Surviving Your Child's Adolescence

Carl Pickhardt, PhD, is a psychologist with more than twenty-five years in private counseling and lecturing practice in Austin, Texas. He is the author of fourteen parenting books and writes a weekly blog, Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence, for Psychology Today. More information about Dr. Pickhardt may be found at www.carlpickhardt.com.

Psychologist, 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)

• Acknowledgments ixAbout the Author xiAuthor’s Note xiiiIntroduction xvVoices of Parents Past xix1 Preparing for the Inevitable 12 A Road Map to Early and Mid-Adolescence 213 A Road Map to Late Adolescence and Trial Independence 494 Parenting Adolescent Sons and Daughters 835 The Complexities of Spoken Communication 1056 The Use and Abuse of Conflict 1277 Discipline That Does and Doesn’t Work 1498 Informal and Formal Education 1759 Problems with Peers 19710 The Power of Parents 227Epilogue: Climbing Fool’s Hill 249Recommended Reading 253Index 255