Angst of Adolescence


Book Description

Being a good parent is one of the most difficult, yet most rewarding, jobs a person can have in his or her lifetime. Being the parent of a teen is an especially daunting phase of the journey. As parents begin to notice the significant changes that come with adolescence (physical changes brought about by puberty, the constant angst and moodiness, and of course the classic eye-rolling and the I-know-it-all attitude), they wonder just what happened to their happy, sweet, and affectionate young boy or girl. Parents sit by amazed--and often lost and unprepared--as they witness their child morph and mutate into a full-blown pubescent display of emotions. The Angst of Adolescence: How to Parent Your Teen and Live to Laugh About It, written in a conversational, informative, humorous and relatable style, promises to deliver trustworthy resource for parents of teens who are searching for answers and guidance about how to maneuver their way through this tricky developmental period. Dr. Sara Villanueva, a prominent psychologist specializing in the adolescent years, shares relevant research findings so that parents can be informed of the facts as opposed to making assumptions based on ubiquitous but questionable sources. Most of all it will provide parents of teenagers with perspective in the midst of angst so they can come away with the sense that: * They are not alone in their experience of raising teens; many, many people have gone through it and we can all relate to and learn from one another. * Most of what your teen is feeling and expressing is normal and falls within the expected range of behavior for adolescent development. * Despite the challenges involved in parenting teens, we should take time to focus on the positive things in life and live with our child through the tough adolescent years so that we emerge on the other side with friendship and a deeper bond. As a psychologist and mother of four, the author shares both research-based and first-hand advice on how to navigate the teen years and live to laugh about it.




Teen Angst? Naaah . . .


Book Description

In Teen Angst! Naaah . . . Ned Vizzini offers an authentic and raw portrayal of the crushing anxiety many teens experience, and which often is dismissed as simple ‘angst’. In this classic testament to high school, Ned invites you into his world of school, parents, cool (and almost cool), music (the good and bad), friends, fame, camp, sex (sort of), Cancún (almost), prom, beer, video games, and more. With wit, irony, and honesty, Vizzini presents the weird, funny, and sometimes mortifying moments that made up his teen years. From the author of Broadway musical sensation Be More Chill and It's Kind of a Funny Story, this is a quasi-autobiographical examination of one high schooler’s battle with social anxiety, written when the author was just nineteen. “Fiercely intelligent and introspective . . . Insightful, and thoroughly charming.” —SLJ




The Anxiety Workbook for Teens


Book Description

From managing social media stress to dealing with pandemics and other events beyond your control, this fully revised and updated edition of The Anxiety Workbook for Teens has the tools you need to put anxiety in its place. In our increasingly uncertain world, there are plenty of reasons for anyone to feel anxious. And as a teen, you’re also dealing with academic stress, social and societal pressures, and massive changes taking place in your body, brain, and emotions. The good news is that there are a lot of effective techniques you can use—both on your own and with the help of a therapist or counselor—to reduce your feelings of anxiety and keep them from taking over your life. Now fully revised and updated, this second edition of The Anxiety Workbook for Teens provides the most up-to-date strategies for calming fear, anxiety, and worry, so you can reach your goals and be your best. You’ll find new skills to help you handle school pressures and social media overload, develop a positive self-image, recognize your anxious thoughts, and stay calm in times of extreme uncertainty. The workbook also includes resources for seeking additional help and support if you need it. While working through the activities in this book, you’ll find tons of ways to help you manage your anxiety. Some of the activities may seem unusual at first. You may be asked to try doing things that are very new to you. Just remember—these are tools, intended for you to carry with you and use over and over throughout your life. The more you practice using them, the better you will become at managing anxiety. If you’re ready to change your life for the better and get your anxiety under control, this workbook can help you start today. In these increasingly challenging times, teens need mental health resources more than ever. With more than 1.6 million copies sold worldwide, Instant Help Books for teens are easy to use, proven-effective, and recommended by therapists.




The Case Against Adolescence


Book Description

This groundbreaking book argues that adolescence is an unnecessary period of life that people are better off without. Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of "Psychology Today," shows that teen turmoil is caused by outmoded systems put into place a century ago which destroyed the continuum between childhood and adulthood. Where this continuum still exists in other countries, there is no adolescence. Isolated from adults, American teens learn everything they know from their media-dominated peers--"the last people on earth they should be learning from," says Epstein. Epstein explains that our teens are highly capable--in some ways more capable than adults--and argues strongly against "infantilizing" young people. We must rediscover "the adult in every teen," he says, by giving young people adult authority and responsibility as soon as they can demonstrate readiness. This landmark book will change the thinking about teens for decades to come.




