Views from Our Shoes: Growing Up With a Brother or Sister With Special Needs
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Book Reviews of Views from Our Shoes: Growing Up With a Brother or Sister With Special Needs
Book Review: Sister of a brother w/special needs and SLP
Summary: 5 Stars
Views from Our Shoes is a wonderful collection of stories. I enjoy it every time I read it, and take something new from it each time. The first time I read this book, it helped me understand myself better. It helps to know that there are other siblings who have the same range of emotions towards their special siblings that I have toward mine. The essays do not hold back any feelings, which is important for helping other individuals.
I would highly recommend this book to siblings and parents of children with special needs. I think that siblings, both younger and older would benefit from reading this book. Especially if they have never met any other siblings of individuals with special needs. This book would also benefit parents and help them understand the feelings of their "normal" child. Children with special needs can demand a lot of attention, and their siblings will often fade into the background willingly, and it is important for parents not to let their children do this. Even though siblings may put themselves on the back burner, it can create bad relationships among family members in the future. Views from Our Shoes would be a wonderful book for children and parents to read to help them relate to each other.
Book Review: My daughter is not alone
Summary: 5 Stars
My daughter enjoys this book immensely. After reading only a few essays the first day she informed me that she was happy she had a brother with special needs. I wasn't worried much before the book but it helps to cement that idea and make it one she states outloud! She was also thrilled to find the guide in the back of the book on writing her own essay about her brother. While I do feel like a few disabilities are OVER used here and many left out, it's still a good book for kids in early elementary age. It opens my daughter's eyes to the fact that not everyone has the same disease or conditions. (My son has a genetic disease as well as a chromosomal disorder.)Book Review: good, but no stories with spina bifida
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall I was pleased with this book. There is a great range of sibling ages and conditions in the book. That being said, I was surprised that there was not at least one story that was specific to a child with spina bifida. There were several children with various rare conditions, kids with Downs, cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, mental retardation, autism, etc, but no spina bifida kids. The closest they came is a child who has hydrocephalus.
The market for children coping with a disability is sadly lacking in resources- books like this one are rare- and I would still recommend it to a family who had siblings, cousins or friends with any disability, including spina bifida, but I am disappointed that it was not included.
Book Review: Helped my 11-year old daughter with her feelings
Summary: 4 Stars
My 11 year old daughter read this book and even asked if she could read some of "her favorite essays" to us - she is the older sibling of our 2 year old little girl who was born 17 weeks early and she has cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, is tube-fed and chronically ill. Her favorite stories were of the ones that she could most relate to - like the little boy who said he did not understand why his sibling was so ill when she was born. I think it made my daughter feel like it was okay for her to have bad and good emotions about her little sister. I think it validated them.Book Review: Excellent book for everyone.
Summary: 5 Stars
Donald Meyer has compiled a wonderful book of essays from siblings of disabled children. My thirty year old son bought me this book for my birthday. Growing up, I too was one of these children and would have truly benefitted from anything that would have explained what happened to our family. As one of these sibs, I had to grapple with guilt, embarassment and also neglect from my parents due to the resources, both financial and emotional that were poured into my sister's handicap. My heart goes out to both parents and siblings of exceptional children. It is so much pain to bear for them and they feel even worse about complaining because they are "normal."