Books about Absentee from Amazon.com

Take a good look around you: You can't go into stores or restaurants without seeing joyless children screaming, sulking, resisting their parents, or pulling things off shelves Parents, in turn, nag, complain, and often try desperately to ignore their unruly, surly offspring.

In today's world, both parents and children are suffering all around us. But it takes a catastrophic event like the tragedy at Columbine High School -- or one of any number of other frightening examples that make headlines weekly -- to get us to acknowledge that something terrible is happening to our children. We have lost touch with what they need from us to grow and thrive, and in the process we've created enormous numbers of children who are disaffected, alienated, amoral, emotionally stunted, and even violent. In The Epidemic, esteemed child and family psychiatrist Robert Shaw brings to bear a lifetime of firsthand experience with and knowledge of this plague, which has become so much the norm that we often don't even recognize its warning signs.

This bold and timely book tells you how to save your child and yourself from this epidemic, but its suggestions will not be the ones that today's parents are used to hearing. While the media is far from innocent, the bulk of the blame lies with the faddish, both neglectful and overindulgent, child-rearing practices that experts have promoted for the past three decades. "These children are not an aberration. They are the natural outcome of the way we have been raising them," Shaw notes. But there is hope, and Shaw's commonsense approach cuts to the core of the problem and shows us the cure, covering such important and controversial issues as:

• The myths and realities of bonding and attachment
• How to recognize when nonparental care is working -- and when it isn't
• Milestones in your child's moral and ethical development
• The difference between self-centeredness and self-esteem
• Why you must stop the media from mugging your child
• Strategies for bringing children back from the edge

The Epidemic is not just a "how-to" book, it is a "what is necessary" book -- a call for parents to take responsibility for their children and give them what they truly need in order to grow, thrive, and love.

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Explores how women in prison manage to mother their children from behind bars..
Price: $15.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What happens to a little girl who grows up without a father? Can she ever feel truly loved and fully alive? Does she ever heal--or is she doomed to live a wounded, fragmented life and to pass her wounds down to her own children? Fatherlessness afflicts nearly half the households in America, and it has reached epidemic proportions in the African-American community, with especially devastating consequences for black women. In this powerful book, accomplished journalist Jonetta Rose Barras breaks the code of silence and gives voice to the experiences of America's fatherless women--starting with herself.

Passionate and shockingly frank, Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl? is the first book to explore the plight of America's fatherless daughters from the unique perspective of the African-American community. This brilliant volume gives all fatherless daughters the knowledge that they are not alone and the courage to overcome the hidden pain they have suffered for so long.
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Price: $8.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Written by a veteran social worker, therapist, and men's counselor who has spent many years as a live-away dad himself, Live-Away Dads is a practical and encouraging guide for fathers who want to make the best of their relationships with their children after a divorce or breakup.

From his personal and professional experience, especially his years as a custody advisor to the Wisconsin courts, William C. Klatte is highly attuned to the special struggle of non-custodial fathers. He shows how emotions--especially anger, depression, and feelings of powerlessness--often control men's behavior with former partners and others, and he guides fathers in acknowledging and expressing anger more effectively. With guidance on dealing with the courts, working out visitation, communicating with the children's mother, creating a child-friendly home, and much more, Klatte helps live-away dads through the toughest challenge of living away ftom their children. Practical and inspiring, Live-Away Dads will indelibly change for the better the way we approach parenting after divorce..
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This is a story about a single mother losing custody of her young son. The author traces back her steps that would eventually lead her through the legal system and to court. M.J Kain offers her opinions of how one might avoid a situation, such a custody dispute, and how to deal with it by other means..
Price: $18.68 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Engaging conventional arguments that the persistence of plantations is the cause of economic underdevelopment in the Caribbean, this book focuses on the discontinuities in the development of plantation economies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the early twentieth century. CŽsar Ayala analyzes and compares the explosive growth of sugar production in the three nations following the War of 1898—when the U.S. acquired Cuba and Puerto Rico—to show how closely the development of the Spanish Caribbean's modern economic and social class systems is linked to the history of the U.S. sugar industry during its greatest period of expansion and consolidation.

Ayala examines patterns of investment and principal groups of investors, interactions between U.S. capitalists and native planters, contrasts between new and old regions of sugar monoculture, the historical formation of the working class on sugar plantations, and patterns of labor migration. In contrast to most studies of the Spanish Caribbean, which focus on only one country, his account places the history of U.S. colonialism in the region, and the history of plantation agriculture across the region, in comparative perspective..
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In The Prodigal Father, Mark Bryan addresses this important social issue by offering a proven program to help fathers assume a vital role in their children's lives. "Through my work and my own experience as an absent father, I've come to realize that what we call 'deadbeat dads' are actually broken-hearted dads," says Bryan. "Living in shame and denial about the pain of their loss (even when they were the ones who decided to give up their kids), these men feel hopeless and overwhelmed at the thought of attempting a reunion."

Mark Bryan knows the problems of men who are divorced and don't see their kids as often as they would like, as well as those of the men who have totally lost touch with their children. He knows the guilt and shame they feel, the pangs at holiday times, the wrench when a father is alone and sees other fathers playing with their kids, taking them to school, waiting with them in the line at McDonald's. He knows how fathers wonder how they got "out of the picture," how they became "extraneous." He also knows that kids miss their fathers as much as their fathers miss them. He knows this because he is a reunited father himself, and because he has reunited many fathers with their children through his Father Project workshops. Bryan tells many of their stories, and his own, in this book. In The Prodigal Father, Bryan recounts, in detail, the steps he took that led finally to the close relationship that he and his son Scott now enjoy.

More recently, working with small groups of men around the country, Bryan developed an eight-step program to lead men from estrangement to reunion. Many men who never expected to see their children again now see them regularly, participate in decisions in their day-to-day lives, and enjoy the richness and joy only children can provide. Bryan's carefully conceived plan helps men negotiate the sensitive and potentially explosive path back.  

It includes:
        
Acknowledging the loss and the pain
        
Taking steps to regain self-respect and become the man you'd want to father your children
          
Making amends to your child's mother
          
Planning the meeting with your child
          
Reuniting
          
Recognizing the specific needs of your child at each age
          
Establishing an ongoing relationship; becoming close
          
Embracing your child's extended family; the stepfather and half sisters and brothers.

                
A special chapter is addressed to mothers, urging them to help in the reunion process. Bryan's message will bring hope and happiness not only to the men who find their way back, but to their children, so often silent about their deep grief over the separation, and to the mothers long overburdened by the responsibilities of single parenthood.
        
Says Bryan: "I will be touring to more than twenty cities to get the message of Reunion for Fathers across.  Will you help me reach those millions of fathers and mothers whose distance keeps their children from knowing their fathers?  Will you help those 21 million children who never see their fathers live fuller lives and gain a love they so fervently need?  I am asking your help to bring this message to your audience. For this is not just a book. It is a mission.".
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This in-depth and informative study of fathering at risk emphasizes the importance of a father's presence in a child's life, and then concentrates on what society can do to reverse the dangerous trend toward absentee fathers. Complete with case studies, discussion questions at the end of each chapter, an appendix of father's organizations and websites, plus numerous references for further reading, this thoroughly researched and forward-looking discussion makes an excellent contribution to addressing a serious social problem..
Price: $8.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A morality about Irish landlords living in England who ignore their natural duties and station in life..
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