Teen-Proofing Fostering Responsible Decision Making in Your Teenager

Parents can protect toddlers--with their maximum mobility and minimum logic--by pasting plastic on electrical outlets and putting poisons out of reach. But protecting teenagers is not so simple, says family psychologist and author of Raising a Nonviolent Child John Rosemond. "Short of solitary confinement, you can't guarantee that a teen won't use drugs, shoplift, drink or crash the car. In the final analysis, teens must protect themselves." Rosemond's Teen-Proofing provides parents with tough-love strategies for managing teens so they make self-protective, rather than self-destructive, decisions.

Many parents will recognize the error of their ways in Rosemond's portraits of parents as "micro-managers" who try to control their children and "wimps" who let their children control them. He offers a compelling alternative by urging parents to be "mentors, who realize they can control the parent-child relationship, but not the child." The author explores critical parent-teen issues including curfews, cash, cars, and cohorts--detailing an approach that gives teenagers a "long rope" to make their own mistakes and also offers "creative consequences" to encourage responsible decision making.

The author offers smart and seasoned advice--from coping with middle school "tweenagers" to understanding why teens are vulnerable and how the culture diminishes a parent's influence. Yet he undermines his clarity with snide asides about mental health professionals and one too many smug and self-congratulatory examples of his own parenting of a son and daughter. These distractions are unnecessary; the book's unconventional and provocative suggestions will speak volumes to parents of teens. --Barbara Mackoff