This Thursday December 4th 2014 the Addict’s Mom will host an online live video meeting on In the Roomswww.intherooms.com at 7:00pm EST. Topic: Developing Resiliency to Confront the Challenges of Life Special Guest: Sherry Schlenke Sherry Schlenke holds an M.Ed. in the field of Special Education, specializing in teaching reading, writing, and study skills to children with learning and attention disorders. Through her education, field training, and in the classroom, Sherry has become an expert in the life challenges common to children who are characterized as being “at-risk”. These children need to develop protective skills, or coping mechanisms, to become resilient, and thus able to lessen their chances of experi-encing negative life outcomes. Resiliency is the ability to cultivate strengths, known as protective factors, in order to positively meet the challenges of life. Re-siliency can be present in individuals and in families; resiliency gives us the ability to “bounce back” from life challenges. Resiliency protects mental health, protects physical health, and allows us to function in life despite our feelings of anger, grief, sadness, depression, or anxiety. In her personal life, Sherry discovered that her son was suffering from a Substance Use Disorder (SUD); he was a heroin addict, despite the fact that he was not con-sidered to be “at-risk”. She realized that, despite her years of experience, she needed to seek professional help in developing her own coping skills to become more resilient. Sherry also wanted her husband and daughter to become resilient in order to contend with the physical, mental, and emotional symptoms that accompany extreme stress. The latest research indicates that we need to be very pro-active in developing pro-tective skills or coping mechanisms that will help us overcome the difficulties of daily life. Struggling with an addict requires that the family possesses a tremen-dous amount of resiliency as the crises inevitably escalate to more and more seri-ous, even life-threatening levels. Also, those who utilize protective skills are better prepared for the next crisis. Fostering resiliency in ourselves and in our family is imperative to resist becoming victims of the deadly disease of addiction. In this session, we will discuss the ways to become more resilient. If we implement the strategies, we will experience an improvement in our physical, mental and emo-tional selves. Sherry has a private teaching practice. She tutors students after school, and she helps moms who are schooling their children at home. Sherry can be reached at: queenangelfish@bellsouth.net Visit The Addict's Mom at: http://addictsmom.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network