Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers: Parenting with Love, Laughter, and Limits

Leave your son an answering machine message from his incomplete English paper or send your daughter an e-mail from her overdue science assignment. These are two of the refreshing suggestions about how to happily cope with a hormone-charged teenager who is ignoring his/her homework in Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers. A trio of psychologists have written a practical and humorous book to deepen the parent-teen connection, raise knowledgeable and emotionally wise teenagers, and to make home an oasis from the stress of adolescence.

Summarizing the insights from Daniel Goleman's bestselling Emotional Intelligence, the authors focus on emotional and spiritual, rather than intellectual, development. They tackle teen issues of schoolwork, car keys, mall malaise, grungy rooms, scary friends, sex, and drugs with their "Four L" plan (love, laughter, limits, and linkages). The pages are packed with instructive scenarios, quizzes, and wise, engaging strategies for parents and teens. One unique chapter--lampooning the ways of parents--is written for parents and kids to read and laugh about together. The authors offer a "24 Karat Golden Rule," which underlines the spirit and substance of the book's emotional toolbox for parents: "Do unto your children as you would have other people do unto your children." --Barbara Mackoff