How to Raise Resilient Children in Our Complex World
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Being a teenager in today’s “age of anxiety” is scary. Being a parent of a teenager is even scarier. Zoomers may seem more together, more confident and more independent than prior generations, but in fact, they are more anxious, lonely and emotionally fragile, and less resilient to stress, says psychoanalyst, clinical social worker and parenting expert Erica Komisar.
“We are asking children to handle more — more stress, more stimulation, more pressure, more choices and more decisions — without giving them a secure foundation of support, emotional security, and real and meaningful connections,” says Komisar.
Her important new book, Chicken Little the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety, is a comprehensive guide filled with compassionate and practical advice to help parents guide, educate and connect with their children on a range of current topics, including gender and sexual identity, anxiety and depression, disordered eating, ADHD, vaping, social media and bullying, to name a few.
Chicken Little also contains valuable insights intended to help readers prevent, recognize and address mental health disorders, as well as help their teens navigate academic and social pressures, social media and technology usage, increased social isolation and family pressures. With Komisar’s guidance and support, parents will learn how to be beacons of hope and change, as well as how to raise emotionally healthy, resilient adolescents.
About the Author Erica Komisar, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and parent guidance expert who has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. As a psychological consultant, she brings parenting workshops to schools, clinics, corporations and childcare settings. She is also a contributing editor to the Institute for Family Studies. She is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.
Erica lives in New York City with her husband and is the mother of three adolescent children.
Chicken Little, the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: November 2, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757324002 ISBN-13: 9780757324000 Trade Paperback, 288 pages Available for pre-order on Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Learn How to Not Only Survive but Thrive using Practical Tools in New Book, Thriving Life
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Have you been struggling to live your best life? Do you feel stuck? Professor and trained therapist Laura Berg is a trauma survivor who understands struggle and knows how to overcome it.
Berg’s new book, Thriving Life, shows you how to transform your life by learning how to not only survive but thrive. She created the methods in this book to help people everywhere when they need a boost, no matter what is going on in their lives.
“For most of my life I felt stuck, as though I was just trying to survive life one day at a time. I found it difficult to move beyond the traumas in my past to live the life I deserved. I wrote this book to share with others my experiences and the lessons I learned that helped me overcome the obstacles in my life that were holding me back. I’m hoping that these stories and the advice I share in this book will help the reader live a more joyful and thriving life,” Berg says.
Thriving Life serves as a reference, with each chapter discussing a specific issue that many people struggle with, such as defining your own happiness, dealing with rejection and setting limits in relationships. With practical tips and a step-by-step approach to help you find what makes you happy, Berg will teach readers how to stop victimizing themselves and find strength in asking for help.
About the Author Laura Berg is a professor, author, entrepreneur, trained therapist and award-winning parenting expert. Among her many accolades, she has been named one of the Top 10 Mom Entrepreneurs, Savvy Mom of the Year, and was awarded YouTube’s Silver Play Button.
Thriving Life: How to Live Your Best Life No Matter the Cards You’re Dealt Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: November 2, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323960 ISBN-13: 978-0757323966 Trade Paperback, 256 pages Available for pre-order wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
The Message that Families Impacted by Addiction Need to Hear: You Are Not Alone
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When Christine Naman says that her daughter is “doing well,” the caution in her voice is palpable. Addiction recovery is a work in progress — not a quick fix — and Christine has learned to celebrate each day for the tiny victory that it is.
Her daughter, Natalie, was just 15 years old when she became addicted to heroin. They were everyday people, living everyday lives, and then the floor dropped out.
“It’s exactly where you don’t want to end up,” Christine said in a recent interview. “I was caught flat-footed, and I’m embarrassed to say that.”
Christine traces her daughter’s years-long battle with addiction — and her own struggles with denial — in About Natalie, a gripping, cautionary tale of how a child can suddenly end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her.
Interwoven with Christine’s reflections are Natalie’s brilliant poems that share her personal pain and the unvarnished truth of her struggle.
