No Saints is Out!

I just received my copies. I am excited and a little terrified. Aaron and I strove to be brutally honest which also means exposed which is scary. That fear was what made me drag my feet when he was alive. This book is my why for so many things. In addition to sharing solutions, my hope is that other families see themselves and feel less isolated. Families don’t come to this road because we are gifted caregivers. We get here kicking and screaming, having tried every “fix” we could, and after so many mistakes. Truth is, we arrive with exactly what our parents gave us, except we have children who need a much higher skill set. We figure that out only after a whole lot of failure.

But through this book we also seek to offer solutions. For every stage along our narratives, I share solutions that I have found along the way. There are better alternatives than the school of hard knocks. My hope is that we support young at risk families better, that families take heart in the marvelous work being done in school mental health, and lean into nurturing our children’s strengths, creating opportunities for them to experience themselves as competent and resilient, as forces for good in the world.

We hope to not only reveal the dangers within the troubled teen industry, but also to help extend effective strategies like wraparound, restorative justice and trauma sensitive solutions for children who have been hurt. We share our journey through addiction and recovery, even into our broken justice system. But rather than leave you there, we share alternatives based in evidence, to give families hope, but also as a challenge to change systems to better support children, youth, and adults like Aaron and those of us who love them.

Here is an interview with The Reporters that came out yesterday:

A Mother's Warning: "Scared Straight"-type program propels her son into life on the run