Featured Book

Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

Posted by Sue Scheff on September 29, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Parenting Books, Parenting Teens

Family Conflict: Finding Resolutions

Real solutions to a hidden epidemic: family estrangement.

By Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.

Estrangement from a family member is one of the most painful life experiences. It is devastating not only to the individuals directly involved–collateral damage can extend upward, downward, and across generations, More than 65 million Americans suffer such rifts, yet little guidance exists on how to cope with and overcome them.

In this book, Karl Pillemer combines the advice of people who have successfully reconciled with powerful insights from social science research. The result is a unique guide to mending fractured families.

Fault Lines shares for the first time findings from Dr. Pillemer’s ten-year groundbreaking Cornell Reconciliation Project, based on the first national survey on estrangement; rich, in-depth interviews with hundreds of people who have experienced it; and insights from leading family researchers and therapists. He assures people who are estranged, and those who care about them, that they are not alone and that fissures can be bridged.

Through the wisdom of people who have “been there,” Fault Lines shows how healing is possible through clear steps that people can use right away in their own families. It addresses such questions as: How do rifts begin? What makes estrangement so painful? Why is it so often triggered by a single event? Are you ready to reconcile? How can you overcome past hurts to build a new future with a relative?

Tackling a subject that is achingly familiar to almost everyone, especially in an era when powerful outside forces such as technology and mobility are lessening family cohesion, Dr. Pillemer combines dramatic stories, science-based guidance, and practical repair tools tohelp people find the path to reconciliation.

Order on Amazon.

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The breakdown of your family unit can mean the destruction of each individual emotionally. Is your teen controlling your household? Do you feel like you’re constantly walking on eggshells? Have you exhausted your local resources? Is this tearing your family apart? It might be time to consider outside resources.

Tags: Family Conflict,Fault Lines,Parenting Books,Teen Help

The Depression Workbook for Teens: Tools to Improve Your Mood, Build Self-Esteem, and Stay Motivated

Posted by Sue Scheff on September 10, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Teen Depression, Troubled Teens

Teen Depression, Anxiety and Stress

The mental health crisis with young people is extremely concerning. With almost a year of remote learning, students have become more withdrawn, isolated and dependent upon their electronics.

We have seen a rise in youth depression, stress and anxiety which is causing parents to experience behaviors such as defiance, self-harm, eating disorders, hyenine issues and possibly suicide ideation.

Is your teen struggling emotionally?

Considered our featured teen book:

The Depression Workbook for Teens: Tools to Improve Your Mood, Build Self-Esteem, and Stay Motivated

By Katie Hurley, LCSW

Don’t face depression alone―advanced tools for teens.

You can feel better and The Depression Workbook for Teens is going to help you do it. Drawing on the most effective and up-to-date techniques―including cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness―this depression workbook is filled with helpful exercises designed specifically for teens that will help you conquer depression. Develop the skills you need to manage your emotional well-being and bring happiness back into your life.

Get information all about depression―its symptoms, causes, and risk factors―so you can identify the differences between normal stress and depression. There is a light at the end of the tunnel―The Depression Workbook for Teens will show you the way.

The Depression Workbook for Teens includes:

Just for teens―Tackle your depression head-on using a depression workbook filled with strategies written with your unique needs (and time constraints) in mind.
Useful tools―With quizzes, journaling prompts, conversation starters, and more, you’ll discover simple skill-building exercises to improve your mood and build your self-esteem.
Practical problem solving―Find ways to work through the challenges you’re facing―including fighting with your parents, getting up in the morning, struggling with homework, and more.

The Depression Workbook for Teens gives you the helping hand you need to get through this difficult time.

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About Katie Hurley: Katie is a child and adolescent psychotherapist, parenting expert, and writer. Hurley is the author of No More Mean Girls and The Happy Kid Handbook. Her work can be found in The Washington Post, PBS Parents, US News and World Report, and Psychology Today.

During this time of uncertainty, The Depression Workbook has been a tremendous asset to many young people. Studies are revealing the impact COVID is having on mental health with our young people.

Have you exhausted your local resources?

Therapy isn’t working? Contact us to learn more about residential therapy for your teenager.

