For every 1,000 live births in Alaska, between 2.1 and 6.6 babies are affected by FAS--a rate 6 to 18 times higher than the national average. Fantastic Antone Succeeds!describes in concrete, specific ways how to educate children with fetal alcohol syndrome/fetal alcohol effects (FAS/FAE). It communicates an optimistic message that is both true and appealing: with the right education, delivered by a nurturing individual in the home or in the school, many alcohol-affected children thrive. The book consists of separate chapters written in a popular and accessible style by psychologists, teachers, and birth and adoptive parents of alcohol-affected children. Many chapters are personal stories with emotional power. A birth mother, for example, tells of her anguish when she realizes that she has recovered from her own alcoholism but her daughter cannot. This mother describes how she dealt with her grief, how she told her daughter the truth, her daughter's relief at finally understanding what was wrong, and how they both developed ways of overcoming her daughter's learning problems. Other chapters describe how experienced teachers have learned to organize classrooms where alcohol-affected children can thrive and how therapists have learned to work with parents. One chapter summarizes medical knowledge of FAS/FAE and offers information useful for understanding a child's learning and behavioral problems and devising educational approaches. The book includes lists of important resources, organizations to contact, and descriptions of effective classroom practices for teachers. Without minimizing the seriousness of FAS/FAE and the first priority prevention, Fantastic Antone Succeeds provides practical tools and strategies that can help alcohol-affected individuals and their families lead happier, more productive lives.

Fantastic Antone Succeeds: Experiences in Educating Children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Education & Teaching

Kleinfeld, Judith

Schools & Teaching

University of Alaska Press

In the wake of national tragedies and an economic downturn, a popular Alaskan psychologist tells dispirited Americans how to find happiness and success--on their own terms--by recovering the confidence, independence, and optimism that is so vital a part of the American psyche. The key, says Judith Klienfeld, is to explore your frontiers: Ignore convention. Know anything is possible. Be true to yourself. Define your own success. Accept true freedom and its responsibilities. The author says even people in New York and Chicago as well as small, weary towns everywhere can explore new frontiers with the same enormous sense of possibility and promise that still exists in Alaska.

Go for It

Self-Help

Happiness

Epicenter Press

Anyone curious about what drew people like Christopher McCandless (the subject of Into the Wild) and John Muir to Alaska will find nuanced answers in Frontier Romance, Judith Kleinfeld’s thoughtful study of the iconic American love of the frontier and its cultural influence. Kleinfeld considers the subject through three catagories: rebellion, redemption, and rebirth; escape and healing; and utopian community. Within these categories she explores the power of narrative to shape lives through concrete, compelling examples—both heart-warming and horrifying. Ultimately, Kleinfeld argues that the frontier narrative enables Americans—born or immigrant—to live deliberately, to gather courage, and to take risks, face danger, and seize freedom rather than fear it.

The Frontier Romance: Environment, Culture, and Alaska Identity

History

Americas

Fantastic Antone Grows Up is a field guide to life with an adolescent or young adult with fetal alcohol syndrome/effects. Under the best of circumstances, adolescence is a trying time for young people and their families. The budding adult seeks independence and autonomy while the resistant child within longs for protection and structure; questions about sexuality and work, social commitments, and solitary accomplishments loom large and can create a family battlefield. For the challenged and challenging young people with FAS/E, the circumstances as they begin maturing are never the best. In this sequel to Fantastic Antone Succeeds, young people with FAS/E and their caregivers report on their experiences coping with the problems of adolescence and young adulthood. Again the editors and authors have concentrated on the wisdom of practice, as they candidly convey which techniques worked and which did not during the difficult passages of the teenage years and beyond. The twenty-one chapters are grouped according to theme. Section one discusses the meaning of success for adolescents and adults with FAS/E -- the need to define success in new ways. Cindy Gere found her path to success, for example, through creative expression. She graduated from college with a degree in fine arts and successfully completed a program in art. Many of her paintings, including the one illustrating the cover of this book, provide a poignant and candid expression of what FAS/E means to her. Section two discusses strategies that work in areas such as counseling, education, sexuality, trouble with the law, and independent living. Section three covers what families need from the community, including innovative programs that help individuals with FAS/E, and how to get a diagnosis at adolescence. The book also contains important resources, organizations to contact, and internet addresses. More has been learned about how alcohol poisoning in the womb alters brain function and physical development since the release of Fantastic Antone Succeeds, but science is far from providing the answers that affected young people and their caregivers need. Until such answers are forthcoming, nothing can replace the voices of experience with their practical messages of coping, caring, loving, weeping, laughing, and -- more often than might be expected -- succeeding.

Fantastic Antone Grows Up: Adolescents and Adults with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Parenting & Relationships

Parenting

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Books by Kleinfeld, Judith