Grown Ups are Really Stupid: What Children in Distress Teach Us

How to heal the psychological wounds of an abused child? How can we restore security to a neglected child? How can we help a child and his parents create an emotional bond? How can an adopted child reconcile his or her successive lives? Confronted with parents who are unaffectionate, depressive, absent or excluded, a child can become withdrawn, panic-stricken by fear of abandonment, violent or unable to express him/herself in words or actions.

In France, over 300,000 children are under protective care. Dr. Daniel Rousseau, who has worked in a nursery run by the French child welfare agency (Aide sociale à l'enfance), uses case studies to explain how these abused children invent solutions to survive and grow up, sometimes even without their parents.