Tags: Teen Depression

Anxiety Relief for Teens: Essential CBT Skills and Mindfulness Practices to Overcome Anxiety and Stress

Posted by Sue Scheff on September 02, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Mental Health, Parenting Books, Parenting Teens

Anxiety Relief for Teens: Essential CBT Skills and Mindfulness Practices to Overcome Anxiety and Stress

By Regine Galanti, PhD

Is anxiety disrupting your life? With proven CBT-based skills and mindfulness techniques, this book can be your guide out of the spiraling stress of anxiety and get you back on track to living a happy and healthy life.

Getting good grades, keeping up with social media, maintaining friendships… you have a lot on your plate and it’s more difficult when you add anxiety to the mix. You may even be avoiding situations, events, or people that could trigger your anxiety. So, how do you stop yourself from missing out on life?

With Anxiety Relief for Teens, Dr. Regine Galanti teaches you how CBT-based skills and mindfulness techniques can help you manage your anxiety and reverse negative patterns. Through simple and effective exercises that help you change your thoughts, behaviors, and physical reactions, this helpful guide gives you the tools you need to navigate all of life’s challenges.

Anxiety Relief for Teens features:

•  Quizzes and self-assessments to better understand your anxiety and emotions and discover their respective triggers.
•  30+ CBT-based tools to manage your anxiety along with practical strategies for dealing with challenging emotions such as anger and sadness.
•  30+ mindfulness practices to cope with your anxiety in the present moment through visualizations, breathing, meditation, and other exercises.

Take a peek inside the book:

About the author:

Regine Galanti, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder of Long Island Behavioral Psychology in Long Island, New York, where she brings warmth, sensitivity, and a tailored problem-solving approach to her practice. She specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and has expertise in obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, parenting, and behavior problems.

She applies short-term, evidence-based strategies to help young people change their thoughts and behaviors. Specifically, she uses exposure and related behavioral therapy techniques to help those living with anxiety face their fears so they can live happier, healthier lives.

Order on Amazon today.

Tags: School Stress,Teen Anxiety,Teen Help,Teen Stress

Middle School Matters: The 10 Key Skills Kids Need and How Parents Can Help

Posted by Sue Scheff on August 10, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Parenting Books, Parenting Teens, Teen Help

Middle School Matters: The 10 Key Skills Kids Need to Thrive in Middle School and Beyond–and How Parents Can Help

A counselor and popular Washington Post contributor offers a new take on grades 6-8 as a distinct developmental phase–and the perfect time to set up kids to thrive.

By author Phyllis Fagell

Middle school is its own important, distinct territory, and yet it’s either written off as an uncomfortable rite of passage or lumped in with other developmental phases. Based on her many years working in schools, professional counselor Phyllis Fagell sees these years instead as a critical stage that parents can’t afford to ignore (and though “middle school” includes different grades in various regions, Fagell maintains that the ages make more of a difference than the setting).

Though the transition from childhood to adolescence can be tough for kids, this time of rapid physical, intellectual, moral, social, and emotional change is a unique opportunity to proactively build character and confidence.

Fagell helps parents use the middle school years as a low-stakes training ground to teach kids the key skills they’ll need to thrive now and in the future, including making good friend choices, negotiating conflict, regulating their own emotions, be their own advocates, and more.

To answer parents’ most common questions and struggles with middle school-aged children, Fagell combines her professional and personal expertise with stories and advice from prominent psychologists, doctors, parents, educators, school professionals, and middle schoolers themselves.

Order your copy of Middle School Matters today from Amazon.

Tags: Character building,Parenting Teens,Teen Help

Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe

Posted by Sue Scheff on July 26, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Parenting Books, Parenting Teens

Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risk, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe

By Jess Shatkin

A groundbreaking, research-based guide that sheds new light on why young people make dangerous choices–and offers solutions that work

Texting while driving. Binge-drinking. Unprotected sex. There are plenty of reasons for parents to worry about getting a late-night call about their teen. But most of the advice parents and educators hear about teens is outdated and unscientific–and simply doesn’t work.

Acclaimed adolescent psychiatrist and educator Jess Shatkin brings more than two decades’ worth of research and clinical experience to the subject, along with cutting-edge findings from brain science, evolutionary psychology, game theory, and other disciplines — plus a widely curious mind and the perspective of a concerned dad himself.

