The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence: 0How to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Teenager

Arguing that adolescence is beginning earlier and lasting longer for most children, a child psychologist and columnist for Child magazine teaches parents how to recognize and respond to their teenager's problems and fears

Adolescence has always been a scary, challenging time for both parents and children, but these days it feels as though the stakes have been raised. In The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence, Ava L. Siegler, director of the Institute for Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies in New York City, helps parents understand their adolescent's struggles and provides excellent approaches and solutions to these difficulties.

Siegler describes five distinct "profiles" that shape and define most teen behavior: anxiety, rebellion, depression, withdrawal, and overconnection. She also describes how five basic fears of adolescence are transformed during that time. To illustrate her points, Siegler shares real-life studies that mirror those profiles and fears. Some of the profiled adolescents and their families are going through "normal" struggles; some are stuck in real problems. Siegler explains the dynamics that contribute to each family's particular crisis and provides specific communication tools to help parents who have adolescent children in similar situations or states of mind. Siegler's approach is right on the mark: she is wise, compassionate, and helpful. The stories are moving and, for parents of teenagers, all too familiar.