Navigating the Minefield
About The Book
Anyone raising a child faces “landmines,” and knowing how to navigate them can seem daunting. These “landmines”—external forces that can harm a child or block their healthy growth and development—can be detrimental to a child’s physical and emotional health and security. Mike Weiford knows. He’s spent more than four decades working with children, teens, and adults with physical and emotional abuse histories. He has seen the devastating impact of landmines on kids and those who raise them.
Yet some landmines are preventable, and Navigating the Minefield is the first step for knowing how to sidestep these threats that may pose a risk to the health, safety, and well-being of children in your care.
In Navigating the Minefield, you’ll learn:
· Important child growth and development information
· In-depth focus on parent-infant bonding, with photos to illustrate
· Positive discipline techniques
· Parenting skills for talking down an angry or threatening child or teen
· The power of forgiveness
· How to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect for future generations
· Why it’s important to help children develop godly character traits, including compassion and a moral compass
· Why parents and caregivers must deal with their own self-esteem, addiction, and anger issues
· And more
With workbook sections sprinkled throughout for reflection, Navigating the Minefield is a powerful, practical resource for anyone tasked with the gift of raising a child in this landmine-filled world.
About The Author
Mike Weiford
Mike Weiford is a licensed independent clinical social worker and recognized child mental health specialist with forty years of experience providing care to children, adolescents, families, parents, and individual adults. He has worked at The Center • A Place of Hope for over thirty years as part of the multidisciplinary care team. He currently provides care to older adolescents, parents, and individual adults in The Center’s partial hospitalization program in Edmonds, Washington. He and his wife, Judy, are the parents of three grown children and two grandchildren. They make their home in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.
Quotes from... Navigating the Minefield
In our role as entrusted stewards, parents have the privilege and responsibility to nurture and protect the children in our care.
Parents have the key role in promoting a strong emotional bond with their infants and nurturing their children’s intellectual growth.
There is no perfect parent. When—not if—we make mistakes, we do well to learn from them and receive forgiveness.
Becoming more aware of child development needs and risk factors can be a powerful motivation for promoting education, prevention, and recovery for ourselves as parents and our communities.
Unfortunately, just because someone has the capacity to use higher moral reasoning doesn’t mean they will always choose to use it.
Present-day young professionals reportedly are willing to move from job to job, motivated to obtain financial and job satisfaction goals in the short-term.
Teaching self-discipline to children is a vital part of the parenting job description.
Nonphysical punishment approaches to discipline bring out the best in a parent, and, in the long run, also in a child.
While social, cultural, and economic contexts can change from generation to generation, the core elements of child development remain consistent.
Shaming, even if unintended, communicates that the individual not only made a mistake but that he is a mistake.
Our actions are the most powerful form of communication with our children.
Teaching a child from a young age, through words and actions, that every human being’s life and safety is precious and is to be guarded promotes a culture of nonviolence.
Grandparents and other extended family members have an amazing opportunity to speak and pray positive vision, hope, and wisdom into a child’s life.