Book Review: The Carousel (2011)

Book Review:  The Carousel (2011) by Ursula Dubosarsky

If theme park rides could talk and dream, would wooden horses like to escape?

It's nearly Christmas, and it's time to pick up gifts for kids. Picture books are great keepsakes for young ones who don't seem to mind the repetition.

This is a heavy weight book with lots of pretty pictures, more suitable for girls than boys. This book can encourage young people to follow their dreams and not conform to set norms about who them must be.

My psychological perspective:

Suitability for children: 

Children love spending time with their caregivers. Reading is a great way to spend time with them. Allow them to fill in the blanks with familiar words, talk to them and ask them what they think would happen next. This is a cute little book for young children and would be good for any waiting room.

For children:

I think for young kids, simply listening to their parents reading and just looking at the pictures is a real enjoyment. While reading, you may notice deeper themes within the text. At least on one level it's teaching kids to break free from the mundane.

My Christian Perspective:

There are different religions in the world that believe in cycles. In the asian tradition, when you die, you will reencarnate. But Christians believe that this cycle doesn't occur. We are all bound to one destiny- eternal death. That is unless we decide to break free from this destiny by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal lord and savior.

My overall rating: 

Good
This resource maybe useful and maybe a decent use of time. 

My first thought was, this is a heavy picture book. Yes, both in weight as well as in thought. It was beautifully illustrated and can be interpreted at many different levels. Would be a great gift for little ones 8-10, or a good waiting room book.

I was provided with a signed copy from the author- Good reads

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Book review: The Little Book about God (2013)

Book Review:  The little book about God (2013) by Ron Rhodes

Understanding God, and his will in our life is an ongoing quest. The author pulls the bible apart to highlight 28  things we should know about God including, God is the father, the son, the holy spirit. God is eternal, everywhere, all-powerful, all-knowing. God is love, true and merciful.

The format for each chapter is easy to understand. The author start out with a main idea "e.g. God is, by nature, love. His grace is limitless". Then goes through the needs to know and verses in the bible to think about. The author then provide ideas/quotes to think about which bring out the main idea. The structure of these chapters is a great way to teach kids/teens but the content maybe a bit abstract for children without explanation. 

Just as the author recommended, it's got 28 chapters (2 pages each) which makes for a great one month devotional. I think it's a useful resource to have on hand. It's like a quick desktop reference guide. 

My psychological perspective:

Suitability for children: 

I believe this book is targeted at older adolescence to adults. The complexity of ideas would require explanations for younger adolescences. For adults, this book allows for room to expand your understanding of who God, according to the bible, is. 

For children:

As you personally go through this book, you may want to share some simple ideas/snip its with your children. However, you will need to judge whether some concepts are too difficult for them to understand and simplify these for them. The easiest way for children to understand these concepts is to use examples.

For teens:

Although they maybe able to grasp the content of these chapters for themselves, the application and the importance of these ideas may warrant further discussion with parents/peers. 

My Christian Perspective:

In Sunday School, we learned that God is love. It wasn't until when I grew up when the importance of righteousness came to me. So on one hand, God needs to punish us for our sins, but on the other hand he loves us. When my students ask me about other elements of God, I find myself dusting off knowledge in my brain. I find that I am unable to adequately describe and back up what I have said. This book is a helpful resource to read through at least once, then keep on hand for when a question comes up about who God is.

How can we teach what we do not understand? 

My overall rating: 

Excellent

Overall, I believe this is a great little resource to have on hand to remind us of the many qualities of God. However, it's not a resource I would be encouraging children to read alone. 

The Little book about God will be released October 2013. 

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Book review: Chicken Soup for the soul 20th anniversary edition

Book Summary: Chicken Book for the Soul 20th edition

I grew up reading chicken soup for the soul. And if by association, chicken soup always makes me feel better after symptoms of cold or flu. My doctor brother does the same, so I can't be completely wrong.

This book talks about love (how the man made a list about characteristics he wanted in his partner and how God granted a partner), (I love the story of how a teacher made all the difference), (about how hugging can make a difference), learning to love yourself, parenting, learning, living your dream, overcoming obstacles, wisdom but not as you know it.

My Psychological Perspective:
I think from my psychological perspective, the stories presented in the "Chicken soup for the soul" series are effective because they are from real people, and you can connect with the writer.

While these are not stories geared for young readers, they can be shared in the family and the stories don't go old.

