TEENAGERS!

Connie Rae has written a book for parents of teenagers.  "Hope For Parents of Troubled Teens."  The book is published by Bethany House, a division of Baker Books, and is available at your local Christian bookstore, or through Bethany House Publishers.  It can also be ordered at Amazon Books, as well as through most bookstores.

This book could have as accurately been titled, "Hope for Troubled Parents  of Teens!" Many times, parents know their teenager is in trouble, or troubled, but the teenager is clueless as to the direction their life is taking.  And parents are unsure of what to do to help them get on track.

Following is the Foreword, and the Chapter Titles for "Hope For Parents of Troubled Teens:"

FOREWORD

This book has been written in response to a heart-felt need, based upon the writer's own personal experience with a rebellious child, and her work as a professional counselor, working with heart-sick parents and their rebelling children.

Adolescence can be an exciting time of growth and newness of experience for both parents and children.  Most families make it through this tumultuous time with relatively few battle scars and with an established sense of inter-dependence.  However, a few young people, and hence their families, get caught up in initial rebellious behavior that becomes serious.

The scope of this book is to move beyond the mechanics of mere survival through a difficult period of time, to provide the framework for growth, healing, and peace.

It is the author's belief that all possible means of working through the problems must be explored -- for the benefit of the rebellious child, and for the benefit of the family.  Each is suffering in their own personal way.  But when the last "authority" has been talked with, when the final desperate measure has been taken, when the last shred of human wisdom has been tapped, what then?

The message of this book is, there is hope.  That hope rests in the parent's faith and trust in God, and their willingness to seek His help, put feet to their prayers, and then to rest in the belief that He will do what they cannot do.

Our family has experienced the message of this book.  Our own rebellious child finally made it -- but not until six long, hard years had passed.  In the end, it was God who brought about the miracle of change in this child's life.  It was God who gave him the determination and the strength to make decisions about his future, and it was God who gave him the daily power to carry those decisions through.

Our family's earnest prayer is that you might find information, wisdom, and encouragement within these pages that will make your family whole again.

CHAPTER TITLES AND PURPOSE

Chapter 1    Where Did This Kid Come From, Anyway?

Purpose:  to give parents an understanding of the created uniqueness in each of their children, to help them see that some of the negative characteristics in their children are part of certain stages of growth, to give them opportunity to examine their own style of parenting and the possible effects on their child, to give encouragement and promote new determination to do whatever can still be done, to recognize that "God is in control."

Chapter 2     Adolescents --  Working Their Way To Freedom

Purpose:  to help parents realize that adolescence is a time of pulling away from parental influence and authority, to give them understanding of what is going on inside that youngster they hardly know anymore, to make them more fully aware of the important life-tasks their child must be learning on the way to adulthood, to give them opportunity to face their fears about this child, to analyze areas of need, and do what they can to help him gain control of his life.

Chapter 3     Mom and Dad:  Husband and Wife

Purpose:  to encourage husband and wife to look at how this child's behavior is affecting their relationship and feelings toward one another, to examine guilt, blame, responsibiliy, and then to focus on forgiveness, support, and a renewed commitment to their marriage.

Chapter 4     What Parents What, What Kids Want = Conflict!

Purpose:  to help parents see that so much of their own feeling of success or failure, self-worth and accomplishment, is influenced by how their children behave, using Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a tool, to increase understanding of how these basic needs differ by virtue of age, perception, perspective, and how this leads to conflict, to suggest ways to resolve these conflicts in a way that will give some degree of satisfaction to all involved.

Chapter 5     Listen Here!  Or, Listen, Hear

Purpose:  to help parents understand some basics about communication with their teenager, to encourage listening in a variety of ways, to give understanding about things not said, feelings not spoken, to offer suggestions for communicating love and caring that don't use words but let the teenager know he is loved.

Chapter 6     Peer Pressure Goes Two Ways

Purpose:  to impress parents with the adolescent's deep desire to relate to his peer group, to give practical suggestions in dealing with undesirable peer associations, to encourage parents to become more actively involved with their teen's friends, to suggest ways to make the peer group a more positive force.

Chapter 7     KIids Need Something To Do

Purpose:  to help parents understand the social need of their teenager, to give them opportunity to examine what kinds of activities are available in their own community and how these affect their teenager for good or "evil," to encourage a good look at the church and its attitude toward youth programming, and to give parents the incentive to make things happen that will fill the social void.

Chapter 8     Teens And The Un-Natural High

Purpose:  to give parents information and awareness of what to look for if they suspect their child may be experimenting with alcohol and other drugs, to give tools for assessing how serious the problem might be and guidelines for dealing with it whether the truth that it is touching our churched youth.

Chapter 9     The Lure of Sex

Purpose:  to emphasize the pervasiveness of the attitude of sexual freedom in our society and its effect on our youth, to increase parent's awareness of the ready availability of contraceptive information and supplies and to be wary of those who purport to provide counsel, but in reality invite secretive behavior and parental non-involvement, to cause parents to think about their own values and give them tools to communicate these values to their teenager.

Chapter 10    Defiance, REbellion and Run-Aways

Purpose:  to help parents determine the difference between normal teenage obnoxiousness and real rebellion that can lead to serious trouble, to cause parents to decide how much they are willing to take from this child before they issue the ultimatum -- "obey the rules, or leave, "  to help them cope with the fear and anxiety when their child is living in rebellion and away from the family's influence, to give guidelines in dealing with the run-away while he is gone, and when he returns.

Chapter 11    Have We Done Anything Right?

Purpose:  to look at some of the common mistakes parents make in dealing with difficult teenagers, to evaluate principles and hold tightly to the things that are right, even in the face of seeming failure, to encourage decisions and determinations that will make a difference.

Chapter 12    Keeping It All Together When It Gets Bad

Purpose: to encourage parents to hang on with everything they have, to offer Scriptural hope, to strengthen faith that God is in control, to show that love can win and to describe the kind of love than can hang on and let go at the same time.

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THIS BOOK CAN BE PURCHASED AT YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOK STORE, BARNES & NOBLE, OR OTHER BOOKSTORES IN YOUR COMMUNITY

HOPE FOR PARENTS OF TROUBLED TEENS CAN BE ORDERED ONLINE THROUGH BETHANY BOOK HOUSE, AMAZON.COM, BARNES & NOBLE, OR MANY OTHER SITES THAT SELL BOOKS

***You can read the first chapter of Hope For Parents Of Troubled Teens by clicking on the bookcover picture on the Home Page of this website

Please check out the website, www.christianbooks.com.  Enter "parenting teens" in the subject category.  There are many excellent books there that will help you find you way through the teen years.  One excellent book is Teen-ology, by Jim Burns (Bethany House, 1010)

Connie Rae would enourage parents to use the Contact e-mail to ask questions or make comments.  These questions and comments will be addressed on the "Your Questions Addressed" page of this website.