Field Guide To The American Teenager: A Parent's Companion
While theField Guide to the American Teenageroffers titular  hope of guidance for the parents of teens, a more accurate title would be "Field  Observations of the American Teenager." Authors and educators Michael Riera and  Joseph DiPrisco, both Ph.D.s, present insights into many issues that are  commonly confronted by teens today: drug use, weapons at school, homosexuality,  romance, eating disorders, and race relations, to name a few. But rather than  confronting the issues with a laundry list of do's and don'ts, the authors try  to help readers understand what teens are thinking and why they act as they do.  A discussion of date rape, for instance, doesn't offer any specifics on how to  help teens avoid this situation; instead, it looks at why teens choose to engage  in the kind of risk-taking behavior that might lead to date rape. "What is  frightening about adolescence," they write, "is how close to the margins of  irreparable damage and loss teenagers routinely place themselves, how close they  come to the shore of no return." These types of observations aren't necessarily  reassuring to parents who may be looking for a pat formula to help them navigate  the teen years. Many chapters, with titles like "Drinking and Driving" or "Race  and Adolescence," have little to do with the named topics. Instead, the authors  use such topics as jumping-off points for discussions of underlying issues like  trust, communication, self-esteem, integrity, friendship, ambiguity, peer  pressure, and responsibility.Any parent who has raised a teen knows that there is no one formula for success.Field Guidewill help parents better understand their teens--but it  leaves the hard work of finding parenting strategies that fit a particular teen  firmly in the hands of the parent.--Virginia Smyth--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.