cover image Hope for the Journey: Helping Children Through Good Times and Bad: A Story-Building Guide for Parents, Teachers, and Therapists

Hope for the Journey: Helping Children Through Good Times and Bad: A Story-Building Guide for Parents, Teachers, and Therapists

Rick Snyder, C. R. Snyder, J. William Cook. Basic Books, $30 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-8133-3156-0

Stories offer children a natural way to learn concepts of hopefulness and productive working toward goals, suggest the authors, three psychologists and a pediatrics professor. In explaining how children can be helped to find hope in their daily lives, the authors describe the stages in people's thinking, particularly about goals. After identifying a goal or problem--that is, something that needs changing--people have to devise ways to reach that goal. Once, this effort, called waypower here, is activated, willpower, the ability to ""get psyched"" and stick to the task, is required. According to the authors, the application of both waypower and willpower yields hope. Dozens of stories about children conquering adversity, from everyday problems like being afraid of the dark to more serious issues like anxiety and depression, are offered. Parents and teachers can customize these stories to deliver a message of hope to individual children facing any circumstances. An annotated bibliography of children's books on hope-related topics is invaluable. There may be little earth-shakingly new in this approach to helping kids develop positive views of themselves and their futures, but it's unlikely parents could hear too often a reminder of how powerful a synergy is created by the blend of story and hope. (Nov.)