Therapeutic Parenting for Childhood Aggression and Violence
Sally Donovan
by admin
3w ago
When you live in a home soaked with distress and violence, you soon find out there isn’t too much advice around that it helpful. Those with first hand experience all have their stories of rubbish slash offensive advice they’ve been given. My own includes ‘fishing’ and ‘jigsaws’. In a gathering of the great and the … Therapeutic Parenting for Childhood Aggression and Violence Read More » The post Therapeutic Parenting for Childhood Aggression and Violence appeared first on SallyDonovan.co.uk ..read more
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No Matter What is 10 years old
Sally Donovan
by admin
8M ago
Ten years ago, No Matter What was published. It is a fictionalised memoir of my formative years as an adoptive parent. The memoir slash campaign for change was an amateur project, made from sparse resources – a kitchen table, a laptop, some frazzled time. It was powered by a consuming need to change hearts and … No Matter What is 10 years old Read More » The post No Matter What is 10 years old appeared first on SallyDonovan.co.uk ..read more
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Me and a small c
Sally Donovan
by admin
1y ago
In May I received the news that I had breast cancer – thankfully small and probably contained. The word ‘probably’, has shifted in meaning and significance with every test and consultation. The shock and worry have floored me. Waiting for the tests and the initial findings of those tests was excruciating, despite my efforts at stoicism. During that time, my mind wandered to my funeral plans. I chose the music, the venue and imagined the speech I would record. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wouldn’t want to put my loved ones through such a morbid spectacle. I know now that it’s not uncommo ..read more
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The Strange and Curious Guide to Trauma
Sally Donovan
by admin
2y ago
It’s publication day – The Strange and Curious Guide to Trauma has been released. The Strange and Curious Guide to Trauma is a science book for children aged 8 to 12 or older, and their significant adults. It explains how our bodies keep us safe and alive and how our early experiences shape the ways we experience the world. Early on in the writing process, I realised that the science demanded a story to bring it alive. Stories can take some of the sting away and introduce light and humour and they pin facts into the real world we inhabit. Ordinary Jo, the protagonist, supporting actor baboon ..read more
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Influence, favour and flattery
Sally Donovan
by admin
2y ago
My first proper job was buying bits for aircraft. They were small but important bits, that are necessary for getting private jets and other air vehicles off the ground. These small, important bits were sourced from a number of suppliers in a competitive market. Although I was a new graduate and a nobody, I was spending upwards off a million pounds a year on these small bits, on behalf of the aircraft manufacturer that employed me. I got invited out for a lot of lunches when I did that job. As I got better at the job, I was given responsibility for buying more and more expensive bits for aircra ..read more
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All you need is a spare room
Sally Donovan
by admin
2y ago
The charity Home For Good working with Bath and North East Somerset Council invited me to speak at a service to mark the work of foster carers, kinship carers, special guardians and adoptive parents at Bath Abbey on 11 February. I’d like to thank them for inviting me. It was wonderful event. This is what I said. Last year a local authority was forced to issue an apology after it launched a recruitment campaign for foster carers, using the slogan “all you need is a spare room”. You can see what their intention was, but it was rather tone deaf. That same slogan popped up on my Facebook fee ..read more
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Stewart Lee’s Snowflake/Tornado was unexpectedly comforting
Sally Donovan
by admin
2y ago
I wasn’t sure how well I was going to cope with Snowflake/Tornado, Stewart Lee’s current stand-up show. It’s not that I don’t love his work (I really do), but I just didn’t know how much capacity I had left to be toyed with. When you buy a ticket to a Stewart Lee show, you know this is part of the deal and you enter into it willingly, in exchange for the most incredibly well-crafted and funniest stand-up you will ever see. “Now I’m going to play with you,” he says, and he does and you fall for it and it’s hilarious. Image: Idil Sukan Like many, my capacity to be played has been squeezed in r ..read more
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Christmas Lessons Learnt
Sally Donovan
by admin
2y ago
You vow that you will never put yourself through a Christmas like that ever again. It was meant to be enjoyable, you put a shit load of effort into making it enjoyable and it was something of an endurance event and people cried. The problem is that as next Christmas looms, you’ll vaguely remember this Christmas was at times awful and there were things you were going to do differently, but you won’t remember what or why. You also won’t remember what went well. Sometimes we are destined to live in repeating patterns unless we run our family lives a bit like a business. If you live in a ‘complica ..read more
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The Unofficial Guide to Therapeutic Parenting, the Teen Years – OUT NOW
Sally Donovan
by admin
4y ago
Finally. It’s out. The Unofficial Guide to Therapeutic Parenting, the Teen Years has been published. You can buy it here or here and other places too. Isn’t it a handsome thing? I love the cover (it’s a metaphor you know). The book is an honest, real life look at therapeutic parenting during the adolescent years because just when we’ve got a handle on the special kind of parenting many our children require (well done us), adolescence swaggers in and sticks two fingers up. Adolescence on top of trauma and relational difficulties is an interesting combo. Our loved ones who found it challe ..read more
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Review: Isma Almas, About a Buoy – Adventures in Adoption
Sally Donovan
by admin
4y ago
Isma Almas’ 2019 Edinburgh show is biographical comedy at its best. Her story of what led her and her female partner to adopt a little boy of a different heritage to their own is captivating, generous and at times so shocking I couldn’t prevent myself from gasping and laughing at the same time, in a state of liberal, white-girl confusion.  Isma disarmingly shares the racism aimed at her as a child growing up in the 1970s. Although the racism is enragingly predictable, one incident in particular is not and neither is the comic storytelling approach that Isma takes. She lures and relaxes ..read more
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