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 WAKE
UP CALL:
A Mother's Fight To Save
Her Troubled Teen
by Judy Martin
Reviewed by Tracy Brislawn
 [Author
Judy Martin is a marriage and family therapist with a private practice in San Francisco. Judy is also enjoying much success with her
highly visited website www.jmartinmft.com. The book can be ordered at http://www.jmartinmft.com/call.html.
Reviewer, Tracy Brislawn, has been a Certified Non-Violent Crisis
Interventionist for 4 years and she is currently working independently for families in Orange County. Ms. Brislawn also worked for two
years with West Shield as an adolescent transport agent (teen escort) for families and treatment facilities.]
In Wake-Up Call, A mother's fight to save her troubled teen,
author Martin takes us through the toughest and most difficult years of raising, nurturing, protecting and loving an adolescent.
Martin begins this tumultuous journey with a cry for attention from
her 13-year-old daughter, Ellen. A suicide attempt? Maybe, maybe not, but serious enough to require a hard look at alternative education
and living arrangements.
As the story of one family's lives unfolds, entwines, falls apart
and begins to pick up the pieces, we are forced to look at our own lives and those of our children who are either babies, adolescents
or young adults. The reader will be compelled to ask questions of "What would I do?" or "Did I do the right thing?"
As a therapist herself, Martin goes through these trying years constantly
second guessing her decisions and constantly questioning her options. Martin and her husband are forced to look at their own relationship
in a way they never had to before.
Martin's incredible command of the English language as well as her
lavishly poetic analogies bring voice, heart and color to the story that lives in her heart.
This book is a must read, a real eye-opener for anyone who has a teen,
has had a teen, will have a teen in the future or knows teens. We never know how or when we will touch the life of a child whether it
be our own or a complete stranger.
Thank you Judy Martin for writing this book and for sharing your personal
and heart-wrenching story with those of us who have yet to experience life with a teenager. And, for those of us who have had the experience,
thank you for reminding us that we can teach our children right from wrong but it is up to them to choose their path and up to us to
love them and take care of them anyway.
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