Skip to main content

Book Review: Plan B: Empowering the Single Parent by Karra Barber-Wada


Plan B: Empowering the Single Parent! 
... To benefit their Child with Autism 
by Karra Barber-Wada.
Published by Future Horizons
ISBN 978-1-935274-79-7

Plan B is a book with a well defined and very specific target; single parents with children who have autism. It's written in a very positive way and contains a lot of very good advice, all of which falls neatly under a very clever strategy; called "plan B".

 The book is very well laid out and is easy to read with lots of clear sub-chapters. There are regular tips sections and some great real life story asides which show the techniques in action and put a human face to the book.

Some chapters have minor exercises designed to get you to focus on your priorities, budget or wants and needs.

The book seems to be geared more towards the "higher functioning" types of autism, such as Asperger's syndrome but I have no doubt that the techniques within it are more or less universally applicable. It also spends most of the time dealing with single parenting due to divorce but it has a section dealing with the death of a spouse. It's a book which comprehensively covers its subject area.

The main sections of the book are a long  introductory area which sets up many of the key concepts, then chapters focussing on effective co-parenting, finances, life balance and preparing your child for adult life. That last chapter is very good and covers some things I haven't seen in an autism book before, particularly the use of social mentors. The book concludes with an excellent "frequently asked questions" section.

It's pretty clear to me that every parent in the target group should read this book but I think it's useful for married couples too, especially if you're in a situation where one parent is considerably less engaged in raising the child than they should be.

I have no hesitation in recommending this book to people in these circumstances or to those who support them.


"Plan B: Empowering the Single Parent! ... To benefit their Child with Autism" by Karra Barber-Wada is available from Future Horizons and from Amazon.


Honesty Clause: I was provided with a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do Aspies Suddenly Back Off in Relationships (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the role that Change Resistance plays in causing aspies to suddenly go "cold" in otherwise good relationships. This time, I want to look at self esteem and depression; Self Esteem The aspie relationship with themselves is tedious at best. People with Asperger's commonly suffer from low self esteem. As discussed in earlier posts, this low self esteem often results from years of emotional turmoil resulting from their poor social skills. Aspies are often their own worst enemy. They can over analyze situations and responses in an effort to capture lost nonverbal communication. This often causes them to invent problems and to imagine replies. Everything made up by aspies will tend to be tainted with their own self image. This is one of reasons that people with Asperger's will sometimes decide that they are not good enough for their partner and that they must let them go. Sometimes, the aspie will develop a notion of chivalry or self-sacrific...
134 comments
Read more

Aspie Myths - "He Won't Miss Me"

I apologise for the excessive "male-orientated" viewpoint in this post. I tried to keep it neutral but somehow, it just works better when explained from a male viewpoint. Here's a phrase that I've seen repeated throughout the comments on this blog on several occasions; "I know that he won't miss me when I'm gone because he's aspie" Today, we're going to (try to) bust that myth; Individuals I'll start off with a reminder that everyone is an individual. If all aspies were completely alike and predictible, they'd be a stereotype but they're not. Each is shaped by their background, their upbringing, their beliefs and their local customs. An aspie who grew up with loud abusive parents has a reasonable chance of becoming loud and abusive themselves because in some cases, that's all they know. That's how they think adults are supposed to behave. In other cases, aspies who grew up in those circumstances do a complete about-fa...
150 comments
Read more

What is Stimming and what does it feel like?

According to wikipedia , stimming is; "a jargon term for a particular form of stereotypy, a repetitive body movement (often done unconsciously) that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner. It is shorthand for self-stimulation, and a stereotypy is referred to as stimming under the hypothesis that it has a function related to sensory input." The wikipedia article then goes on to propose some theories about the function of stimming and how it is designed to provide nervous system arousal. The theory being that it helps autistic people "normalize". I'm not sure how much I believe that theory - I helps us relax and it feels good... but normalize?? Not sure. The most commonly cited form of stimming is body rocking. Such is the prevalence of this form of stimming in Hollywood films concerning autism that you could be forgiven for thinking that autistic people stim by rocking most of the time. How far does stimming go? Stimming is much more than just...
204 comments
Read more