Bless Your Heart Submissions are now closed.

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Bless Your Heart is an anthology of  personal essays written by parents of children with ADD, ADHD and/or other mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders for a book about the experience of parenting children with such conditions, for publication in fall, 2011.

Essays in this collection will be ones in which parents who care for challenging children can see themselves.  Parents/readers will laugh, cry, and find comfort in these stories.

Focus is on the feelings and experiences of the writer/parent; these essays focus on honest feelings, lessons learned, epiphanies, commonplace and extraordinary experiences.  

Essays are written by parents of toddlers, young children, teens, and adult children; those who are in the parenting trenches now, and those looking back on their parenting experiences. Topics include : how children came to be diagnosed, the experience of dealing with problem behaviors in various contexts and settings, experiences with/feelings about treatment (therapies, medications, alternative treatments), school (and other advocacy) experiences, children’s social interactions/friends, and the effect of parenting a difficult child on a parent's emotional and physical health, marriage, and other relationships.     

Essaysl focus on children with mild to moderate conditions, rather than children who are disabled by their conditions. The common denominator in the stories is kids with behavior problems that present a parenting challenge.  

The book will be co-edited by author/editor/publisher Adrienne Ehlert Bashista, Publisher, of DRT Press and Kay Marner, a freelance writer who contributes regularly to ADDitude magazine, and blogs for ADDitudeMag.com. For further information about the editors please visit their websites.    

Please direct questions to kay@kaymarner.com.