From Santa to Sexting: Helping Your Child Safely Navigate Middle School and Shape the Choices that Last a Lifetime

It's a rough, tough world for middle schoolers today. Yet the decisions they face are pivotal, affecting the whole of life. FROM SANTA TO SEXTING discusses the myriad pressures middle schoolers face and empowers parents to guide and protect their children during these important years.

Not long ago most kids believed in Santa Claus. Now, barely on the cusp of adolescence, they are thrust into an adult world, stripped bare of the protections afforded previous generations. Under greater pressure than ever before from the culture, school, and parental expectations middle schoolers are growing up at warp speed. Their loss of innocence has been profound.

FROM SANTA TO SEXTING provides valuable information and perspective for parents as well as those who work with middle schoolers: youth directors, pastors, teachers, school administrators, psychologists, and physicians. Dr. Brenda Hunter and Kristen Blair courageously address hard and controversial topics the power of media in kids lives, kids experimentation with sex, alcohol, and prescription drugs, cyber-bullying, and self-destructive behavior. Parents need to reclaim their God-given authority in their children's lives. FROM SANTA TO SEXTING, which includes interviews with experts, parents, and the kids themselves, will arm parents with the practical information, inspiring stories, and resources they need to keep kids safe, strong, and secure in middle school. Parents have enormous power to guide and protect their children in a culture that long ago forgot that fences and guardrails make childhood possible.

Brenda Hunter, PhD, is a psychologist and internationally published author. Educated at Wheaton College and Georgetown University, she has served on two presidential commissions and written numerous books, including Home by Choice, In the Company of Women, and The Power of Mother Love. She has appeared on NBC's Today Show (Weekend), Larry King Live, and Focus on the Family radio. Dr. Hunter lives and works as a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Kristen Blair is an education columnist and writer. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Charlotte Observer, the Durham Herald-Sun, and Carolina Journal. Kristen has worked on family and educational policy at the national level for the federal government, a presidential commission, and Empower America. She and her husband Greg are the parents of two children, a tween and a middle school graduate. They live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.