Description:
When teens misbehave, sometimes they break the law, but every time, they break your heart. Among other horrors, Doris Fuller has lived to tell the story of her daughter Natalie crossing state lines to attend a keg party at the house of an older boy she hardly knew--after lying by saying she'd be at a sleepover. Fortunately, this was during Natalie's self-described "wild" phase, which petered out after a couple of unpleasant binge-drinking episodes during her sophomore year of high school. For any parent wishing their teen's hedonistic phase would fade away--or parents in such denial that they don't think their kid is capable of being wild--Promise Me will provide much guidance for navigating the emotional quagmire of adolescence. Doris and Natalie provide mother-and-daughter perspectives on school, friends, dating, drug use, and sex, revealing an inherited self-deprecating sense of humor as well as a remarkable relationship that eventually came to be centered on mutual trust. Unlike some parents she knows, Doris doesn't depend on spy-ware, snooping, or diary reading to find out what Natalie's up to. Instead, she taps her journalism background to ask oblique questions that tend to get Natalie talking, not rolling her eyes or running to her room. Doris's list of useful questions for each topic may be too effective; she admits it was nearly impossible to act nonchalant when Natalie confessed that a 14-year-old friend had been experimenting with oral sex. (She also provides a helpful glossary of slang sexual expressions). When Natalie does push the limits, Doris (generally) implements appropriate consequences for her to face. In the case of the out-of-state kegger, that meant no more car privileges for two months. (It's likely there's a copy of Parenting with Love and Logic on the bookshelf at their house.) Some of the most comically eye-opening passages in Promise Me feature tales of teens whose parents were extremely strict, only to find that their teen went to great lengths to hide hell-raising behavior from them (as in the case of the nerdy reverend's daughter who gets pregnant). Fuller's found the recipe for building trust and respect from teenagers, and parents would do well to heed her hard-earned advice. -- Erica Jorgensen
| 
