Teens With Single Parents

Adjusting to life in a single-parent family is a unique experience for many teens. Margaret A. Shultz explores the concerns, challenges, and coping methods of the nearly 18 million young people who live in single-parent families. Includes chapter notes, hotlines or names of helpful organizations, further reading list, and full index.

PARENTING NEVER ENDS. From the founders of the #1 site for parents of teens and young adults comes an essential guide for building strong relationships with your teens and preparing them to successfully launch into adulthood The high school and college years: an extended roller coaster of academics, friends, first loves, first break-ups, driver’s ed, jobs, and everything in between. Kids are constantly changing and how we parent them must change, too. But how do we stay close as a family as our lives move apart? Enter the co-founders of Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington. In the midst of guiding their own kids through this transition, they launched what has become the largest website and online community for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds. Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into this handy, must-have guide. Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars. Consider this your parenting lifeline: an easy-to-use manual that offers support and perspective. Grown and Flown is required reading for anyone looking to raise an adult with whom you have an enduring, profound connection.

It’s not easy to be a teen girl, and it’s definitely not easy parenting one. Parents everywhere struggle to respond appropriately to challenging behavior, hit-or-miss communication, and fluctuating moods commonly exhibited by teenage girls. More than previous generations, today’s teen girls face a daunting range of stressors that put them at risk for a range of serious issues, including self-harming behaviors, substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. Is it any wonder that parents are overwhelmed? Parenting a Teen Girl is a guide for busy parents who want bottom-line information and tips that make sense—and work. It also offers scripts to improve communication, and exercises to navigate stressful interactions with skill and compassion. Whether your teen girl is struggling with academic pressure, social difficulties, physical self-care, or technology overload, this book offers practical advice to help you connect with your teen girl. Parents and teens alike can enjoy a positive connection once common parent-teen pitfalls are replaced with solid understanding and strategies that work. In this book, you will learn how to: Maximize your teen’s healthy development Understand what underlies her moods and behavior Implement strategies for positive results Communicate effectively about difficult issues Enjoy and appreciate time with your teen daughter

Nonwhite and white, rich and poor, born to an unwed mother or weathering divorce, over half of all children in the current generation will live in a single-parent family--and these children simply will not fare as well as their peers who live with both parents. This is the clear and urgent message of this powerful book. Based on four national surveys and drawing on more than a decade of research, Growing Up with a Single Parent sharply demonstrates the connection between family structure and a child's prospects for success. What are the chances that the child of a single parent will graduate from high school, go on to college, find and keep a job? Will she become a teenage mother? Will he be out of school and out of work? These are the questions the authors pursue across the spectrum of race, gender, and class. Children whose parents live apart, the authors find, are twice as likely to drop out of high school as those in two-parent families, one and a half times as likely to be idle in young adulthood, twice as likely to become single parents themselves. This study shows how divorce--particularly an attendant drop in income, parental involvement, and access to community resources--diminishes children's chances for well-being. The authors provide answers to other practical questions that many single parents may ask: Does the gender of the child or the custodial parent affect these outcomes? Does having a stepparent, a grandmother, or a nonmarital partner in the household help or hurt? Do children who stay in the same community after divorce fare better? Their data reveal that some of the advantages often associated with being white are really a function of family structure, and that some of the advantages associated with having educated parents evaporate when those parents separate. In a concluding chapter, McLanahan and Sandefur offer clear recommendations for rethinking our current policies. Single parents are here to stay, and their worsening situation is tearing at the fabric of our society. It is imperative, the authors show, that we shift more of the costs of raising children from mothers to fathers and from parents to society at large. Likewise, we must develop universal assistance programs that benefit low-income two-parent families as well as single mothers. Startling in its findings and trenchant in its analysis, Growing Up with a Single Parent will serve to inform both the personal decisions and governmental policies that affect our children's--and our nation's--future.

"Single Parents and Their Children" is a myth-busting, consciousness-raising collection of articles that defies all of the stereotypes that diminish and degrade single-parent families. Drawing from scientific research, Dr. Bella DePaulo shows that the dire predictions about the fate of the children of single parents are grossly exaggerated or just plain wrong. What's more, there are ways in which the children of single parents are doing better than everyone else. That's the good news no one ever tells you. Professor DePaulo has been described by Atlantic magazine as "America's foremost thinker and writer on the single experience." This book includes more than a dozen of her most influential writings on single parents and their children. Essays inspired by the daughter of a single mother and guest articles by independent parent Tricia Parker are also featured. Bella DePaulo's articles originally appeared in her popular "Living Single" blog at Psychology Today and her "Single at Heart" blog at PsychCentral, as well as in the Guardian.