Full of compassion, understanding and hope for addicts, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It is a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and never giving up.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
How to Overcome Codependency and Build Healthy, Reciprocal Relationships
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“Using neuroscience, psychology, and spirituality, Mary Joye shares how to conquer old habits of needing to rescue loved ones and friends. In this compelling book you can free yourself and learn that living well and giving well can occur naturally.” — Dr. Laurie Nadel, author of The Five Gifts
Are you a fixer, a rescuer or a people pleaser? Do you feel guilty — really guilty — saying no? Codependency once meant being involved with someone who was dependent upon an addictive substance. Today, the definition of codependency has expanded to encompass other unhealthy behaviors associated with relationships.
“Codependency is like narcissism in reverse,” explained licensed therapist, Mary Joye, LMHC. “Narcissists are self-absorbed, while codependents are hyper focused on the needs of others. And these two personalities can become instantly attracted to each other.”
In her new book, Codependent Discovery and Recovery 2.0, Joye helps readers uncover the traits, psychological roots, financial aspects and neuroscience behind their codependency, and more importantly, what to do about it.
As a healed codependent herself, Joye’s unique approach offers readers a holistic alternative to typical 12-step addiction models and covers the full spectrum of codependency.
She shows you what motivates your codependency and teaches you how to overcome the toxic thinking and behaviors associated with it by using evidence-based techniques of healing. Rather than merely learning how to say no to others, you will learn how to say yes to yourself and form healthy, reciprocal relationships.
For expedited and lasting recovery, Codependent Discovery and Recovery 2.0 includes meditations, affirmations, a quick-fix chapter and easy two-column Life Lists that allow the opportunity for self-reflection, offering readers an invaluable self-help experience.
By using these transformative cognitive behavioral tools, you can change no matter where you fall on the continuum. It is possible to reinvent yourself in a positive way while learning how to give and live well.
About the Author Mary Joye, LMHC, is a licensed mental health counselor and regular contributor to DailyOM.com. She was interviewed in O, The Oprah Magazine in an article titled “The Greatest Love” about her prior codependency and rise from it. Formerly, she was a professional singer/songwriter in Nashville at Warner Brothers. She reinvented herself as a licensed mental health counselor at 45. As a writer and therapist, she helps people get in touch with their emotions.
Black Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption (This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet or used by any means of social media sharing.)
With an afterword by My Haley, PhD, widow of Alex Haley, famed author of Roots and Malcom X
Ray Studevent walked hesitantly toward the door of the nursing home and prayed that his Momma, now in the throes of dementia, would recognize him. Surely, the blue eyes would give him away. The blue eyes that his Momma originally equated with hatred and brutality.
White on the outside, Black on the inside, Ray grew up on the eastern side of the Anacostia River, the Blackest part of the Blackest city in America not long after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the D.C. race riots. There were guidelines if you were Black; different rules if you were White; but only mixed messages for mixed-race children like Ray, who had to fight for acceptance and struggle to find his identity.
Black Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption is the unforgettable true story of Ray’s struggles as a mixed-race boy learning to fight the ghosts of his past to find trust and love. Abandoned by his White, heroin-addicted mother and Black, violently alcoholic father, Ray found salvation at age 5 when he was adopted into a loving, stable home by his father’s uncle Calvin and his wife, Lemell. But that is just the beginning of the story.
Lemell is suddenly widowed and must raise Ray and her two daughters as a single mother in Chocolate City. Each time she looks into Ray’s blue eyes, she sees the Klansmen who tormented her family as she grew up in segregated Mississippi.
Ray and Lemell must navigate the minefields of society’s outward racial tensions while inwardly, Lemell does her best to overlook her emotional scars and suppress her justifiable resentment toward White people when she looks into Ray’s blue eyes.
Black Sheep takes readers on an emotional journey and reveals universal truths through faith and great humor. It is a search for who we are, where we fit and who we can become. Imagine a book where The Notebook meets The Help.
