You Will Dream New Dreams

By: Klein, Stanley D.

Book Overview

A collection of personal writings from parents of children with disabilities shares how they were able to cope, survive, heal, and eventually rediscover happiness, and provides messages of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1575665603
• ISBN13: 9781575665603
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

as a sibling

As a sibling of a child with special needs, You Will Dream New Dreams helped me evaluate the dreams I have had for my brother in the past, and how I should change them for the future. It also helped me better understand my parents, and how they have coped with having a child with a special need. I would highly recommend this book to parents, and older siblings of children with special needs, and to professionals that are planning on working with children with special needs. I feel that this book would provide parents a feeling of support and hope for their child and their child's future. I think that this book would help older siblings understand their parents better, and why they have done things in life in a certain way. As for professionals, I feel it allows them an insight into the types of families they may be working with, which will allow them to empathize with the family rather than sympathize for the family.

A Gift from 62 Parents

It's been 22 years now since my son was a seemingly normal, happy toddler. It's been eighteen years since I first heard the word "autism" used to describe my baby. It was a grief from which I thought I would never recover--never feel good again--unless he recovered and had a typical life. It took me two years before I could get the word "autism" out of my mouth. Like the other 62 writers in You Will Dream New Dreams: Inspiring Personal Stories by Parents of Children With Disabilities, my life was suspended in time. Hope was in short supply. When my life resumed, I had a new and uncertain calendar before me which unfolded with my son's condition. I can recall the first time I saw a copy of Exceptional Parent magazine in a doctor's office. I was afraid to open it. I was terrified to consider that I might become a regular reader. Months later, I did open that magazine and closed it nervously after glancing at its table of contents, mortified that I could possibly belong to the club of its subscribers. Eventually, I did read it a little at a time and I found guidance and comfort there. What really helped was the first person accounts by other parents who had survived the crisis. I noticed that these were people who had rejoined time, found hope and even joy again, and discovered who they had become. That magazine has given voice to so many parents over the years. In fact, it helped me years later to develop my own voice as a father, in the Fathers' Voices Column edited by James May of the National Fathers' Network. Eventually, I met the founder and former editor-in-chief of Exceptional Parent, Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D., who together with Kim Schive has brought us a new and I believe a lasting contribution. Stan has been a colleague and a friend who has helped me to develop my work further as he has done with numerous parents and people with disabilities. I am an admittedly biased reviewer, and so be it. In You Will Dream New Dreams, readers will find real-life stories by mothers and fathers of kids with cerebral palsy, juvenile diabetes, autism, mental retardation, and a host of other life-altering chronic conditions and injuries. Their messages resound with courage, encouragement, and hope. Like the other essay writers, I am proud to have my words included in this volume--proud to be part of something bigger and more important. Pick it up, if you are a parent, and in each essay you are drawn to, you will revisit and discover a part of your story. Stay with this process and you can put together your story and develop it further as life goes on with your family. Find a piece here and a piece there that resonates deep within. There is a Native American proverb that advises that you cannot understand another person unless you walk a mile in his or her moccasins. So listen to life inside these moccasins, if you are a professional, and you can learn how to listen better to parents. They will tell you their stories, and in doing so will be able to ev

Worth buying and keeping, to use again and again!

YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS.That is what all of us parents of disabled children need to hear and memorize, and accept. Based on my own experience, the hardest part of having a "child with a label" is that one tiny little label can demolish dreams you've had for years. These dreams are not just goals, or aims in life, but the future we had counted on and desperately hoped for. Once the label is affixed to your child, though, you desperately hope and pray for any future at all. In order to move forward to that, one has to let go of most of the old dreams and a rebuild. THAT is the toughest part about life with a disabled child.YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS. And you will. This book is a compilation of many, many parents with children afflicted by various disabilities. Some will be milder than your child's, and some will be far worse. Some stories will make you laugh, some will tear your heart out and make you wonder why you're reading this book. But in the end, this book helps you to realize that you are in no way alone. Not only is God watching over you and carrying you through the roughest points, YOU WILL DREAM NEW DREAMS shows you that you also have a huge camaraderie of other parents, going through similar fates as yours.The book is arranged according to the age of the disabled child, from youngest to oldest. In the beginning, the letters are still too raw and full of pain. Again, you wonder why you're reading it. But then, in the middle, which is about where my life stands, you start to feel like, "Yes... this is me, this is what I am going through.... I am not alone." But the last third of the book is devoted to parents who have "been there, done that, and lived to tell about it". The amount of hope it offers is incredible. There is no advice as credible as that of someone who has walked the path before you, and these parents have done just that.You will meet, in this book, a huge array of parents, all with one thing in common: their child or children who are "not normal," for lack of a better word. Some, you will agree with. Some, you will detest and find repulsive. Some, you will admire. But all will help you in one way or another, no matter what your child has been diagnosed with. Everything from mild afflictions to fatal conditions are covered. I have read so many books on parenting a disabled child, since autism has entered my life without my permission. Many of the books that are written are about the "exception" to the rule, the one who got better, the one who was misdiagnosed, the one who 'such and such therapy' transformed, healed, cured, or what have you.I am not a stupid or gullible person. I will not help my children by hoping to be the exception, but rather by assuming they are the norm amongst their peers. I have nothing to gain by reading of miracle cures that worked for a handful of kids. I have nothing to gain by comparing my child to "the exception", as chances are - - my child will not be the excepti

Inspiration + Understanding for Special Needs Parents

You Will Dream New Dreams helped me deal with some of the feelings of grief and pain as the mother of a special needs toddler. I found hope, inspiration, and understanding in the experiences of other parents. I wish I had had this book when my baby was first diagnosed! You can read this book in small doses-one or two essays at a time--, which I found helpful as mom to a busy little one! P.S. - Don't forget the tissues when you read it.

A Gift to Families

"You Will Dream New Dreams" is a gift to any family experiencing the shock of learning that their child has a disability. From personal experience I can testify to what a disorienting and difficult time that can be. Professionals, no matter how well meaning or informed they may be, never quite have the right thing to say. Other parents who have been through the same trying time are the one irreplacable resource that can actually make you believe that you will survive and that your 'surpise' child will be a joy and wonder after all. Unfortunately finding another family to talk to can be quite difficult. Reading the essays in this book is a good substitute. The writing is heartfelt and full of experience, wisdom and hope. As a parent of a 'special needs' child I recommend this book highly.