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“One of my biggest fears as a parent is that my kids will hide things from me. As a teenager, I felt like my parents were so wrapped up in their own lives that they just didn’t have time to learn anything about mine. I lied to my parents all the time, about where I was, who I was with, and what we were doing. And it terrifies me beyond belief that my kids will lie to me too. All I can hope is that with the right communication, my kids will know how important they are to me and their Dad, that they will understand why it’s important for them to make safe choices, that they won’t ever feel like we don’t care about them.”

How many other parents have felt that way?

Whether they are just beginning the journey with a newborn or have already weathered the teen years, I expect most parents reflect on their own adolescences and recall the hell they put their own parents through at one time or another. Even though most of us sustained little damage thanks to the choices we made, we’d still rather our own children make better choices than we did. But how can we encourage them to do so in a way that will actually make a difference?

Enter Mike Linderman and his book, The Teen Whisperer - “a straightforward and common sense approach with professional validation.” Without exception, our bloggers praised this book and its author: “Linderman has a straightforward style, with no sugar coating and definitely no superiority complex that so many self help authors exhibit.” In fact, “in his own estimation he’s just a guy who seems to have a way with teenagers and the therapist stuff is all secondary.”

But what if you don’t have a teen? Or even a tween? One blogger, who has four children herself, sees value in this book for every parent, no matter how young their children might be: “Do you have kids in the home? Do they fall in the age category of one day to eighteen? Trust me, this is a book you should be reading. As a mother of four, ages one through nearly thirteen, I can attest to the fact that in six blinks of an eye your little cherub who thinks you hung the moon will morph into a hormone-infused adolescent. It is always best to be prepared.” Another blogger, a father of an eighteen year-old, agrees wholeheartedly: “Simply put, this book is something that you should read before your children become teenagers! Read it, and perhaps you can mitigate problems on the rise instead of dealing with full-blown issues later on.”

How does Linderman connect so well with teens, in ways that their parents do not? One blogger summarized his approach eloquently: “The book identifies the Five Primary Needs of Teens (Survival, Fun, Freedom, Power, and Belonging). If one of these needs is unmet, it usually manifests itself in negative behavior. Mr. Mike [how the teens address him] includes checklists to help parents determine where the problem might be hiding, and to identify the unmet need with the behavior. Mr. Mike brings all of this together into identifiable concrete actions families can take to help the teen feel loved, to meet the unmet needs, and to stop the cycle of destructive behavior.”

This same blogger explains the communication disconnect between parents and teens in a way that even parents of babies and toddlers can understand: “When your child is a baby or a toddler, their total dependence on you for meals, cleaning and entertainment makes it very clear to them that they belong, and are loved by you. However, when the toddler grows into a self-sufficient teen, our physical presence is not needed, and most of our physical contact is severed. In Linderman’s work with troubled teens at Spring Creek, a boarding school, the teens claim over and over that their parents do not love them or that they seldom hear those words from them.”

Pure intention, as opposed to unconditional love, is the basis of Linderman’s guidance to parents in relating to their children. One blogger described it as such: “I will always love you, and I will always respect your needs and do what I can to help you see that they are met, but I won’t always respect the actions you take or the choices you make. I also understand that you can say the same of me. But we also have to understand that underlying any of those disagreements and disappointments is a solid foundation of love and trust.” Because as Linderman points out, much to the surprise of one blogger: “What parents might find surprising is that the one group their kids want most to belong to is their family. Thinking back on my own teenage years, I was humbled to discover that he was correct. Sometimes, being a parent means remembering your long lost teenage years.”

Those who are still in the throes of the terrible twos may not yet be thinking of those teen years far in the future. But one mother knows all too well how the challenges differ: “As my best friend told me once after enduring a toddler screaming fit that left me with frazzled nerves, Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. I now understand what she meant, as I’d do just about anything to be back at a time when if my son was being naughty, I took away his beloved Thomas trains. Now, he’s flunking 6th grade and I feel very helpless.” Another mother, with six kids ranging from toddler to teen, advised: “I’d recommend any parent of a preteen or teen, troubled or not, get this book and devote as much time as possible to improving their relationship.”

In short, The Teen Whisperer gave our bloggers hope:

“I quite honestly feel like a light has been shed on the road ahead for my family (I can’t wait to share this book with my husband) and I know without a doubt that this will be a parenting reference book that I will keep close at hand for a long time. I am thrilled that I have had the chance to read this now, before crisis mode and I most definitely encourage everyone with children to get this book before they think they need it to help pave the way for a healthy parent/teen journey.”

To purchase your own copy of The Teen Whisperer, click here.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Books, Kids, Pre-teen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.