When Your Kid is Hurting is a resource for parents in helping kids navigate the many issues that are prevalent in this day and age. Dr Leman has a good understanding of the many issues that kids face today…divorce, school bullying, depression, fear, etc. There were some pretty good tips in the book and I appreciated the Q&A section. I did appreciate some of the suggestions in the book about letting the kid take ownership for his/her actions as opposed to the parent fixing things, bring firm in such cases of abuse of the kid, etc.

I did feel that the author had somewhat of a judging tone towards the parents, with some borderline blaming of the parents for the issues kids face. I agree that there are some pretty crummy parents out there, but many of the parents are flawed humans who yes, make mistakes, but in the end, love their children and want what is best for them. Parents have a strong influence on their kids, but so do school, peer groups, society, and others who kids come into contact with. Parenting is hard enough and many of us do it with little to no resources. It is a role that needs to be respected in this day and age, and my experience with this book was that it came up short in this area. I didn’t feel comments such as “it is the parents that need the therapist, not the kids” was beneficial.

I’m also not sure I agree with all the advice that was presented in the book. In the case of the MIA father, Dr Leman advises the parent to have the kid ask the dad directly why he doesn’t see him anymore. It felt like the advice was putting the kid in the middle when I think this ought to be a discussion between the mom and dad. I also felt that the author treated the issue of school bullying a little too lightly, with the suggestion that “everybody gets teased, everybody goes through that at one time or another”. I disagree very strongly with that. Some kids are bullied pretty severely and go through it for long periods of time and in this day and age, we see more suicides as a result.

It also seemed that the author jumped to conclusions on certain situations. Like in the question about the “I don’t care about anything” kid who is so negative on life. Dr Leman suggested that the kid was on pot. Maybe/maybe not, but I think there may have been other reasons to explore. Same for the overly sensitive child, stating that when he hears that the kid is sensitive, he assumes “manipulation”. Again, maybe/maybe not true without knowing all the facts.

The book did address a variety of issues and I did find a lot of good in the book. I just think the tone could have been a little more respectful towards the parents.

Rating: 3 out of 5

This book was provided by Revell Publishing in exchange for a review.