(2009 National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA): Honors Award)

Executive functions are the cognitive skills that help us manage our lives and be successful. Children with weak executive skills, despite their best intentions, often do their homework but forget to turn it in, wait until the last minute to start a project, lose things, or have a room that looks like a dump! The good news is that parents can do a lot to support and train their children to manage these frustrating and stressful weaknesses.

Late, Lost, and Unprepared is a must-have book for parents of children from primary school through high school who struggle with:

Impulse Control (taking turns, interrupting others, running off)

Cognitive Flexibility (adapting to new situations, transitions, handling frustrations)

Initiation (starting homework, chores, and major projects)

Working Memory (following directions, note-taking, reading and retaining info)

Planning & Organizing (completing and turning in homework, juggling schedules)

Self-monitoring (making careless errors, staying on topic, getting into trouble but not understanding why)

Written by clinical psychologists, Late, Lost, and Unprepared emphasizes the need for a two-pronged approach to intervention: 1) helping the child to manage demands in the short run, and 2) building independent skills for long-term self-management. Full of encouragement and practical strategies, the book s organization--short chapters with overviews, summaries, case studies, tips, and definitions--makes it easy to grasp concepts quickly and get started.

Part I, What You Need to Know, provides information about: what executive functions are and how weaknesses in these skills affect development; the impact of weak executive function on children's emotional lives and their families; how professionals assess executive function problems; and associated conditions (AD/HD--children with an AD/HD diagnosis always have executive skills issues--learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, Tourette syndrome, etc.).

Part II discusses What You Can Do About It including how to change behavior and set reasonable expectations, and offers specific intervention strategies for children of different ages, varying needs, and profiles.

Late, Lost, and Unprepared is chockful of ideas for helping your child or student be productive and independent--today and in the future.

In a searingly candid memoir which he authored himself, Grammy Award-winning pop icon Rick Springfield pulls back the curtain on his image as a bright, shiny, happy performer to share the startling story of his rise and fall and rise in music, film, and television and his lifelong battle with depression.

           In the 1980s, singer-songwriter and actor Rick Springfield seemed to have it all: a megahit single in “Jessie’s Girl,” sold-out concert tours, follow-up hits that sold more than 17 million albums and became the pop soundtrack for an entire generation, and 12 million daily viewers who avidly tuned in to General Hospital to swoon over his portrayal of the handsome Dr. Noah Drake. Yet lurking behind his success as a pop star and soap opera heartthrob and his unstoppable drive was a moody, somber, and dark soul, one filled with depression and insecurity.

           In Late, Late at Night, the memoir his millions of fans have been waiting for, Rick takes readers inside the highs and lows of his extraordinary life. By turns winningly funny and heartbreakingly sad, every page resonates with Rick’s witty, wry, self-deprecating, brutally honest voice. On one level, he reveals the inside story of his ride to the top of the entertainment world. On a second, deeper level, he recounts with unsparing candor the forces that have driven his life, including his longtime battle with depression and thoughts of suicide, the shattering death of his father, and his decision to drop out at the absolute peak of fame. Having finally found a more stable equilibrium, Rick’s story is ultimately a positive one, deeply informed by his passion for creative expression through his music, a deep love of his wife of twenty-six years and their two sons, and his life-long quest for spiritual peace.

The impact of The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the 'no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade.' For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding -- all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ. The years since have confirmed Lindsey's insights into what biblical prophecy says about the times we live in. Whether you're a church-going believer or someone who wouldn't darken the door of a Christian institution, the Bible has much to tell you about the imminent future of this planet. In the midst of an out-of-control generation, it reveals a grand design that's unfolding exactly according to plan. The rebirth of Israel. The threat of war in the Middle East. An increase in natural catastrophes. The revival of Satanism and witchcraft. These and other signs, foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus, portend the coming of an antichrist . . . of a war which will bring humanity to the brink of destruction . . . and of incredible deliverance for a desperate, dying planet.