Using science and stories, fresh analogies, clinical anecdotes, and research-based observations, Shatkin explains:

* Why “scared straight,” adult logic, and draconian punishment don’t work

* Why the teen brain is “born to be wild”–shaped by evolution to explore and take risks

* The surprising role of brain development, hormones, peer pressure, screen time, and other key factors

* What parents and teachers can do–in everyday interactions, teachable moments, and specially chosen activities and outings–to work with teens’ need for risk, rewards and social acceptance, not against it.

Order Born to Be Wild today on Amazon.

Tags: Parenting Books,Risky Teens,Teen Help,Troubled Teens

Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen

Posted by Sue Scheff on July 25, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book

Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School

An excellent guide for helping teens navigate the challenging times we are all facing today.

By Michelle Icard

Help Your Teens Book14 Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen

Order on Amazon

Trying to convince a middle schooler to listen to you can be exasperating. Indeed, it can feel like the best option is not to talk! But keeping kids safe—and prepared for all the times when you can’t be the angel on their shoulder—is about having the right conversations at the right time.

From a brain growth and emotional readiness perspective, there is no better time for this than their tween years, right up to when they enter high school.

Distilling Michelle Icard’s decades of experience working with families, Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen focuses on big, thorny topics such as friendship, sexuality, impulsivity, and technology, as well as unexpected conversations about creativity, hygiene, money, privilege, and contributing to the family. Icard outlines a simple, memorable, and family-tested formula for the best approach to these essential talks, the BRIEF Model:

Begin peacefully
Relate to your child
Interview to collect information
Echo what you’re hearing, and give
Feedback

With wit and compassion, she also helps you get over the most common hurdles in talking to tweens, including:

• What phrases invite connection and which irritate kids or scare them off
• The best places, times, and situations in which to initiate talks
• How to keep kids interested, open, and engaged in conversation
• How to exit these chats in a way that keeps kids wanting more

Like a Rosetta Stone for your tween’s confounding language, Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen is an essential communication guide to helping your child through the emotional, physical, and social challenges ahead and, ultimately, toward teenage success.

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Check out our Library of Parenting Books for teens, parents and more.

Also tips for starting conversations with your teen.

Tags: Parenting Book

Raising Humans In A Digital World

Posted by Sue Scheff on April 22, 2021 / Posted in Digital Parenting, Featured Book, Internet Addiction, Internet Safety, Parenting Books

Raising Humans In A Digital World

Helping Teens Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology

Sexting, cyberbullying, revenge porn, online predators… all of these potential threats can tempt parents to snatch the smartphone or tablet right out of their children’s hands.

While avoidance might eliminate the dangers, that approach also means your child misses out on technology’s many benefits and opportunities.

Raising Humans in a Digital World (Harper Collins 2019) is a must read for all parents of connected tweens and teens.

Cybercivics teacher and author, Diana Graber, brilliantly shares with her readers how digital kids (tweens and teens) must learn to navigate through today’s online environment:

developing social-emotional skills
balancing virtual and real life
building safe and healthy relationships
avoiding cyberbullies and online predators
protecting personal information
identifying and avoiding fake news and questionable content
becoming positive role models and leaders.

This book is packed with at-home discussion topics and enjoyable activities that any busy family can slip into their daily routine.

Full of practical tips grounded in academic research and hands-on experience, today’s parents finally have what they’ve been waiting for—a guide to raising digital kids who will become the positive and successful leaders our world desperately needs.

Order your copy today wherever books are sold.

Diana Graber on the Today Show.

Tags: Cybersafety,Diana Graber,Online Safety,Parenting Books

The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence

Posted by Sue Scheff on March 26, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Teen Drug Use

FEATURED BOOK

The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence

Author Jessica Lahey

This is one of the most timely and important books for parents today, especially those raising tweens and teenagers. So many are concerned about their child’s future as it pertains to substance use – here is how you can become a proactive parent starting now.

In this supportive, life-saving resource, the New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Failure helps parents and educators understand the roots of substance abuse and identify who is most at risk for addiction, and offers practical steps for prevention.

