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    The Teen Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Adolescent Maintenance
    The Teen Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Adolescent Maintenance
    The Teen Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Adolescent Maintenance
    Ebook300 pages2 hours

    The Teen Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Adolescent Maintenance

    By Sarah Jordan

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    About this ebook

    At Last! A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Teens

    Hormones. Rebellion. Moodiness. Peer pressure. No parent can be fully prepared for all the challenges associated with adolescence.

    Fortunately, The Teen Owner’s Manual is here to answer your most pressing questions: How can I teach my teenager to make smart decisions? How do I keep her safe on the Web? How do I get him to communicate? How and when should I talk to her about sex? Whatever your concerns, you’ll find the answers right here—courtesy of parenting author Sarah Jordan and adolescent medicine specialist Dr. Janice Hillman.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherQuirk Books
    Release dateJul 22, 2014
    ISBN9781594747700
    The Teen Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Troubleshooting Tips, and Advice on Adolescent Maintenance

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      Book preview

      The Teen Owner's Manual - Sarah Jordan

      Copyright © 2010 by Quirk Productions, Inc.

      Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Headcase Design

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

      Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2009929778

      eBook ISBN: 978-1-59474-417-4

      Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59474-770-0

      Designed and illustrated by Paul Kepple and Scotty Reifsnyder @ Headcase Design

      www.headcasedesign.com

      eBook production Management by John J. McGurk

      Quirk Books

      215 Church Street

      Philadelphia, PA 19106

      quirkbooks.com

      v3.1

      Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER 1

      CRAM SESSION: PREPPING FOR THE TEEN YEARS

      Brave New World: Understanding What’s Motivating Your Teen

      The Most Important Habits of a Highly Successful Parent

      ▪ Give Me Your Unconditional Love

      ▪ Give Me Your Unconditional Love, Part 2

      ▪ Amp Up Your Child’s Inner Voice

      ▪ Develop the Problem-Solving Mind

      ▪ Listen!

      ▪ Start the Conversation

      ▪ Don’t Rule with an Iron Fist

      How to Be a Super Model

      You Are Not Your Child

      CHAPTER 2

      PHYSICAL EDUCATION: THE CHANGING BODY AND MIND OF YOUR TEEN

      It’s All in the Timing: His and Her Puberty

      ▪ I Smell a Teenager

      ▪ Early and Later Signs of Puberty for Girls

      ▪ Early and Later Signs of Puberty for Boys

      All About Breasts

      ▪ Embarrassment-Free Bra Shopping

      ▪ Getting the Right Bra Fit

      Menstrual Periods and Sympathy

      ▪ It’s Not a Curse!

      ▪ Emergency Prep for Red-Letter Days

      ▪ Cramp Busters

      Rogue Penises: What’s Going On Down There?

      ▪ Nocturnal Emissions 101

      ▪ Spontaneous Erections and Other Surprises

      Masturbation Is Not a Dirty Word

      ▪ It’s Only Natural

      ▪ You Really Won’t Go Blind

      Keeping It Clean with Teen Hygiene

      ▪ BO Be Gone!

      Going Mental: This Is Your Teen’s Brain on Hormones

      ▪ My Amygdala Made Me Do It! Or, What’s Really Happening to Your Child’s Brain

      ▪ I Was a Teenage Video Addict

      Teen Zombies on the Loose: What You Need to Know About Teen Sleep

      ▪ Teenage Standard Time

      ▪ Take Back the Night!

      The Skin Game: Whiteheads, Blackheads, Acne, and Misery

      ▪ Some Dos and Don’ts

      Feeding Frenzy and the Growing Teen

      Learning to Love That Bod

      ▪ It’s All in the Genes—and Then Some

      ▪ Your Body, Your Self

      A Close Shave: Hair Removal 101

      ▪ Boys’ Edition

      ▪ Girls’ Edition

      ▪ Teen Obsessives’ Edition

      CHAPTER 3

      SCHOOL DAZE: MANAGING ACADEMIC LIFE

      Making the Grade

      ▪ Whose Problem Is This, Anyway?

