Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers: Parenting with Love, Laughter, and Limits

Starting with the premise that ""the only thing more difficult than being a parent is being a teenager,"" psychologists Elias, Tobias and Friedlander set out to guide families through the tempestuous adolescent years. To solve problems, they take a refreshing approach that relies on empathy, humor and education, and on ""practical, parent-tested, emotionally intelligent"" ways to help teenagers grow into strong adults. Central to their method is a ""toolbox"" of strategies for staying calm, tuning in to your teen's emotional ""channels,"" being positive and setting reasonable limits. The authors provide parent and teen questionnaires, a chapter for families to read together and real-life scenarios dealing with everything from school stress and dating to Internet porn and substance abuse. Most of their advice is excellent, so one can overlook their sometimes labored humor (do we need to compose rap songs about doing dishes to get the kids' help at dinnertime?), their propensity for acronyms (can we remember to ESP--evaluate, select and proceed--in mid-argument?) and their constant plugs for their previous book (Emotionally Intelligent Parenting). Quibbles aside, the authors' collective enthusiasm for parenting is infectious, and their ideas seem reasonably easy for dedicated parents to put into practice. (Sept.)