Our Last Best Shot - Hardcover

Laura Stepp

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 057322160X ISBN 13: 9780573221606

Publisher: Samuel French Inc, 2000

Synopsis

A Pulitzer prize-winning journalist translates the behavior of young adolescents and guides us through this pivotal developmental stage.

Young adolescence, between the ages of ten and fifteen, is often dismissed as a baffling period, mistakenly lumped together with the later teenage years. Yet is perhaps the most critical time in the human life cycle, a fateful juncture at which unmatched physical and intellectual growth, expanding creativity, emerging moral sensibilities, awakening sexuality, and maturing emotions powerfully converge. Unsure of what constitutes "normal" behavior, parents can fail to distinguish between behaviors that signal healthy growth and those that indicate real trouble. Without this knowledge, they are in danger of forfeiting their last best chance to affect decisive changes.

After writing a series of award-winning articles on young adolescents, examining the existing scientific literature, and conferring with social scientists and educators, Laura Sessions Stepp set out across the country to meet and observe young people and their families over the course of a year. Through the stories of average young people she met in urban Los Angeles; Durham, North Carolina, and rural Ulysses, Kansas, she helps us navigate the landscape of adolescence.

To be placed on the shelf alongside Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, Michael Gurian's The Wonder of Boys, and William Pollack's Real Boys, Our Last Best Shot is a book parents and educators cannot afford to miss.

"This is the best book on adolescence ever written for the general public. Touching . . . deeply insightful . . . fascinating, and highly informative. A wealth of practical understanding and guidance for parents and others who care for our youth." --David A. Hamburg, M.D., President Emeritus, Carnegie Corporation of New York

About this title

Review

If you're someone who opens a book to read the last chapter first, you won't be disappointed by what you find in Our Last Best Shot: Guiding Our Children Through Early Adolescence. The final chapter, "Some Concluding Thoughts," offers sharp insights into the early adolescent years. "Early adolescence is partly about loss," writes author Laura Sessions Stepp. "Parents lose their children's unquestioning adoration; kids lose their innocence, and sometimes their faith in adults." She adds observations on a wide variety of topics--communication, respect, responsibility, and the influence of other adults--that can be used as a road map for parents trying to help their children navigate these years with success.

If you're looking for a book based solely on academic research and written by an expert, this one may not satisfy. However, Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Washington Post, uses her keen observation and interviewing skills to uncover the world of today's young adolescents. After two years of conducting numerous in-depth interviews and extensive research into current developmental theory, she seamlessly combines the two in a book that is both engaging and authoritative. One of the most important points Stepp makes is in regard to the rapidity of growth--emotional, physical, and intellectual--that young adolescents undergo. She writes of recent research, "I was fascinated to be told that adolescence is a time of growth and change rivaling infancy in its speed and accomplishments." This relatively recent revelation gives an urgency to her argument that adolescence is "our last best shot" at helping kids grow into successful adults. Considering the value and likeability of this often overlooked age group, Stepp's wisdom and insights will benefit anyone who cares about and works with young adolescents. Our Last Best Shot is an opportunity to look at today's teens in a new light and see futures filled with hope and possibility. --Virginia Smyth

About the Author

Laura Sessions Stepp is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who specializes in covering teenagers and young adults for the Style section of The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in such publications as Parent, Child, Working Mother, Reader's Digest, and Harvard’s Nieman Reports. She has twice been a resident scholar at the National Academy of Sciences, has served as a member of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Healthy People 2000 panel on adolescence and chairs the board of advisors of the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland. Stepp, who has three grown children, lives outside Washington, D.C., with her husband.

Edition details

• Publisher: Samuel French Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 057322160X
• ISBN 13: 9780573221606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3