My Christian Perspective:

My personal opinion is that we have so many challenges in everyday life, and how God helps us overcome these challenges is a testimony. The author wrote in the first chapter that the book was initially rejected by publishers. But when it finally got published, people kept sending their stories in too.

Each of these stories inspire others. If you have a story, why won't you share them too? Has God saved you through a miracle? Did you learn something about life today?

My overall rating: 

Loved it, and always have. This book makes for a great gift for young and old. I don't adore every story or buy into every story, but as with every edition, there is bound to be a story that was made for you to read.
Always have a box of tissues on hand, don't say I didn't warn you.

Chicken Soup for the soul 20th anniversary edition is now available on Amazon and good bookstores.

I was provided a review copy of Chicken Soup for the soul 20th edition by the publisher but was not otherwise influenced in this review. 

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Book Review: Three Hours Late (2013)

Book Review:  Three Hours Late (Nicole Trope)

Warning- do not pick up this book if you don't have time to finish it. It was a gripping account of a young mother based on an afternoon's time-frame. 

Yes, everything can change in an afternoon. Because I was so eager to find out what happens, and didn't want to miss any crucial details, I found myself flipping back and forwards. It would have been easier to read it from cover to cover, but the long-winded flashbacks did not win my urge to find out what happens next.

My psychological perspective:

This is a book written for parents, it's a book written for divorcees and it's a book written for adults. When divorce rates in developing countries being quite common, separation with kids is a serious issue of concern. Psychological literature is playing the catch up game with trying to understand why, how, and the aftermath following separation with kids.
Although the book is fiction, there are so many elements worth investigating as non-fiction. For example, Hopes of re-unification, shared custody, just to name a few.  Are we doing our best as psychologists and researchers to try to figure out ways to protect children?

Suitability for children: 

I personally don't think this book is suitable for children. And would only recommend to older adolescents who are genuinely interested in the read.
But after reading this novel, I felt an overwhelming urge to protect and assist kids in similar situations. 

My Christian Perspective:

Guidelines from my own Christian perspective suggest that divorce and separation is against Jesus' teachings. But there are exceptions to that rule, I believe. And this novel really challenged the "greyness" of such rules. In a domestic violence situation, should I woman stay? What if she was a Christian? These are all questions that the novel bought up. And of course I don't know the answer, but it's food for thought. 

My overall rating: 

Excellent

It was an overwhelming read and a must for anyone working with divorcees. It helped me get a better insight into the life and difficulties surrounding divorce, separation, and loss. Even thinking about the story now, I can still vividly picture scenes in my head and the emotions just come rushing back. 

I was provided with a copy of this book for review.  

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App review: Keep Track Pro

Monitoring is a very useful clinical tool, and it can be really handy for parents. How can we know if we have improved unless we measure it? How can we know if there are any patterns unless we keep an objective record?

With smart phones, it's really easy to have a monitoring tool beside you all the time. Keep Track Pro allows you to record weight, glasses of water a day, or anything you can think of, because you "invent" the category yourself.

My Psychological perspective:

We know monitoring works, at least in the short term. Keeping track of progress can be rewarding for people who are externally motivated. Especially when working with young people and young adults, having the option to allow them to record on their smart phone reduces barriers associated with traditional paper and pencil monitoring forms.

It can be useful to record for personal insight into patterns and trends of behavior. I find it really useful to have monitoring tools with clients to track progress before, during and after therapy. 

My Christian Perspective:

Our trials and tribulations are not forgotten by God. Psalm 56:8 talks about God recording all of our troubles in his book. I have found it helpful to keep track of both my ups and downs. And looking back at the volumes of my life, I have found that God has never forgotten me.
So at least from my Christian perspective, it's important to keep oneself accountable.

Overall rating
This is useful for tracking (1) weight (2) behavioural goals (e.g. walking, running, drinking water). And the free version, at least, is something I will recommend to clients as a monitoring tool prior to, during and after therapy. 

You can pick up KeepTrack and KeepTrack Pro on both Amazon and Google Playstore

Overall Rating:

Excellent

I will be recommending app-based monitoring tools such as Keep Track Pro to my adolescent clients. I think they some of them would be more likely to complete monitoring tasks on their phones than paper diaries. 

I will also personally be using some app-based monitoring tools for some of my personal goals. 

I was provided with Keep Track Pro for free but I was not paid for writing this review.

