Therapist Michael Ungar uses the struggles of three families and his own history to help the parents of difficult children.Family therapist Michael Ungar, internationally renowned for his work on child and youth resilience, takes us into his world each Wednesday, when he meets with three families with very troubled children. Here, Michael shares a side of himself that is not the all-knowing therapist: he too was a troubled teen, growing up in an emotionally and phy...

Are we sometimes too strong for our own good?Amid epidemics of anxiety and depression,threats of ecological and economic disaster, not to mention a pandemic, resilience has been the buzzword of the decade, the answer to every challenge we face as individuals, organizations, and communities. We seldom stop to ask if our insistence on persevering is really in our long-term interest. Does it trap us in patterns of behavior that no longer make sense, foreclose too soon...

How much do grit and positive thinking matter when the world around you is starved of support and opportunity?Finally, a book that explains why self-help gurus and motivational speakers mostly fail to deliver, and what really produces results."Michael Ungar's Change Your World shows that recovery, functioning and positive change in the face of adversity is not a lonely path trod by individuals; here lies the personal and social transformative power of resilience."-...

"An eye-opening and heart-opening book."-Bonnie Benard, Senior Program Associate, WestEdIdentify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.Now more than ever, counselors, teachers, community youth workers, and parents are striving to prevent individual and school-wide tragedy before it happens. Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescent experience. In this book, author and social wor...

Joey is not your typical social worker. He burns down houses to solve bureaucratic deadlocks, steals to get his clients bigger welfare cheques, and lies if it will help prevent his supervisor from intruding in the lives of his young clients.Joey knows all too well what if feels like to be a client. In and out of foster homes, his father dead, his mother an abusive emotional wreck, Joey puts his talents as a juvenile delinquent to good use, even when he's locked up in a secure deten...

Canadian children are safer now than at any other time in history. So why are we so fearful for them? When they’re young, we drive them to playdates, fill up their time with organized activity, and cocoon them from every imaginable peril. We think we are doing what’s best for them. But as they grow into young adults and we continue to manage their lives, running interference with teachers and coaches, we are, in fact, unwittingly stunting them.Internationally respected social worke...

“Our most troubled youth are far more resilient and healthy than we are ready to admit. If we take the time to listen very closely to our children speak about their experiences beyond our front doors, we hear an entirely different story about their lives than the one we adults tell.”Unlike many other books about difficult kids that reflect the wisdom of adults, this one explores the truth of adolescence. It builds on recent explorations of youth such as Mary Pipher’s Revivi...

In this well thought-out and lucid book, Michael Ungar makes a compelling case for us to stop bubble-wrapping our children. Healthy risk-taking is a crucial component of identity formation and Ungar provides a much-needed guide for parents looking to find the right balance between healthy risks and harmful ones.' - Michael Carr-Gregg, adolescent psychologist and author of The Princess Bitchface SyndromeUngar's thought-provoking book is both wise and practical. All of us pa...

Engaging and timely, this book is an invaluable resource for parents who want their children to become socially responsible and globally aware adultsAs youth culture seems to grow more self-centred and obsessed with "Me,"Michael Ungar shows us that, in fact, children today are as willing as ever to think "We." Given the right signals, and some important changes to the homes we live in, our schools and communities, kids will seek out close connections with the adults in their lives....

While categorization has always been one of the primary focuses of the social sciences, recent trends within these disciplines have tended to categorize various behaviours as disorders. Researching Resilience challenges this tendency to pathologize, and marks a profound shift in research methods from the study of disorder to the study of well-being.This collection assembles qualitative and quantitative studies from a diverse group of scholars and disciplines, stressing the...

Processes of post-war reconstruction, peacebuilding and reconciliation are partly about fostering stability and adaptive capacity across different social systems. Nevertheless, these processes have seldom been expressly discussed within a resilience framework. Similarly, although the goals of transitional justice – among them (re)establishing the rule of law, delivering justice and aiding reconciliation – implicitly encompass a resilience element, transitional justice has not been explicit...

Mental health specialists and researchers contend that the development of resilience in youth is facilitated at several levels. Relational, cultural, individual, and governmental factors all have a strong influence over the mental well being of young people. Resilience in Action looks at youth interventions with a view to fostering resilience in those living in adverse situations and conditions.In order to provide a practical approach to the issue, the essays in this volum...