Troubled Teen Books

Parents do not ever want to reach the point where they are thinking of sending their son or daughter to a boarding school for troubled teens. New parents especially are looking down the road wondering how they can avoid raising a teen predisposed to rebellious or out-of-control behavior. There are certainly thousands of books advising parents, counseling them in strategies for everything from how to detect teen drug abuse, to how to help the depressed teen, to how to keep your teen jock off of steroids.. From time to time we will bring to your attention books that have been recommended by readers or have received outstanding reviews. One such book, ‘Before It’s Too Late: Why Some Kids Get Into Trouble–and What Parents Can Do About It’, seeks to dispel the notion that having a troubled teen is evidence of poor parenting. The author, clinical psychologist Stanton Samenow, contends that in blaming themselves, parents fail to make the teen own his accountability.

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“Samenow, a clinical psychologist, tempers the notion that parents and environment are usually responsible for a child’s serious misbehavior. How can it always be the fault of misguided parents, he wonders, if other children in the same family turn out to be responsible, law-abiding citizens? Samenow argues that by blaming parents, we don’t allow the child to take responsibility for his or her own actions. Samenow shows parents how to break this cycle of irresponsibility. First he bluntly describes the thinking he has found to be typical of antisocial children, from disregarding consequences to lying as a way of life. Then he offers strategies for parental intervention, including the erroneous thinking parents may have to overcome in order to take action. Samenow helps parents identify patterns of behavior, offering numerous comparisons between normal developmental issues and how they differ from the behavior and motivation of an antisocial child.” (unknown source) By Ann Walker