"Kids and photos just click"
excerpt from Full of Love

I can't tell you how much Mom's photos meant to me growing up. I don't think I fully realized it at the time, but those photos and the albums she put them in became part of my DNA – always there in the back of my mind. And sometimes they were almost like a life preserver that got tossed out to me whenever I needed it most. If something went wrong at school, all I had to do was think back on an album page Mom made about a day when everything went right at school. Right then and there, I could put that pesky little setback behind me.

And most of all, I could see it for the pesky little setback it was!

Those albums Mom made were living proof of all the values and traditions our family held dear. They showed off all the good times we'd shared … and some of the rough times too.

Naturally, the reporter in me wondered if my experience was somehow special. How do family photos and scrapbooks play a part in the way we grow up?

To find out, I sat down with Dr. Kenneth Condrell, nationally known child psychologist, family counselor and author. What I learned was a real eye-opener. Before, I pretty much thought I had scrapbooking down pat. I mean, I'd already made so doggone many of them!

But thanks to Dr. Condrell, I had the 'aha' moment for which I'd been waiting. He not only validated my belief that our family photo history really is every bit as important as I thought it was, but he also sparked some new ideas for ways albums can be even more powerful than I'd imagined in raising our kids.

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