drawn from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), including mindfulness and validation skills, and practice them when your child's emotions spin out of control. This well-researched method for managing emotions can help your child make dramatic emotional and behavioral changes that both of you will be proud of.

Product Details
   •   Paperback: 224 pages
   •   Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; 1 edition (November 1, 2009)
   •   Language: English
   •   ISBN-10: 1572246499
   •   ISBN-13: 978-1572246492



Review:

This book grew out of a demand for information from parents of kids that were learning DBT skills to work with their teens. It covers kids of all ages so if you are still struggling with an adult child dx or not with a PD- I think this book would help.

As a parent and step parent I can say that this is a very important book if you are dealing with kids that are in any way emotionally dysregulated (acting out, acting in, moody, violent, withdrawn....) whether they have been diagnosed with ED or ADHD, DMDD, BiPolar, PDD-NOS, Tourette's or have never set foot in a therapist's office and have not been diagnosed with anything. The diagnosis is not important, it's about learning to parent a child that exhibits behaviors that are causing them problems either at home or in school or out with friends.

There are many here with adult children who are possibly suffering from a PD that will recognize younger versions of their kids in these pages. The book also deals with the impact a dysregulated child has on the family and also the blended family-- and how to help your other children cope. It also deals with the confounding but common problem of a how a child may act like an angel in one setting and then fall apart at home or vice versa.

I can't recommend this book enough to parents of kids of any age that are struggling to parent their child with intense emotions.

Latchkey