Читать книгу Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety - John Duffy - Страница 6

Preface

I love writing. I really do. And several years ago, I experienced the good fortune of knocking a large, significant item off my personal bucket list: I published a book. Not only that, I felt as if I published an important book, one that mattered, one that would, if taken seriously, drive a significant positive change in the lives of families, specifically those of teenagers and their parents.

I told stories. I dispelled myths. I drew from many years of direct clinical work, and came up with a truly user-friendly framework for parents of teenagers, one that I knew turned some of the more traditional models and belief systems about teens on their heads. I was proud of it, and still am. I had my say and, as far as I was concerned, I was done with the matter. I freed myself to move on to write something lighter, perhaps existential and Eastern-derived, more philosophical than psychological, something a little more Nietzsche and a little less niche-y.

(Apologies for that. Couldn’t resist.)

In any event, this shift in focus was not meant to be. Here am I to address that parent-teen relationship once again, in full recognition that, in the fleeting few years between publication of The Available Parent and the present, the world of our teens and of their parents has changed so dramatically, so thoroughly, that the subject requires revisiting.

I am finding that parenting today is a more urgent matter than it was even those few short years ago. The stakes are higher, the dangers greater, the threats to self-worth and self-esteem wildly more pervasive.

And what looks like misbehavior, checking out, dropping out, refusing to go, are most likely overcorrections, adaptive mechanisms to relieve the stress of the perfectionistic, hyper-driven AP student, crushing it while secretly cutting herself for relief, or sneaking a Juul or weed break after her parents are fast asleep. These days, no child escapes childhood unscathed. Our generation by and large created this dynamic. It is ours to fix. We owe it to our kids.

For the stress is truly absurd and immeasurable, and the shift toward a manageable teenage life is the new mandate, imperative for all parents of teens or soon-to-be-teens.

So, help a guy out. I’m a writer. I’ve got ideas, maybe a novel or a play in me. Help me make this the last book I write on parenting.

Please.