Saving Our Adolescents

• Are you worried, concerned or confused about an adolescent you care for?
• Are you looking for ideas, and practical strategies to better support adolescents on the bumpy ride to adulthood?
• Do you really want to make a difference in the lives of today’s adolescents?

Saving Our Adolescents: Supporting Today’s Adolescents through the Bumpy Ride to Adulthood answers so many questions about why adolescents get confused, grumpy, moody, forgetful, angry, defiant, horny and excitable, as well as explaining why they can be a high risk to themselves and others. With more healthy support they can still thrive and become people who can make our world a better place.

Reviews:

There are very few books available that can motivate, educate and inspire tired busy adults sufficiently to want to be better at supporting teenagers – but this is one of them. Not only is it an extremely erudite and well researched book, completely contemporary in its inclusion of neuroscience and how the adolescent brain works – but it is extraordinarily compassionate. I love Maggie’s concept that all responsible, caring adults should become ‘lighthouses’ for any teenager in their family or friends’ circles. It builds on the old but unfollowed truth that it needs a village to bring up a child. The book draws upon a myriad of sources, psychology, philosophy and poetry to argue historically, cogently and powerfully that we must all try harder to understand and to meet the needs of young people. I personally have given it to many struggling parents and friends, but more importantly it has helped shape the way I now engage with my own teenage grand nephew and nieces and I think it has inspired me to think more deeply and more wisely and feel more empathic. Thank you Maggie, this is an important book. — Jenny Mosley, http://www.circle-time.co.uk

“Maggie Dent has the remarkable knowledge and ability to explore each subject not only from a scientific basis, but with enormous commonsense, personal experience and a depth of compassionate [sic] which together make Saving our Adolescents an incredibly powerful tool for parents, teachers or any person seeking to understand our teenagers. Maggie Dent explores this subject with great lateral thinking and originality. After all, the time, love and care investing in our children benefits not only the children, but all of the community and is the fundamental strength of any Nation. This is a must have book not just for parents. An exceptional book.”  — HolisticPage.com

“Saving our Adolescents is a very down-to-earth book to help support today’s adolescents as they travel through the bumpy ride to adulthood. Maggie draws on her wealth of knowledge and engages the reader by providing practical strategies on how to positively develop resilient adolescents. Maggie offers helpful insights on how adolescents develop psychologically and how the adolescent body and brain are out of sync. When carers of adolescents are aware of such facts, they are more able to care for their adolescents in a proactive, rather than reactive way. Maggie empowers the reader not only through her 30 years of studying, working and living with adolescents but also through her common sense approach and humour.” —  Marianna Vlahov, St Brigid’s College, WA

Contents:

– Preface
– Acknowledgement
– Introduction
– Chapter 1: What is a ‘lighthouse’ and why do adolescents need them?
– Chapter 2: The millennial adolescent
– Chapter 3: Resilience and why it is important
– Chapter 4: The adolescent brain: What is going on up there?
– Chapter 5: Why the emotional chaos and confusion?
– Chapter 6: Other interesting things about adolescence
– Chapter 7: The nightmare of adolescent sleeplessness
– Chapter 8: Adolescent angst and the search for joy juice, buzz rush and transcendence
– Chapter 9: Parenting today’s adolescents: Bridging the generation chasm
– Chapter 10: Personality matters on the bumpy road
– Chapter 11: Secret girls’ business
– Chapter 12: Secret boys’ business
– Chapter 13: Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll and cyberspace
– Chapter 14: How to build optimistic adolescents who thrive (most of the time)
– Chapter 15: Adolescence: The hero’s journey
– Chapter 16: Adolescents in today’s schools and possible innovations in education
– Chapter 17: Letting go: The greatest act of love
– Conclusion
– Appendix
– Bibliography
– Seminars