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| eBOOK DYNASTY: NON-FICTION: Biography / Autobiography: The Apple Tree: Raising Five Kids with Disabilities and Remaining Sane |
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The Apple Tree: Raising Five Kids with Disabilities and Remaining Sane
| Author: Linda Petersen |
| Translator: Christine Sun |
| Publisher: eBook Dynasty |
| Publishing Date: September 2013 |
| Formats: MOBI, ePUB, PDF Horizontal |
| Languages: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese |
Price: US$6.70 US$4.70 |
| New Print Book Price: US$13.40. Please use the "Add to Cart" button below and indicate your location, or order through Amazon.com via the banner on the right. |
| (Please Note: One-third of the proceeds from this Chinese ebook will be donated to UNICEF.) |
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About This Book:
The six-week-old infant boy, with blue sparkling eyes and blonde hair, does not make eye contact with his mother who is trying to nurse him, because he cannot see. The five-month-old infant girl from Guatemala with happy brown eyes smiles easily, but cannot hear the voice of her mother. The six-year-old boy with dark skin and gorgeous black curls hides behind a large fake plant, rather than joining his family at the table for Christmas dinner. The Hispanic boy's joyful smile at his mother turns to a smoldering stare, holding the darkness within him. The seven-year-old girl with beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair does not love her mother, and tells her so every chance she gets. She tells her in American Sign Language.
Are these snapshots of five troubled families? No, these are the children of my family. My name is Linda Petersen. My husband Raymond and I have five children with five different disabilities. Our first son Francis was born blind, and we later found that I carried the same gene that had left my brother blind, deaf and multiply disabled. So we adopted our second child, Dinora. Declared healthy, she turned out to be malnourished and deaf and suffering from attention deficit, post traumatic stress and anxiety disorders. Still we coped. I worked part time and drove my pair to numerous medical and school appointments, while Raymond pitched in admirably on housework and cooking.
But when Francis and Dinora became teenagers and my schedule eased, I ached to do more. Raising children was great fun and I had the time, emotions and ability to give. Raymond adored children, so our only dilemma was how to add to our family. Since we lacked the money to adopt again, we became foster parents and requested only infants. Caring for and watching babies grow and develop has been an awesome and humbling experience. Although most were returned to their parents or adopted by relatives, we wound up adopting three of these children ourselves.
Each, it turned out, had serious disabilities as well. As they grew, horror stories emerged from their family backgrounds: beatings, sexual abuse, severe neglect, cocaine addiction, and neurological damage. Our family is a walking dictionary of medical conditions and psychological syndromes, some so severe that you would never expect that child to live a normal life. Yet our children have survived and thrived.
I hope in this book to share with others the approach that has worked for us. Acceptance and humor ease life's burdens. Patience and understanding triumph even the greatest disability.
Readers Please Note: One-third of the proceeds from this Chinese ebook will be donated to UNICEF, while the remaining two-thirds go to the author directly. eBook Dynasty does not receive any profit from the sales of this Chinese ebook. |
About This Author:
My name is Linda Petersen, and I am the proud mother of five wonderful, very interesting children. They also happen to have disabilities, but these have not been overwhelming obstacles, but adventures along the path of life. My oldest son, Francis, is legally blind and has obsessive compulsive disorder. My 25-year-old daughter was adopted from Guatemala; she came to us profoundly deaf, but was "healed". My 18-year-old son has a long history of autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and a severe sensory integration disorder. My 15-year-old son was severely abused prior to coming to live with us at the age of four; he developed dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). My 13-year-old daughter, who is profoundly deaf, came to live with us at the age of seven; her deafness is not a disability, but her post-traumatic stress from early abuse and her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have caused serious problems for her. ... [more] |
Sample Reading (in Traditional Chinese):
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