Description:
While the Field Guide to the American Teenager offers titular hope of guidance for the parents of teens, a more accurate title would be "Field Observations of the American Teenager." Authors and educators Michael Riera and Joseph DiPrisco, both Ph.D.s, present insights into many issues that are commonly confronted by teens today: drug use, weapons at school, homosexuality, romance, eating disorders, and race relations, to name a few. But rather than confronting the issues with a laundry list of do's and don'ts, the authors try to help readers understand what teens are thinking and why they act as they do. A discussion of date rape, for instance, doesn't offer any specifics on how to help teens avoid this situation; instead, it looks at why teens choose to engage in the kind of risk-taking behavior that might lead to date rape. "What is frightening about adolescence," they write, "is how close to the margins of irreparable damage and loss teenagers routinely place themselves, how close they come to the shore of no return." These types of observations aren't necessarily reassuring to parents who may be looking for a pat formula to help them navigate the teen years. Many chapters, with titles like "Drinking and Driving" or "Race and Adolescence," have little to do with the named topics. Instead, the authors use such topics as jumping-off points for discussions of underlying issues like trust, communication, self-esteem, integrity, friendship, ambiguity, peer pressure, and responsibility. Any parent who has raised a teen knows that there is no one formula for success. Field Guide will help parents better understand their teens--but it leaves the hard work of finding parenting strategies that fit a particular teen firmly in the hands of the parent. --Virginia Smyth
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