In these stories war becomes a kind of cleansing agent for the destructive child, who, after enduring hardships, matures into a properly contrite adult (and a fiction writer to boot).
Carrie Brown found Tara online, and the idea of actually hanging out with other parents who shared these terrifying experiences with unintentionally self-destructive children was too amazing to pass up.
Tóibín gives a familiar story startling intimacy, drawing us into the anguish of a mother who has failed to save her rebellious, self-destructive child.
These counselors employ an in-your-face technique that often involves them yelling supportive phrases like "why should you be mad at yourself" directly into a self-destructive child's face.
There are some households that are worse than loveless, that are actively destructive, and children in such households may need to be rescued.
And Professor McLanahan's findings suggest that a two-parent, financially stable home with stress and conflict would be more destructive to children than a one-parent, financially stable home without stress and conflict.
It should be of concern, therefore, that Greening has inherited policies from her predecessors, Michael Gove and Nicky Morgan, that are potentially destructive for children's social services and the families who depend on them.
Meanwhile, in the worst result of their destructive narrative, children – particularly the most vulnerable – will grow up with role models who put themselves ahead of others, have grown cynical from the job, or who disappear from their lives all too often.
Katrina affected everybody in New Orleans, but the long term effects of days in crowded shelters, months of homelessness, and years of changing schools have proved especially destructive to children.