      ▪ Why Are Those Grades Dropping, Really?

      ▪ Don’t Get Angry—Get Help!

      ▪ How to Preserve Grades by Conserving Energy

      Reality Check: What If It Is a Learning Disorder?

      Home Is Where the Homework Is

      ▪ It’s All in the Habits

      ▪ To Supervise or to Meddle?

      Performance Anxiety: Helping Your Kid Handle Stress

      ▪ Breathing Is Fundamental

      Bullies, Mean Kids, and Hurt Feelings

      ▪ How to Recognize a Bully

      ▪ Shining a Light on the Bully

      ▪ Get the School Involved

      Handling the Car Pool Brat

      Ready or Not: Time to Think About College

      ▪ Road Tripping and Campus Visits

      CHAPTER 4

      SOCIAL STUDIES: YOUR TEEN’S SCENE

      You Are No Longer the Center of Your Child’s Universe

      Child Abandonment Syndrome: Parents’ Edition

      The Truth About Cliques

      ▪ Running with the In Crowd

      ▪ Mean Girls, Inscrutable Boys: Meet the Stereotypes

      Bad to the Bone?

      Tech Talk: How to Keep Your Teen Safe in Cyberspace

      ▪ Prevention Is the Best Medicine

      ▪ Trust, but Verify

      ▪ Sexual Predators on the Prowl

      ▪ Cyber House Rules

      The Birds and the Bees: It’s Time for The Talk

      ▪ My Body, Myself

      ▪ Sex Is the Word

      STDs Are Scary, and Other Serious Topics

      ▪ Risk Management

      ▪ Protection, Protection, Protection

      The Changing Ways of Love

      ▪ How to Be an Understanding Parent

      Is My Teen Gay?

      Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

      Dance Fever: Dances, Proms, and Other Courtship Rituals

      ▪ Not Your Grandfather’s Mixer

      ▪ Prom Pointers

      CHAPTER 5

      LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT: THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION

      Talking Points

      ▪ Lectures Don’t Work

      ▪ Be a Yes Man

      ▪ Using I Statements

      ▪ Practice Listening

      ▪ The No-Gloat Zone

      How to Deal with Lying

      When Resistance Seems Futile

      The Old Silent Treatment?

      Drama Kings and Queens

      ▪ I Hate You! I Really Hate You!

      ▪ The Perils of Profanity

      ▪ Emotional Seizures: When There’s No Going Back

      ▪ When the F-Bomb Drops: Take Cover!

      Moody Blues: Signs of Teen Depression

      CHAPTER 6

      PEP RALLY: LIMIT-TESTING AND INDEPENDENCE

      House Rules and Limits

      ▪ Truth and Consequences

      ▪ Meet the Enforcer

      Highs and Lows: Risks of Substance Abuse

      ▪ Be Prepared

      ▪ How to Save Face While Just Saying No

      Car Talk: Learning the Rules of the Road

      Money, Work, and Responsibility: Making Cents

      Adventures in Teen Style

      CHAPTER 7

      GRADUATION: FLYING THE COOP AND BEYOND

      What to Expect When You’re Expecting Your Kid to Leave

      Practical Matters: The Return

      Time to Toss Your Cap in the Air

      APPENDIX

      INDEX

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND ILLUSTRATORS

      Welcome

      to your new role as parent of a teenager!

      Congratulations on making it this far as a parent.

      We’ve all heard the refrain: Just you wait until your kid becomes a teenager! Then you’ll be in for it. These scare-mongering tactics are pretty effective at spooking parents who are about to go through the teen years for the first time. Vague and doom-filled cautionary tales and whispered warnings produce chills down most parents’ spines largely because we aren’t precisely sure what we are in for—or if we are ready.

