What do you think?
Rate this book
If Kids Just Came With Instruction Sheets: Creating a World Without Child Abuse
Book by Svea J. Gold
333 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 5, 2022
Svea Gold seems to have a problem naming her books and this has to one of the worst jobs of titling ever - not really what the book is about at all. The title suggest is is a parenting book and the subtitle 'Creating a World Without Child Abuse' again conjures some idea it is about adults. What this should be titled is something like, "If only there was a technical manual for kids: repair and reconditioning of damaged children".
On page 85 there is a spiral diagram "Bio-social decline" demonstrating how problems are always interlocked leading to the 'spiral of developmental decay'. Nutritional issues, emotional issues, metabolic issues, reinforced behaviour, allergy, altered activity levels, visual/hearing disorders, life events, imperfect parents, social problems and school problems - these kids always have multiple things going on and these are a downward accumulative spiral - leading for example to the now well appreciated situation of the majority of prison inmates being unable to read, are intellectually impaired, have addictions and all sorts of other problems.
So the book looks at many of these issues - Section one is looking at problems during developmental steps (close to a parenting book but an upsetting one). Section two looks at need for love (but failed to draw on the key concept of 'Attachment Theory', at allergies, blood sugar issues, sensory issues, learning problems , psychological connection and ADHD, then onto delinquency, nutrition, sexual abuse, drug abuse and genetic issues. Then the appendix deals with test and exercises for addressing many of these issues.
The problem is this material isn't necessarily well organised, nor is there truly a systematic approach to everything. Gold does seem a bit over obsessed with hypoglycemia too. So what we have is a breezy discussion with lots of good experiential knowledge; with good tips and advice, yet it is very difficult to apply practically. Also the big question for me is the chicken and egg problem - all these things are linked for sure and spiral into fresh problems, but which (what) is causal? For example a kid with problems has self esteem issues and learning issues and poor diet - did the poor diet trigger the spiral down or did self esteem from school lead to junk food addiction etc. Hence the unfortunate comment from Gold that kids bring about abuse on themselves - ouch - but that isn't really what she means. Everything is way more complicated of course and things do get worse and worse for these kids, but how do we unravel connections? How do we reverse the spiral?
On page 85 there is a spiral diagram "Bio-social decline" demonstrating how problems are always interlocked leading to the 'spiral of developmental decay'. Nutritional issues, emotional issues, metabolic issues, reinforced behaviour, allergy, altered activity levels, visual/hearing disorders, life events, imperfect parents, social problems and school problems - these kids always have multiple things going on and these are a downward accumulative spiral - leading for example to the now well appreciated situation of the majority of prison inmates being unable to read, are intellectually impaired, have addictions and all sorts of other problems.
So the book looks at many of these issues - Section one is looking at problems during developmental steps (close to a parenting book but an upsetting one). Section two looks at need for love (but failed to draw on the key concept of 'Attachment Theory', at allergies, blood sugar issues, sensory issues, learning problems , psychological connection and ADHD, then onto delinquency, nutrition, sexual abuse, drug abuse and genetic issues. Then the appendix deals with test and exercises for addressing many of these issues.
The problem is this material isn't necessarily well organised, nor is there truly a systematic approach to everything. Gold does seem a bit over obsessed with hypoglycemia too. So what we have is a breezy discussion with lots of good experiential knowledge; with good tips and advice, yet it is very difficult to apply practically. Also the big question for me is the chicken and egg problem - all these things are linked for sure and spiral into fresh problems, but which (what) is causal? For example a kid with problems has self esteem issues and learning issues and poor diet - did the poor diet trigger the spiral down or did self esteem from school lead to junk food addiction etc. Hence the unfortunate comment from Gold that kids bring about abuse on themselves - ouch - but that isn't really what she means. Everything is way more complicated of course and things do get worse and worse for these kids, but how do we unravel connections? How do we reverse the spiral?
Displaying 1 of 1 review