Establish wise and loving limits that make a positive difference in your teen, in the rest of your family, and in you. The teen years: relationships, peer pressure, school, dating, character. To help teenagers grow into healthy adults, parents and youth workers need to teach them how to take responsibility for their behavior, their values, and their lives. From bestselling author and counselor Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries with Teens is the expert insight and guidance you need to help your teens take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions and gain a deeper appreciation and respect both for you and for themselves. With wisdom and empathy, Dr. Townsend applies biblically based principles for the challenging task of guiding your children through the teen years. Using the same principles he used to successfully raise two teens, he shows you how to: Deal with disrespectful attitudes and impossible behavior in your teen Set healthy limits and realistic consequences Be loving and caring while establishing rules Determine specific strategies to deal with problems both big and small Discover how boundaries make parenting teens better today! Plus, check out Boundaries family collection of books dedicated to key areas of life – dating, marriage, raising young kids, and leadership. Workbooks and Spanish editions are also available.

A practical guide to understanding the way, the mind, and the heart of a boy. A boy’s endless imagination, hunger for adventure, and passionate spirit are matched only by his deep desire to be affirmed, esteemed, and loved. Yet over the past few decades, our culture has adopted a model of parenting and educating children that doesn’t affirm, celebrate, nurture, or embrace a boy’s wildness but rather seeks to tame it. As a result, many moms and dads find themselves frustrated, confused, and wearied by their sons’ behavior. The truth is, boys don’t need to be tamed—they need to be understood, loved, challenged, and encouraged. Based on clinical research and filled with practical tips and suggestions, therapists Stephen James and David Thomas Stephen James and David Thomas give fresh insight and much-needed encouragement on the road to raising boys by talking about: Parenting the different stages in a boy’s life Healthy discipline and correction Sitting still and paying attention Hot topics like screen time and dating Wild Things helps Christian parents, teachers, mentors, and coaches understand and explore the hearts, minds, and ways of boys and the vital role parents and caregivers play on the journey to authentic manhood.

A landmark book that reveals the way boys think and that shows parents, educators and coaches how to reach out and help boys overcome their most common and difficult challenges -- by the bestselling author who changed our conception of adolescent girls. Do you constantly struggle to pull information from your son, student, or athlete, only to encounter mumbling or evasive assurances such as “It’s nothing” or “I’m good?” Do you sense that the boy you care about is being bullied, but that he’ll do anything to avoid your “help?” Have you repeatedly reminded him that schoolwork and chores come before video games only to spy him reaching for the controller as soon as you leave the room? Have you watched with frustration as your boy flounders with girls? Welcome to Boy World. It’s a place where asking for help or showing emotional pain often feels impossible. Where sports and video games can mean everything, but working hard in school frequently earns ridicule from “the guys” even as they ask to copy assignments. Where “masterminds” dominate and friends ruthlessly insult each other but can never object when someone steps over the line. Where hiding problems from adults is the ironclad rule because their involvement only makes situations worse. Boy world is governed by social hierarchies and a powerful set of unwritten rules that have huge implications for your boy’s relationships, his interactions with you, and the man he’ll become. If you want what’s best for him, you need to know what these rules are and how to work with them effectively. What you’ll find in Masterminds and Wingmen is critically important for every parent – or anyone who cares about boys – to know. Collaborating with a large team of middle- and high-school-age editors, Rosalind Wiseman has created an unprecedented guide to the life your boy is actually experiencing – his on-the-ground reality. Not only does Wiseman challenge you to examine your assumptions, she offers innovative coping strategies aimed at helping your boy develop a positive, authentic, and strong sense of self.

The fourteen essential conversations to have with your tween and early teenager to prepare them for the emotional, physical, and social challenges ahead, including scripts and advice to keep the communication going and stay connected during this critical developmental window. “This book is a gift to parents and teenagers alike.”—Lisa Damour, PhD, author of Untangled and Under Pressure Trying to convince a middle schooler to listen to you can be exasperating. Indeed, it can feel like the best option is not to talk! But keeping kids safe—and prepared for all the times when you can't be the angel on their shoulder—is about having the right conversations at the right time. From a brain growth and emotional readiness perspective, there is no better time for this than their tween years, right up to when they enter high school. Distilling Michelle Icard's decades of experience working with families, Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen focuses on big, thorny topics such as friendship, sexuality, impulsivity, and technology, as well as unexpected conversations about creativity, hygiene, money, privilege, and contributing to the family. Icard outlines a simple, memorable, and family-tested formula for the best approach to these essential talks, the BRIEF Model: Begin peacefully, Relate to your child, Interview to collect information, Echo what you're hearing, and give Feedback. With wit and compassion, she also helps you get over the most common hurdles in talking to tweens, including: • What phrases invite connection and which irritate kids or scare them off • The best places, times, and situations in which to initiate talks • How to keep kids interested, open, and engaged in conversation • How to exit these chats in a way that keeps kids wanting more Like a Rosetta Stone for your tween's confounding language, Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen is an essential communication guide to helping your child through the emotional, physical, and social challenges ahead and, ultimately, toward teenage success.

Discusses the creation of healthy boundaries and reinforced consequences to help children develop a sense of accountability for their own lives.