“When I grow up…” – this is how most children talk about their future. But there are children who say differently: «If I grow up …».
They are not sure that they have a future, because they grow up in an atmosphere of anxiety or abandonment, not knowing care, attention, and sometimes even just communication. Child psychotherapist Bruce Perry and science journalist Maya Salavits talk about such children. Their book helps to understand what processes in the brain are associated with developmental delay and how it can be compensated. The boy, who was raised in a cage with dogs, managed to start walking, talking and learning, like all children. Bruce Perry avoids blame — against parents, caregivers and even the state system — and sincerely seeks to understand the reasons for the behavior (both children and adults) that seems unbearable to others.
AST, Prime Eurosign, 336 p., 2015.