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Book review: Functional Assessment for Challenging Behaviors (2012)

Book Summary: Functional Assessment for Challenging Behaviors (Autism and Child Psychopathology Series) edited by Johnny L Matson

While working in a community child mental health clinic, I found myself searching for resources to help with challenging behaviors such as self-injury and aggression. This is how I stumbled across this text. Not exactly what I was looking for since it focuses on challenging behaviors within a developmental diagnosis (e.g. ASD, PDD), but still a useful read.

This text was well-written and flows well. As a clinician, we are always after evidence-based research that informs practice. And this text delivers short and concise information backed up by research.

My Psychological Perspective:
To me, using the applied behavioural analysis (ABA) framework to formulate the presenting problems of a client is helpful to both me, and the client's understanding. It's what I always say in therapy, "we are more likely to do something again if we have been rewarded for it". And so, as the text describes, it's about finding the function of the challenging behavior. The review of case studies the authors presented was able to vividly present the importance and use of functional assessment.

The authors labor on about how functional assessments are implemented, which undoubtedly would be useful detail for a beginning practitioner or college student. The authors highlighted the importance of measurement, and if my clients would do the measurements, I am sure I would have more useful information for my baseline, treatment and outcomes. But sometimes I wonder what type of measurements would be most useful for clients, and I wish the authors could have addressed this more from a consumer's perspective.

And intuitively,  the authors present research based treatments that follow on from functional assessments.

My Christian Perspective:

I actually gave a talk about functional assessments for children's sunday school at a local church not too long ago. I emphasized similar points to the text- that it's crucial to understand the function of behavior we consider challenging. There are several outcomes of this (1) we let the behavior slide, because we understand the need and there is no risk to the child or others (2) we prevent or redirect the behavior (3) we give consequences to the behavior that means the child will choose not to do it again.

All this makes logical sense. But I think there are things we as humans can't understand with logic, because we are also emotional, and spiritual.

I believe that the authors rightly focused on challenging behaviors in children with ASD, PDD because challenging behaviors are highly prevalent in that sample, and also because when we consider other children/adults, there are more complicated domains we need to consider.

It is my hope that we take time to understand child behaviors, not only to change misbehavior, but in someway, understand what Jesus was talking about more. Mark 10:13-16.

My overall rating: 

I believe that this is a useful resource for college students as well as clinicians practicing in evidence-based child mental health. The editors were able to summarize pertinent research in a wide area and condense it into a logical sequence. They were able to describe challenging behaviors and the importance of functional assessments. 

Functional Assessment for Challenging Behaviors is available now through Springer and amazon .

I was provided a review copy of Functional Assessment for Challenging Behaviors by the publisher but was not otherwise influenced in this review. 

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Movie Review: Despicable Me 2 (2013)

Movie Summary: Despicable Me 2 (2013)

My sunday school kids had been talking about this since last year. And so I caved and finally watched it. Despicable Me 2 follows on from the original movie. Gru is no longer a villain and is bringing up girls based on his business ventures as a single parent. However, his help is needed to save the world. And an unlikely uncoordinated female agent becomes his partner in crime *um... *I mean partner to save the world. 

My psychological perspective:

Suitability for children: 

I believe that this movie is suitable for most of the family. There is a fair bit parents can digest with children. Kids any younger than 13 should really have parental guidance as there is a fair bit of silliness in the movie as well as comical violence. There is a lot of focus on kids dating and dating of single parents which will require discussion.
It's a seriously funny movie and the minions are cute as always.

Things to talk to your kids about:

Good vs evil. 

Things to talk to your teens about:

Dating. Single parents.  Deception/ betrayal.

My Christian Perspective:

My other concern was the way dating was introduced into the movie but this is probably not the time or place to discuss my views. There is a little article on this matter at http://www.cbn.com/family/youth/burns-teens-dating.aspx. The article talks about radical respect for the opposite sex because Christ is in us.

If you are in need of an activity. This film is a worthwhile laugh.

My overall rating: 

Good
This resource maybe useful and maybe a decent use of time.

It was funny, but I was left wanting more. The original film was so successful because there were so many new creative ideas. The trouble with this sequel is that it's predictable and there were no additional elements in the characters. But that being said, kids love repetition, so your kids will love this. 

Despicable Me 2 is currently screening at cinemas near you. And I've heard good things about the happy meal toy. 

#despicableme2 #pixar #moviereview @despicableme

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