Product Description One of the greatest sources of pain to recovering parents is how their addiction impacts their children. We so often think kids don't see or recognize addiction. We underestimate how much children have witnessed and understood. There are many little steps you can take with your children to begin to be the parent they need and the parent you want to be. It begins with talking to them about your addiction, the recovery practices, and finding new ways of connecting. In this warm, instructional and one-of-a-kind presentation, Claudia Black offers mothers and fathers a language in which to talk with their kids of any age about drugs and alcohol. She emphasizes that children deserve to understand addiction for a host of reasons: They may be genetically predisposed toward addiction. Addiction is a significant part of who you, their parent is, and talking openly about it allows for the potential of becoming closer. You can help them to understand your behavior of the past and your commitment to recovery in the present. You can help the child understand how his or her life has been affected. Finally, because we live in an addictive culture, your children will have others in their lives who will abuse alcohol and drugs. The purpose of discussing addiction is not for them to immediately accept what you say, or suddenly forgive you. The purpose is that you're heard, so that your children will take the information, digest it, and make sense out of it for themselves. Based on her book, Straight Talk: What Recovering Parents Should Tell Their Kids About Drugs and Alcohol, Claudia addresses the value of talking openly about addiction as a disease, multiple addictive disorders, and recovery practices. This is vital to the healing process of the family. Recognizing that 'walking the walk' is vital to parents, Claudia presents strategies for reconnecting with even the very skeptical, non-trusting child as well as an adult child. For parents with children still at home, she identifies protective factors that lessen the risk factors and she offers hope and direction. Throughout this presentation are five young people, ages seven to twenty-two, expressing common thoughts and attitudes relating to being in an addictive family system. Statement of use: Claudia Black DVDs are created with the intent that a helping professional use them with individual clients, families, or in group settings. While a layperson may acquire this DVD, they are typically used by social services, mental health agencies and addiction treatment programs. Claudia speaks directly and passionately to the layperson - this is not a training DVD. As a layperson you may find that Claudia Black's audio CDs (available here on Amazon) meet your personal needs. About the Actor Claudia Black, M.S.W., Ph.D. is a renowned addictions and codependency expert, author and trainer internationally recognized for her pioneering and contemporary work with family systems and addictive disorders. Since the 1970s Dr. Black's work has encompassed the impact of addiction on young and adult children. She has offered models of intervention and treatment related to family violence, multi-addictions, relapse, anger, depression and women's issues. Dr. Black designs and presents training workshops and seminars to professional audiences in the field of family service, mental health, addiction and correctional services. She is a Clinical Consultant for The Meadows Treatment Center in Wickenburg, Arizona; she serves on the Advisory Board for the National Association of Children of Alcoholics, and the Advisory Council of the Moyer Foundation. Claudia is the author of It Will Never Happen To Me, Changing Course, My Dad Loves Me, My Dad Has A Disease, Repeat After Me, It's Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood, the Relapse Toolkit, A Hole in the Sidewalk, Depression Strategies, Straight Talk, The Stamp Game, Family Strategies, Anger Strategies, and Deceived. She has produced over twenty videos and several audio CDs that speak to the issues of addiction, codependency, recovery and healing.
