We have a tendency today to over-parent, micro-manage, and under-appreciate our adolescents. Dr. John Duffy's The Available Parent is a revolutionary approach to taking care of teens and tweens. Teenagers are often left feeling unheard and misunderstood, and parents are left feeling bewildered by the changes in their child at adolescence and their sudden lack of effectiveness as parents. The parent has become unavailable, the teen responds in kind, and a negative, often destructive cycle of communication begins. The available parent of a teenager is open to discussion, offering advice and solutions, but not insisting on them. He allows his child to make some mistakes, setting limits, primarily where health and safety are concerned. He never lectures — he is available but not controlling. He is neither cruel nor dismissive, ever. The available parent is fun and funny, and can bring levity to the most stressful situation. All of that is to say, there are no conditions to his availability — it is absolute.

In this book, the preeminent child psychologist of our time gives us the results of his lifelong effort to determine what is most crucial in successful child-rearing. His purpose is not to give parents preset rules for raising their children, but rather to show them how to develop their own insights so that they will understand their own and their children's behavior in different situations and how to cope with it. Above all, he warns, parents must not indulge their impulse to try to create the child they would like to have, but should instead help each child fully develop into the person he or she would like to be.

A Guidebook for Parents Navigating the New Teen Years Learn about the “New Teen” and how to adjust your parenting approach. Kids are growing up with nearly unlimited access to social media and the internet, and unprecedented academic, social, and familial stressors. Starting as early as eight years old, children are exposed to information, thought, and emotion that they are developmentally unprepared to process. As a result, saving the typical “teen parenting” strategies for thirteen-year-olds is now years too late. Urgent advice for parents of teens. Dr. John Duffy’s parenting book is a new and necessary guide that addresses this hidden phenomenon of the changing teenage brain. Dr. Duffy, a nationally recognized expert in parenting for nearly twenty-five years, offers this book as a guide for parents raising children who are growing up quickly and dealing with unresolved adolescent issues that can lead to anxiety and depression. Unprecedented psychological suffering among our young and why it is occurring. A shift has taken place in how and when children develop. Because of the exposure they face, kids are emotionally overwhelmed at a young age, often continuing to search for a sense of self well into their twenties. Paradoxically, Dr. Duffy recognizes the good that comes with these challenges, such as the sense of justice instilled in teenagers starting at a young age. Readers of this book will: • Sort through the overwhelming circumstances of today’s teens and better understand the changing landscape of adolescence • Come away with a revised, conscious parenting plan more suited to addressing the current needs of the New Teen • Discover the joy in parenting again by reclaiming the role of your teen’s ally, guide, and consultant If you enjoyed parenting books such as The Yes Brain, How to Raise an Adult, The Deepest Well, and The Conscious Parent; then Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety should be next on your list!

Digital technology has changed the parenting territory dramatically in recent years. Suddenly we've been tasked with preparing kids to be safe, happy and successful, not just in the real world, but in the online world as well. Martine Oglethorpe is part of a new breed of parenting educator who nimbly stays abreast of technology changes while keeping one foot firmly grounded in the timeless ways that make families strong.Martine skilfully combines her professional expertise with the lived experience gained by guiding her own children down the pathway to being skilled, savvy digital citizens. In these pages lies the blueprint for parenting kids in the digital age. It shares how to be engaged in the digital lives of our children without being overbearing or burdensome; to know when to tread lightly as a parent and when care and caution need to be taken.

An essential guide for parents navigating the new frontier of hyper-connected kids. Today's teenagers spend about nine hours per day online. Parents of this ultra-connected generation struggle with decisions completely new to parenting: Should an eight-year-old be allowed to go on social media? How can parents help their children gain the most from the best aspects of the digital age? How can we keep kids safe from digital harm? John Palfrey and Urs Gasser bring together over a decade of research at Harvard to tackle parents' most urgent concerns. The Connected Parent is required reading for anyone trying to help their kids flourish in the fast-changing, uncharted territory of the digital age.

Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple—and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Different parenting styles, finances, relationships with ex-spouses, legal matters, and even seemingly simple issues such as the kinds of chores assigned to children can chisel away at your union if you don’t always make your marriage a priority. Stepcoupling offers advice for stepcouples on how to do just that—all the while strengthening their blended family with a healthy marriage. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples, such as: * Learning to tailor your expectations of your spouse or children and remembering that no family is perfect * Knowing where your boundaries are, whether involving a hostile ex-spouse or a stepchild who demands too much attention * Realizing that traits like flexibility, tolerance, forgiveness, and openness are especially essential in a stepfamily situation * Making “us” time for talking, problem-solving, weekends away, and enjoying your marriage to constantly renew and strengthen your bond as a couple Let this invaluable remarriage manual help you make your stepcouple the foundation of a strong, happy, and successful stepfamily.

10 WAYS TO BE AN EXCEPTIONAL PARENT IN A QUICK-FIX WORLD No matter how good their intentions, all parents at times resort to quick-fix parenting: things we do to stop a kid's negative or annoying behavior. Quick-fix parenting may temporarily ease a parent's stress level, but it does little to positively impact a child's future. Quick-fix parenting is a terrible long-term strategy for parenting. Intentional parenting is the opposite of quick-fix parenting. Intentional parenting is a way to raise children to become healthy, independent young adults. It's based on solid principles which, applied over time, actually result in less-stressed parents and happier, better-adjusted, and more successful kids. Intentional parenting means you've got more than good intentions; you've got a plan. (And it's always better to have a plan for dealing with the stuff that inevitably crops up between parents and their kids than it is to wing it.) In Intentional Parenting: 10 Ways to be an Exceptional Parent in a Quick-Fix World, Doug and Cathy Fields draw on their own extended experience with young people and as parents to guide you through 10 specific actions that will help you become a more effective parent. A great resource for individuals, couples, and small groups, this interactive workbook comes with a free code to stream 10 video sessions, plus a small group discussion guide. To find out more, visit IntentionalParenting.com. See more resources like this at OrangeBooks.com and ThinkOrange.com