Understanding Your Teen: Shaping Their Character, Facing Their Realities

Easy to read and great reminders, common sense methods to understanding your teen and be reminded what teen life was like for ourselves. Connection is the key!

This is a great book with lots of helpful information in it! I would highly recommend it.

This book is very helpful. It does not tell you a bunch of things you have already botched and leave you feeling worse, like a lot of parenting books. This book gives a lot of insight into why teens do what they do and how to deal with it. The author emphasizes that his parenting goal is not raising obedient children, but raising them to be responsible adults. He speaks with a lot of compassion for teens and their parents. It is also practical and very easy to read.

Biblical-based, practical, loving, tough advice for parents to read. We're going through it with one of our older teens, and I can't say enough about the sound advice contained within the book.

Great book for all parents of teens and pre-teens! The book discusses all of the struggles our teens are dealing with now - technology, dating, homework, depression, driving, sleep, etc...It's an easy read, and well worth it.

Excellent book, very helpful. Have read it and listened to it as an audiobook many times.

if your kids are about to reach the teenage phase is book is a must read book

Jim Burns is president of Homeword and a radio broadcaster. His other books are in the area of parenting or family issues. In this volume he comes right at the issues that are so prevalent for teens today. He makes you feel at ease by confessing his own shock when his children reach the teenage years even though ministering to families was already his lifework. At 200 pages it’s pitched just right for busy parents today.Part one is made up of 11 chapters that deal with big picture ideas about parenting teens. The first two chapters aim at helping us understand our teenagers and how they develop. Then he gets into how it might affect behavior appropriately and help their spiritual life. His chapter on a media-safe home is very thorough and balanced. He tackles the subject of sexuality by suggesting we teach healthy sexuality. He further talks about how to handle homework, keep communication open, and our forcing ourselves as parents to understand the changing culture our teens live in. He wisely added the chapter on intimacy between the parents as a way to help your teams. Many overlook this important aspect. The final chapter of the first part is how to deal with a troubled teen. Everyone hopes that will not be their situation, but if the dreaded happened, here’s a great guide.Part two has 13 chapters that are shorter and narrower. I almost see them as pointed discussions of how to implement the broader concepts learned in the earlier chapters. Here he covers bullying, dating violence, depression, dinnertime, driving, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, obesity, self-injury, sexual abuse, sleep, suicide, and dealing with tragedy.I appreciate the calm way in which he advises us. He seems at once to be telling us to be diligent and patient. He encourages us not to lose our cool, nor our resolve. He doesn’t suggest that parenting isn’t hard work, yet he explains how the individual responsibility of the teen can never leave the picture.This book is a solid help in these difficult times for raising teens. I recommend it.I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

All of the advice given in the book is rooted in Christianity and faith. There should be more info on the cover and/or back of the book stating that it’s written from the POV of a parent who has a faith in God.