The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence: How to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Teenager

Rating:
Summary: From the Publisher
Review: From the Publisher In The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence: How to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Teenager, Dr. Ava L. Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent & Family Studies in New York City and a mother herself, provides the supportive parental strategies you need in order to understand and cope with your child's individual struggles. There is no such thing as a "typical" teen, but according to Dr. Siegler there are five distinct profiles that shape and define most adolescent behavior: anxiety, rebellion, depression, withdrawal, and over-connection. For each of these profiles she provides a real-life case study, the family dynamics that contribute to the family's crisis, and specific dialogues parents can use when talking to their teenagers. She also shows how the five basic fears, which are formed in childhood - fear of the unknown, fear of being alone, fears about the body, fears of the voice of conscience, and fears about the self - are transformed dramatically during adolescence. Comprehensive, compassionate, and wise, The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence offers parents a powerful new way to understand their teenagers and themselves as they help to shape their children's future.

Rating:
Summary: From the Publisher
Review: From the Publisher In The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence: How to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Teenager, Dr. Ava L. Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent & Family Studies in New York City and a mother herself, provides the supportive parental strategies you need in order to understand and cope with your child's individual struggles. There is no such thing as a "typical" teen, but according to Dr. Siegler there are five distinct profiles that shape and define most adolescent behavior: anxiety, rebellion, depression, withdrawal, and over-connection. For each of these profiles she provides a real-life case study, the family dynamics that contribute to the family's crisis, and specific dialogues parents can use when talking to their teenagers. She also shows how the five basic fears, which are formed in childhood - fear of the unknown, fear of being alone, fears about the body, fears of the voice of conscience, and fears about the self - are transformed dramatically during adolescence. Comprehensive, compassionate, and wise, The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence offers parents a powerful new way to understand their teenagers and themselves as they help to shape their children's future.

Rating:
Summary: From Publisher's Weekly
Review: Reviews From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly   What's new about adolescence is that it starts earlier, lasts longer and is filled with greater perils than ever before. For parents struggling to cope, Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent & Family Studies in New York City and columnist for Child magazine, explains reasonably the physical and psychological changes of adolescence and their impact on the entire family. She sees adolescents as having five basic developmental taskse.g., separating from old ties, creating new attachmentsand five basic fears, e.g., of the unknown, about the body. In credible sample dialogues, Siegler shows how parents and adolescents often misconnect and how parental use of compassion, communication, comprehension, and competence can help. Case studies of five individual adolescents experiencing extreme anxiety, rebellion, withdrawal, depression and overattachment illustrate the ways in which each teen's family story contributed to these problems and how therapy helped the adolescents find their way back to normal development. Siegler distinguishes routine problems from those warranting professional intervention and concludes this helpful, well targeted guide with advice on choosing a therapist. Psychotherapy Book Club selection. (Oct.)

Rating:
Summary: From Publisher's Weekly
Review: Reviews From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly   What's new about adolescence is that it starts earlier, lasts longer and is filled with greater perils than ever before. For parents struggling to cope, Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent & Family Studies in New York City and columnist for Child magazine, explains reasonably the physical and psychological changes of adolescence and their impact on the entire family. She sees adolescents as having five basic developmental taskse.g., separating from old ties, creating new attachmentsand five basic fears, e.g., of the unknown, about the body. In credible sample dialogues, Siegler shows how parents and adolescents often misconnect and how parental use of compassion, communication, comprehension, and competence can help. Case studies of five individual adolescents experiencing extreme anxiety, rebellion, withdrawal, depression and overattachment illustrate the ways in which each teen's family story contributed to these problems and how therapy helped the adolescents find their way back to normal development. Siegler distinguishes routine problems from those warranting professional intervention and concludes this helpful, well targeted guide with advice on choosing a therapist. Psychotherapy Book Club selection. (Oct.)

Rating:
Summary: Many case examples that wind up saying nothing new.
Review: There are many new stressors on today's teens, including being the first generation being reared in a completely postmodern culture. Unfortunately, the author misses this and other more subtle cultural changes that impact today's adolescents in a big way. I recommend Elkind's "All Grown Up and No Place to Go" for a more thorough critique of how society shapes and complicates the teenage years.

Rating:
Summary: Too problem-focused
Review: This is just the latest of so many books that view normal adolescent development primarily from a problem perspective. Sure, there are challenges in adolescence for both teens and parents, and sometimes there are major problems to be addressed. But most adolescents, and parents, somehow manage the old and the new complexities of this period just fine. For a more positive approach, I recommend Laurence Steinberg's "You and Your Adolescent." Another fascinating book by Steinberg focused on school-related issues is "Beyond the Classroom."