How To Help Your Teenager Grow Up: A Guide To Creative Parenthood

Adolescence, the transition period between childhood and adulthood, is an exciting, challenging time for teenagers and parents alike. It is a time for discarding childish habits, for abandoning immature ways of behaving in favor of mature ones. It is a period of personal confusion, self-discovery, continual readjustment. It is a dramatic stage of development in which youngsters definitely need parents, but in ways that are different from their childhood needs. Parents everywhere want their teenagers to grow up to be reliable, responsible citizens, successful marriage partners, and competent, conscientious fathers and mothers. To help youngsters do this, parents must understand them, accept them, recognize their normal needs and desires; furthermore, they must help them find acceptable, constructive ways of satisfying those needs and desires. This book is directed to adults whose children are or will soon be adolescents. Its purpose is to help them guide their youngsters through pubescence to young adulthood, a span of years that varies considerably among individuals, extending generally from the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth year to the nineteenth or twentieth year, and from the sixth or seventh grade in school to approximately the first year beyond high school.It will prove to be a useful guide not only for parents but also for teachers, ministers, physicians, psychologists, social workers, recreation leaders, and other adults who work with teenage boys and girls.