Jessica Lahey was born into a family with a long history of alcoholism and drug abuse. Despite her desire to thwart her genetic legacy, she became an alcoholic and didn’t find her way out until her early forties. Jessica has worked as a teacher in substance abuse programs for teens, and was determined to inoculate her two adolescent sons against their most dangerous inheritance. All children, regardless of their genetics, are at some risk for substance abuse.

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, teen drug addiction is the nation’s largest preventable and costly health problem. Despite the existence of proven preventive strategies, nine out of ten adults with substance use disorder report they began drinking and taking drugs before age eighteen.

The Addiction Inoculation is a comprehensive resource parents and educators can use to prevent substance abuse in children. Based on research in child welfare, psychology, substance abuse, and developmental neuroscience, this essential guide provides evidence-based strategies and practical tools adults need to understand, support, and educate resilient, addiction-resistant children.

The guidelines are age-appropriate and actionable—from navigating a child’s risk for addiction, to interpreting signs of early abuse, to advice for broaching difficult conversations with children.

The Addiction Inoculation is an empathetic, accessible resource for anyone who plays a vital role in children’s lives—parents, teachers, coaches, or pediatricians—to help them raise kids who will grow up healthy, happy, and addiction-free.

Last month’s featured book: Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen (Must read!)

Tags: Featured Book

Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy

Posted by Sue Scheff on February 10, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book, Teen Help

Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy

By David Sheff

A myth-shattering look at drug abuse and addiction treatment, based on cutting-edge research

Addiction is a preventable, treatable disease, not a moral failing. As with other illnesses, the approaches most likely to work are based on science — not on faith, tradition, contrition, or wishful thinking.

These facts are the foundation of Clean. The existing addiction treatments, including Twelve Step programs and rehabs, have helped some, but they have failed to help many more.

To discover why, David Sheff spent time with scores of scientists, doctors, counselors, and addicts and their families, and explored the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine. In Clean, he reveals how addiction really works, and how we can combat it.

Order Clean today.

15 Warning signs your teen might be using drugs.

Also read David Sheff’s NYT’s best seller, Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction

When parents question their parenting?

What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery.

Before Nic became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets.

David Sheff traces the first warning signs: the denial, the three a.m. phone calls—is it Nic? the police? the hospital? His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every treatment that might save his son. And he refused to give up on Nic.

Order Beautiful Boy today.

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Both books are a must read for any parent with a child that you suspect is making bad choices. No matter how smart or talented they are, or if you believe it’s just a phase — don’t be a parent in denial. Be proactive. You could be saving their life.

Tags: Parenting Books,Parenting Teens,Teen Drug Use,Teen Help

The Ultimate Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens

Posted by Sue Scheff on January 15, 2021 / Posted in Featured Book

The Ultimate Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens: Overcome Insecurity, Defeat Your Inner Critic, and Live Confidently

Author Megan MacCutcheon

It has been an extremely challenging time for young people, especially teenagers. Since the pandemic, we have seen a rise in depression, anxiety, stress and (sadly) self-harm and suicide ideation.

Helping our young develop self-worth and coping skills can also help them make better choices in this difficult world.

Inside The Ultimate Self-Esteem Teen Workbook:

Take on the world with confidence and positivity―a guide to self esteem for teens

Sometimes, feeling self-confident and secure seems impossible, especially if you’re a teen dealing with school, friends, family, and other challenges that can affect how you see yourself. This workbook helps you build up your self esteem and confidence with creative activities and advice that show you how to think positively, release self-doubt, and start loving who you are.

This supportive self esteem workbook includes:

More than 50 different exercises―Get to know yourself with quizzes, journal prompts, checklists, and more that help you set goals, work through insecurities, and find out what makes you feel strong.
True stories from other teens―Feel less alone when you read real-life anecdotes from your peers, along with a Q&A section full of bonus advice.
The power to change―Self esteem is like a muscle, and practicing with this workbook will help you build your confidence, stay resilient, and focus on the future.

Strengthen your self esteem and overpower insecurity with the exercises in The Ultimate Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens.

You may also be interested in The Teen Depression Workbook for Teens by Katie Hurley.

Tags: Teen Books