Description
Book SynopsisExpert suggestions for guiding your child through the roughteenage years Does it sometimes seem like your teenager is trying to push youover the edge? Learn what your child is going through and what youcan do to help your teen navigate this difficult period in thispractical guide from psychologist and parenting expert CarlPickhardt.
Trade ReviewPsychologist, prolific parenting author (Boomerang Kids) and Psychology Today blogger Pickhardt focuses on helping parents understand the adolescent years, "the age of argument." Pickhardt identifies four adolescent stages, beginning with early and mid-adolescence, and then moving on to late adolescence and trial independence (which ends after the college years). With characteristic clarity and wisdom, Pickhardt walks parents through various ages and stages, explaining how to be supportive, empathetic and accessible while at the same time providing limits and boundaries. He concludes with "eight anchors for adolescent growth," including completing homework, cleaning up one's room, doing household chores, joining in family gatherings, community service, saving money, developing proficiency and relating to salient adults (a counterbalance to the overwhelming influence and "mixed blessing" of peers at this age). He also covers such familiar teen topics as sex, substance use, the Internet, dating, and effective communication. Pickhardt is adept at deconstructing the complexities of the parent/adolescent relationship, pointing out, for instance, that the mother/adolescent daughter relationship is often the most conflicted and intense due to the "double closeness" created by being attached by birth and sexually similar. This witty yet sensible guidebook to the adolescent years will help parents stay steady as their kids negotiate the rocky waters on their journey to independence. (Mar.) (Publishers Weekly, April 2013)
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
About the Author xi
Author’s Note xiii
Introduction xv
Voices of Parents Past xix
1 Preparing for the Inevitable 1
2 A Road Map to Early and Mid-Adolescence 21
3 A Road Map to Late Adolescence and Trial Independence 49
4 Parenting Adolescent Sons and Daughters 83
5 The Complexities of Spoken Communication 105
6 The Use and Abuse of Conflict 127
7 Discipline That Does and Doesn’t Work 149
8 Informal and Formal Education 175
9 Problems with Peers 197
10 The Power of Parents 227
Epilogue: Climbing Fool’s Hill 249
Recommended Reading 253
Index 255
