Intelligent love - new book from Conductive Education Press

Graham, J, McGuigan, C. and Maguire, G., eds. Intelligent love; parents' action for Conductive Education.
Birmingham: Conductive Education Press.

Recovering from the trip back from Hong Kong has taken longer than I thought  but at last I am able to tell you that this book is now available.

 It has taken quite a while to recruit parents, receive their contributions and prepare it for publication.We managed to get it ready to launch at the World Congress, which we did and now I feel fit enough to post on this blog about it.

 It is a collection of parents'  reports about their difficulties and efforts to obtain Conductive Education for their cerebral palsied children. These cover the years 1972-2004 and come from parents all over the world, including  Margaret and David Clifton, parents of Elliot, who does all the technical things necessary to get CEP books up on Blurb.

As stated on the back cover:

‘I could write a book’: frequently heard when parents talk about services for their cerebrally palsied children, and Conductive Education. This book is by thirteen parents and a grandmother, from Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each contribution a testimonio in its own right.

Whatever your connection with motor disorders in children, this is a book to ignore at your peril, the first collected statement by families of disabled children, one of Conductive Education's prime beneficiary groups and, in the Western world, its prime mover. These families’ experiences throw light upon questions of how modern societies might do things differently – and better – for children with motor disorders and their families, yet further reminder that progress for disability and for Conductive Education is born out of struggle.

Conductive Education is potentially for life – as must be any properly constituted service for those affected by chronic disabling conditions. It is not a program, an intervention, something to be done once, or now and then, or during certain hours of the day, or on certain days of the year, at a given age or in some particular place. Nor it it something that is primarily to be dispensed by a certain kind of person, a ‘conductor’ (however important conductors’ contributions might be to the process as a whole).

It is more than just pedagogy. It embraces and transforms every aspect of children’s lives, everyone and every activity involved in their upbringing, a whole new lifestyle. Conductive upbringing and a conductive lifestyle. No short order but, witness the content of this book, it can be done.

Mention of its coming was posted on Andrew's blog at

http://www.conductive-world.info/2010/11/conductive-lifestyle.html

and Leticia Kuerten, one of the contributors, has also posted on her blog  at

http://educacaocondutiva.blogspot.com/2010/12/livro-intelligent-love.html

along with Susie Mallett at  http://www.susie-mallett.com/2010/12/tough-living-and-tough-loving.html

We would like to thank all those concerned very much indeed for taking the time and trouble to put down their experiences for us.



It  is  available to order from
 http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1755137

Please do let us know what you think of it.