Cleared for Takeoff: 50 Ways Parents Can Help Their Teenagers Grow Up, Out and Into Lives of Their Own

Are you preparing your teenager to leave the nest?

It has been said that the ultimate goal of parenting is to work yourself out of a job. But if you are like most parents of teenagers, your ultimate goal is to just make it through the day. You probably aren't thinking that far ahead. Besides, you probably can't imagine your children ever surviving on their own-without you!

Every parent since Adam and Eve has harbored serious doubts about their offsprings' ability to become responsible, self-reliant adults. For many parents today, those doubts have turned to sheer panic. In Cleared for Takeoff!, Wayne Rice offers 50 clear, bite-size nuggets of wisdom to help you navigate the course and instill the four R's-Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reverence-into your teenager. They include:

• Be a matchmaker
• Find some common ground
• Influence their influencers
• Provide rites of passage
• Become a mentor
• Discover their passion
• Go ballistic for the right reasons
• Tackle temptation

Cleared for Takeoff! is the handbook that will help you stay calm and confident as a parent while charting your teenager's course to success. And, it will help you enjoy the time you have with your teenager at home a whole lot more!

Wayne Rice is founder and director of Understanding Your Teenager (UYT), an organization serving parents of teens and pre-teens. He is adjunct professor of youth ministry at Bethel Theological Seminary (San Diego) and at North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls. He lives with his wife in Lakeside, CA.