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 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.




The Anxiety Workbook for Teens


Book Description

This professional edition includes both the Instant Help book and a companion CD that offers the complete book and printable worksheets for your clients. About one in four teens suffers from mild to serious problems with anxiety, and many of them get little or no help. The Anxiety Workbook for Teens, written by an experienced therapist, gives teens a collection of tools to help control anxiety and face day-to-day challenges. This workbook both gives anxious teens insight into their problems and offers practical guidance for overcoming them.




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.




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.




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.




So ... You're Having a Teenager


Book Description

'I love my kids with a primal passion but when they hit puberty I wanted to hand them back for a refund. If only I'd had this witty, gritty owner's manual. It's a pithy, practical guide for all deranged parents.' KATHY LETTE 'I wish I'd read this book before I acquired the three teenagers I have. Very useful.' CRAIG REUCASSEL 'This book should be compulsory reading for teenagers, but since they already know everything, I highly recommend it for their parents instead.' DEE MADIGAN 'This book articulates the frustrations and stresses of modern parenting and provides a reassuring reality check on how to navigate the choppy waters of raising teens in an always-on, screen-obsessed world.' JOCELYN BREWER, psychologist So, you're having a teenager? Congratulations/commiserations. Worried about drugs? We recommend Valium, wine and HRT. Happy you survived the toddler tantrums? Let us introduce you to the eye roll, the cold shoulder and the incoherent mumble. On the bright side, you've reduced your need for Google - your adolescent is now able to frequently correct, hector and lecture you with their strong opinion on everything. And if you feel tired, you're not imagining it. Teen years are like dog years: for every year your teen ages, you age seven. You need a survival guide for the testing times ahead. Friends, next-door neighbours and fellow mums of teens Sarah Macdonald and Cathy Wilcox have lived through it all and produced this straight-talking, not entirely sarcastic, informative guide to what for many parents are the most challenging - but interesting and exciting - years in the role. From A is for Argumentative, Awkward and Angst, to Z is for Zits and Zzzzzs. Because having a toddler is a doddle.




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.