On playing a poor hand well

the long version

The book begins with insights into childhood risks and adversities - enduring and inescapable stressful experiences, such as growing up under violent, dangerous, or abusive conditions, or experiencing years of school failure as a result of serious learning disabilities or attention problems. The author then explores the latest research into life's trajectories and culls the lessons we must learn in order to provide avenues through which turning point experiences and second-chance opportunities can occur - to change the odds, so to speak, for individuals who were dealt a poor hand. On Playing a Poor Hand Well focuses on how people overcome different adversities - not simply on the effects these stresses had on their lives. This book will enable disadvantaged individuals and their families to validate the pain they've endured and to celebrate their resilience.