Raising Happy, Healthy, Safe Kids: 50 Tips for Tackling Even the Toughest Challenges with Love, Joy, and Purpose

Raising Happy, Healthy, Safe Kids is loaded with ideas, insights, resources and fresh inspiration for taking on both modern and age-old child-rearing challenges. In the process, it aims to prevent child abuse and neglect. How? By sharing 50 tips based on four central themes identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as keys to child abuse prevention - skilled parents in strong families surrounded by supportive communities:

• Nurturing parenting - Every parent can use ideas to upgrade their communication and supporting skills with their children.
• Creating a stable family - Families need organization as well as activities together to thrive.
• Protecting children from harm - All children need help from caring adults to cope with risks such as bullying, abuse, and racism.
• Using social support systems to surround families with added strength - Giving and receiving help from community resources and schools give families concrete strategies to deal with stresses.

Presented in a personal, relatable format, this go-to guide helps caregivers experience the joy of parenting and success in managing issues that will arise through the childrearing years. The book discusses strategies to raise kids in current, complex environments while having lots of fun at the same time. More than 200 hyperlinked Internet resources provide additional information on the topics discussed.

Proceeds benefit Children's Center, a Child Advocacy Center, in Oregon City, Oregon.

Karen is a free-lance writer who has a Journalism degree from the University of Portland. She has experience as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer working with abused and needy children and families. She is married, has 3 teen sons, and lives in Lake Oswego, OR. This is her first book.

Catherine is a retired pediatric nurse practitioner educator who was the lead author for 6 editions of Pediatric Primary Care, a major textbook for nurse practitioners and physician assistants, over a 25 year span. The seventh edition was renamed Burns Pediatric Primary Care in her honor. She was a past president of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board. She was elected a Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing and is a Professor Emeritus of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing. She is married, has 2 children and 4 grandchildren and lives in Wilsonville, OR. She is a retired Board member of the Children's Center where she advocated for children and families experiencing abuse and neglect and the prevention of violence against children and their families.