Overcoming Turbulent Times; Teenage Angst


Book Description

It is not easy being a teenager. I don't think it ever was, but in today's world, I believe it is more complicated than ever. There are many challenges that teens face, none of them are simple to work through. Each chapter in this book discusses a different personal struggle that causes much angst in the life of a teen; loneliness, damaging effects of social media, body-image struggles, relationship conflicts, and more. The difficult situations are not insurmountable; there are supports out there. You can overcome anything if you identify the problem, let people in to help you, and believe in yourself. This book will be your guide, your place to connect with to find your way and overcome the turbulent times of teenage angst.




Teen Brain


Book Description

With their labile and rapidly developing brains, adolescents are particularly susceptible to addiction, and addiction leads to anxiety and depression. What few parents will know is that what we think of as the most typical addictions and problematic teen behaviours - smoking, drinking, drug taking, sex leading to teenage pregnancy - are on the decline. The bad news is that a whole raft of addictions has taken their place. Whereas once the dopamine-hungry brain of a teenager got its fix from smoking a joint or sculling a Bundy and coke, it is now turning to electronic devices for the pleasure jolt that typically comes from online playing games and engaging with social media. What is doubly troubling is that, unlike drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, electronic devices are not illicit. Quite the contrary. They are liberally distributed by schools and parents, with few restrictions placed on their use. And, to add fuel to the fire, emerging research shows that if addictive pathways are activated during the teen years, they are there for life, and that what starts as a screen addiction can lead to major substance abuse later in life.




Untangled


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An award-winning guide to the sometimes erratic and confusing behavior of teenage girls from the author of Untangled and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers Dr. Lisa Damour worked as an expert collaborator on Pixar’s Inside Out 2! “The most down-to-earth, readable parenting book I’ve come across in a long time.”—The Washington Post In this sane, highly engaging, and informed guide for parents of daughters, Dr. Damour draws on decades of experience and the latest research to reveal the seven distinct—and absolutely normal—developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups, including Parting with Childhood, Contending with Adult Authority, Entering the Romantic World, and Caring for Herself. Providing realistic scenarios and welcome advice on how to engage daughters in smart, constructive ways, Untangled gives parents a broad framework for understanding their daughters while addressing their most common questions, including • My thirteen-year-old rolls her eyes when I try to talk to her, and only does it more when I get angry with her about it. How should I respond? • Do I tell my teen daughter that I’m checking her phone? • My daughter suffers from test anxiety. What can I do to help her? • Where’s the line between healthy eating and having an eating disorder? • My teenage daughter wants to know why I’m against pot when it’s legal in some states. What should I say? • My daughter’s friend is cutting herself. Do I call the girl’s mother to let her know? Perhaps most important, Untangled helps mothers and fathers understand, connect, and grow with their daughters. When parents know what makes their daughter tick, they can embrace and enjoy the challenge of raising a healthy, happy young woman. BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARD WINNER




A Strong West Wind


Book Description

In this exquisitely rendered memoir set on the high plains of Texas, Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell transforms into art what it is like to come of age in a particular time and place. A Strong West Wind begins in the 1950s in the wilds of the Texas Panhandle–a place of both boredom and beauty, its flat horizons broken only by oil derricks, grain elevators, and church steeples. Its story belongs to a girl who grew up surrounded by dust storms and cattle ranches and summer lightning, who took refuge from the vastness of the land and the ever-present wind by retreating into books. What she found there, from renegade women to men who lit out for the territory, turned out to offer a blueprint for her own future. Caldwell would grow up to become a writer, but first she would have to fall in love with a man who was every mother’s nightmare, live through the anguish and fire of the Vietnam years, and defy the father she adored, who had served as a master sergeant in the Second World War. A Strong West Wind is a memoir of culture and history–of fathers and daughters, of two world wars and the passionate rebellions of the sixties. But it is also about the mythology of place and the evolution of a sensibility: about how literature can shape and even anticipate a life. Caldwell possesses the extraordinary ability to illuminate the desires, stories, and lives of ordinary people. Written with humanity, urgency, and beautiful restraint, A Strong West Wind is a magical and unforgettable book, destined to become an American classic.




Fictions of Adolescent Carnality


Book Description

Fictions of Adolescent Carnality considers one of the most controversial topics related to adolescents: their experience of desire. In fiction for adolescents, carnal desire is variously presented as a source of angst, an overwhelming experience over which one has no control, bestial, disgusting and, just occasionally, a source of pleasure. The on-set of desire, within the Anglophone tradition, has been closely associated with the loss of innocence and the end of childhood. Drawing on a corpus of 200 narratives of adolescent desire, Kokkola examines the connections between sociological accounts of teenagers’ sexual behaviour, adult fears for and about their off-spring and fictional representations of adolescents exploring their sexuality. Taking up topics such as adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, queer sexualities, animal-human connections and sexual abuse, Kokkola provides wide-ranging insights into how Anglophone literature responds to adolescents’ carnal desires, and contributes to on-going debates on the construction of adolescence and the ideology of innocence.




The Virgin Suicides


Book Description

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family’s fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.