Military life can be extremely hard on families. The separations, frequent moves, and irregular schedule of service members can be especially tough for children as well as military spouses holding it all together on the home front. Growing Your Family: Learn How to Flourish and Thrive as a Military Family is a book, written by a military spouse, that offers compassion, sound advice, strategies, and prompts to help your military family grow and thrive throughout the ups and the downs of this lifestyle.
Disclaimer: Strength 4 Spouses was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis
Pearl Gifty Alimo gives you a personal look into her own culture, her adaptation to military life, and her professional work with children and families in her book Growing Your Family. She uses her experience to guide other families through many common challenges that they may face. Each chapter gives you authentic experiences, helpful strategies, and prompting questions to consider as you evaluate your own experience and learn ways to “grow your family.”
Strengths
- Authentic examples-Pearl Gifty Alimo shares so many stories in each chapter that gives you a special glimpse into her background, culture, and her development from young child to adult to military spouse. This authentic voice is a powerful way to connect with others.
- Flow of book–Growing Your Family is set up in a way that makes it easy to follow and read. Each chapter consists of a personal narrative, strategies, and prompting questions to consider in the subject matter.
- Culture rich-If you enjoy learning about other cultures, then you will love this book. Mrs. Alimo is from Ghana and gives you an inside look at what her life was like as a child and what it was like for her as she assimilated to the culture in America. She also gives you a first-hand look at what other cultures her family was exposed to as they were stationed abroad.
- Strategies–Growing Your Family does not leave you hanging without solutions. Each chapter consists of strategies to help you and your family overcome challenges that military life as well as life in general may throw your way.
- Prompts to reflect upon-The questions at the end of every chapter allow you to pause, reflect upon your experience, and strategize what you can do to persevere and lead your family.
My Final Thoughts
This book is a very powerful read with sound advice and strategies to help families overcome obstacles. Pearl Gifty Alimo shares so much of herself in this book. I absolutely loved learning about her culture and appreciate her authenticity. It’s as if you are chatting over tea with a long time friend. You can feel her compassion and calming spirit on every page. It’s evident that she has a profound desire to help others. I highly recommend Growing Your Family: Learn How to Flourish and Thrive as a Military Family to all military families and those who work with the military community in all capacities. This book gives you a special glimpse into the hardships military families face and the perseverance and resilience they develop with the right resources and support.
© Strength 4 Spouses LLC, 2021.
About the Author
Pearl “Gifty” Alimo is married to her high school sweetheart, Maxwell Alimo, who has been serving the United States Navy since 2008. Together, they have three wonderful children. They have served in different commands and lived on different bases throughout the United States and in Japan. Pearl is not only a military spouse and a mother of three, but also a career woman and an advocate for girl’s education. Her deep love for children and youth led her to pursue a career in childcare. Since 2011, she has worked with the different branches of the military child and youth programs and is currently a training and curriculum specialist. In her work, she finds joy and purpose in training childcare professionals to run quality child and youth programs that serve military children from different cultural backgrounds and family dynamics. She sees this as her way of supporting the US military to be mission ready. The most fulfilling part of her work outside growing her own family is growing other people. Pearl owns Greight Company, LLC—a career consulting firm that offers career coaching and corporate training programs to individuals, teams and agencies where she mainly trains, coaches, and supports others to succeed in their careers. Pearl Alimo has a Bachelor’s degree in French and linguistics from the University of Ghana-Legon and a Master’s degree in Education from Michigan State University. She enjoys reading, writing, traveling with her family, and eating sushi.
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