      But it only takes a brief walk down memory lane and recollection of our own youthful indiscretions to give us pause. Moms and dads can regale one another for hours with stories of sneaking out second-floor windows to get to that forbidden party, strategic omissions of who would be driving to a concert in order to get permission to attend, getting drunk on cheap wine with friends in the confines of sheltering rhododendron bushes, getting hot and heavy with the lifeguard under the boardwalk, sophisticated ways to hold the cigarette, seeing how many friends you could jam into a car, cranking up the radio and singing at the top of our lungs till we got to the mall.…

      Oh yes, we parents have had plenty of this type of nostalgic, slightly foolish (or totally reckless) adventures. But now we are the ones staying up late chewing our fingernails waiting for our son to come home from his first party with the guys on the varsity soccer team, or driving white-knuckled for a meeting with the principal about suspected cheating, or having to make small talk with our daughter’s prom date while we wait for her to emerge from her room in all of her blossoming beauty.

      Our parents somehow got us through the teen years. But do we know what to do to guide our own kids? In these very different times? Parents may be tempted to go into serious lock-down on their teen’s freedoms and micromanage a son or daughter’s every move. But that would be wrong. A teen’s job during these years is to separate from the parental cocoon and establish his or her own autonomy and self reliance. Our job is to prepare our growing boy or girl for young adulthood, which will be coming soon enough. That means active and engaged parenting with plenty of compassion, communication, limit setting and thoughtful guidance. This book offers practical information on just how to do this.

      The teen years are bewildering to both child and parent. Your teen’s mood swings, morphing body, hormone surges, complex and volatile social world, and drive for independence can really make parents feel clueless. All we ever want to do is help as our teens figure out this process of growing up. In this manual, we have divided the teen experience into seven chapters.

      Cram Session: Prepping for the Teen Years reviews the teen’s basic drives and motivations to explain her changing behavior. It also details basic parenting dos and don’ts to support your teen through her transformation.

      Physical Education: The Changing Body and Mind of Your Teen breaks down the timing of puberty and describes what to expect during each stage. You’ll learn about teen hygiene, sleep, and body image; what daughters want to know about breast development and menstruation; and what sons want to know about changing penile behavior.

      School Daze: Managing Academic Life looks at how to manage such hot-button issues as homework, stress, and college admission prep.

      Social Studies: Your Teen’s Scene explains how boys and girls differ in matters of love, and what parents need to know about crushes, dating, break-ups, hook-ups, and meddling in your teen’s romantic life. This chapter also addresses the age-old concerns about how to give The Sex Talk and impart advice on birth control and sexual orientation.

      Language Requirement: The Importance of Communication teaches you strategies for talking to your teen. It explains how to defuse raging or silent teens, how to handle bad language, and how to recognize the signs of teen depression.

      Pep Rally: Limit-Testing and Independence discusses discipline and punishment, why kids take risks, and what to say to your teen about alcohol and substance abuse. This chapter also explains how to prep your teen for a party (and when to crash one); how to help your teen confront peer pressure; and even how to teach your child to drive.

      Graduation: Flying the Coop and Beyond recaps the journey you and your teen have completed and what to expect now. It also reviews how to handle your emotions once your child has left home, and what to do about a child who continues to live at home long after high school graduation.

      Teens are starting adolescence earlier than ever—some even by age eight!—and staying in it longer. We hope this manual will leave you feeling prepared and able to enjoy this astonishing transformative process. (Of course this book is only a general guide, and there is no substitute for discussing individual questions and concerns about your teenager with a healthcare provider.) At the end of this process your son or daughter will be plunging into the big world, ready to make a difference (in a good way, of course). Ideally, your child will be on a unique path of exploration, prepared to meet the challenges, perils, and joys of life with resiliency, humor, and curiosity. And a call home to the parents every once in awhile would be nice, too.

      Congratulations, and welcome to the world of parenting a teen!

      This manual has been shaped by the wisdom and expertise of the highly esteemed, board-certified adolescent medicine specialist Dr. Janice Hillman. Dr. Hillman, whose two daughters have already completed the teenage experience, has been practicing for more than twenty years in the University of Pennsylvania Health System. She contributes the Doc Talk sidebars that appear throughout the chapters that follow.

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