INDEX

Family Characteristics....................................................................................4

Perspectives.......................................................................................................8

Interventions.......................................................................................................13

Habits of Mind..................................................................................................16

HoM often used/not mastered...................................................................22

Lesson Learned..............................................................25

FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS

The family characteristics and interactions in the book are as follows. This family is compromised of a mother and father and two children. There are extended family such as grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. The father and mother both work. The dad is an engineer and mother works as a writer. They have a typical family dynamic.

Family interactions are they have eat breakfast together, they help one another alternate getting the kids ready, dinner together; they read a bedtime story together and put the kids to bed, Jane and Paul go to sleep and read together. Family functions they go on vacation to Florida as a family and parents attend events as well. The family life cycle is where things may change. In this case Rachel’s disability puts a strain on the family dynamic.

Charlotte isn’t getting as much attention, Jane is emotional and wanting to try to do anything to help Rachel and feels helpless, which is leading to her stressing out Paul and he just can’t deal with it all. Jane is very emotional and focuses on feelings where Paul is an engineer and he sees that there is a process and everything is logistical.

PERSPECTIVES

JANE

Jane is a mother and wife that describe what it is like to raise her intellectually disabled and blind daughter. She describes Rachel’s diagnosis, how she dealt with guilt, and her family with grief. She was happily married, had her daughter Charlotte, and they were excited to be welcoming another baby girl into their lives when they soon realized that things might change.

PAUL

Paul is a father and husband before anything. He is an engineer, who loves playing with his daughter Charlotte. He looks at every situation, as there is a reason for everything, he is big into science and therefore believes that there is a specific answer to every question. He becomes frustrated and doesn’t know how to handle Rachel he leaves her to cry often times. He will play and engage with Charlotte but not so much with Rachel.

RACHEL

Rachel is a baby that was born blind and will eventually grow to have seizures, and be intellectually disabled. We will see what occurs over her first year and then when she reaches the age of four. In the story we get to see how innocent a child is, how they do not realize how much things can change because of them and how all they can do is love her.

CHARLOTTE

Charlotte is the big sister. She loves her sister even when she is told she is blind, she doesn’t treat her any different. You can tell that she is obviously not getting the attention she wants and it is because her sister is getting it. Jane and Paul to try to ensure that Charlotte isn’t affected by her sisters disability.

INTERVENTIONS

This family could of benefited from seeing a marriage and family counselor. They equally needed to be able to discuss how they felt and have a therapist talk to them and help them work through their issues. Jane and Paul deal with how they feel and act differently. Jane wants to discuss and ask questions and research everything where as Paul wants to wait for test results to come back and then go from there. 

They also did not agree on telling the grandparents. Jane wanted to tell her parents and Paul did not. He felt that it would worry them and especially because it was around the holidays. Jane decided to tell her parents because the only person she was able to really vent to was her mother

HABITS OF MIND