About the Author Ray “Ben” Studevent was a mixed-race child whose unique look led him to fight a racial identity crisis his entire life. Each time he entered a room, he had to decide whether it was better to be Black or White. His personal and career journeys ebbed and flowed, taking him to prison, fatherhood and gigs in comedy clubs, modeling and stock-market research. In all these varied experiences, he realized that race played a critical role. Visit his website at: raystudevent.com.
Black Sheep Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 4, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323812 ISBN-13: 978-0757323812 Trade Paperback, 288 pages Available wherever books are sold
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
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“About Natalie is groundbreaking. It doesn’t preach or pretend to offer a panacea. Instead, it offers a refreshing, authentic look at one family’s struggle with addiction, easily the most powerful book published on the subject in the 21st century.” — Dr. Maryel McKinley PhD, Addictions Expert, Former Co-Host, “All Talk Recovery Radio,” Los Angeles, Ar-bitron rated No. 1 in Southern California
Like the band that played on as the Titanic sank, Christine Naman unpacked the groceries and made a meatloaf — the simple act of normalcy distracting her from an unthinkable reality: addiction was pulling her daughter under.
“Even with the picture of the situation coming more clearly into focus, I clung to denial like a kayaker who has been thrown from his boat would cling to a branch lying across the water,” Christine says. “It is amazing how deep into denial a person can go and how strongly they can hang onto it before reality smacks them around enough so that they let go.”
Christine traces her daughter’s years-long battle with addiction in About Natalie, a gripping, cautionary tale of how, in spite of a loving family and a comfortable life, a child can end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her.
Interwoven with Christine’s reflections are Natalie’s compelling poems that share her personal pain and the unvarnished truth of her struggle.
At its core, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It is a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and never giving up.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
About Natalie Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 2021 ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2385-0 (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2386-7 (ePub) Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
20 Tenets to Help Women Lead Purposeful, Successful Lives Revealed in The Woman Code Morning Joe Host & Author of Know Your Value, Mika Brzezinski, Pens Foreword
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The pandemic forced everyone to pivot and re-prioritize, and for many women, that meant putting themselves last. Now, more than ever, women need to know their value, recognize their worth and fill their own cups first.
“Women are the soul of what keeps the world going. We keep our families, our companies, our communities and our nations intact,” explains Sophia A. Nelson, acclaimed journalist and author of The Woman Code: 20 Powerful Keys to Unlock Your Life (April 2021, Health Communications).
Named one of the most inspirational books by Woman’s Day in 2015-2017, this transformative book is updated with new insights about the profound economic and societal shifts that have changed our world since the pandemic. Nelson guides women through living out a powerful life Code that will lead them to purposeful, meaningful and authentically successful lives.
Every woman lives by a Code, whether she realizes it or not. It informs how she treats herself and others and how far she is willing to go in order to find success. Nelson calls on women to examine whether the Code they’re living by is truly helping them create the lives they desire. A senior columnist for USA Today and a frequent commentator on CNN, Nelson reveals 20 powerful Codes including:
● Know Your Value ● Be Resilient ● Choose Your Thoughts and Words Wisely ● Lift Other Women as You Climb ● Practice Love, Laughter, Loyalty
With life quotes from philosophers and poets, mystics and her maternal grandmother, plus her experience as a Black woman rising through the ranks of a male-dominated news industry, The Woman Code is an essential tool of transformation for women to enjoy in reading groups, retreats and Bible study groups. It will help women honor themselves while navigating the demands of work, home, family and friendship no matter what their age or stage in life.
About the Author Sophia A. Nelson is an award-winning American author and journalist who appears regularly on CNN’s Inside Politics and Newsroom as a legal and political analyst. She is an adjunct professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.
Nelson covered former First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House from 2010–2012. The author appears frequently on CNN and has been a contributor to MSNBC, NBC, Fox News, the BBC, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer and the Today show. She writes for The Huffington Post Healthy Living and The Daily Beast. She has also contributed to USA Today, Essence, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is the author of The Woman Code, Black Woman Redefined, and E Pluribus ONE.
