Talking the Tough Stuff with Teens: Making Conversations Work When It Matters Most

Teenagers and their parents often struggle to talk to each other, but it is critical for their development. This book provides a framework for tackling tough conversations about difficult things without judgement or anger, based on hundreds of conversations with young people and parents. It covers everything from small stuff to tough stuff, and gives prompts and practical suggestions to make communication a two-way street that builds a strong relationship with your adult child.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 08 December 2022
Publisher: John Murray Press

From minor matters like tidiness and homework to big and important ones like relationships, mental ill health, drugs, and alcohol, teenagers and their parents often struggle to talk to each other. This is key if your young person is facing new challenges as they leave childhood behind. A well-timed conversation, a listening ear, a non-judgemental and receptive attitude, and all these can make an enormous and lasting impact on how safely and happily a teenager navigates this crucial stage of their development.

Oh, if only it were that easy. It's not always easy to talk to your teenager, or for them to talk to you, but it is critical and may even be life-saving. This book draws extensively on hundreds of conversations that Fiona Spargo-Mabbs has conducted with young people and parents in focus groups and school and college workshops, to give a framework for tackling tough conversations about difficult things, without judgment or anger. It gives context and insight, based on the latest neuroscience findings on the teenage brain, and, importantly, it gives hundreds of prompts and plenty of practical suggestions and strategies to make communication between parents and young people a two-way street that builds the foundations for a strong relationship with your adult child.

Covering everything from the small stuff, like curfews and screen time, to the tough stuff of sex, self-harm, and suicide, this is a warm, compassionate, and important book that draws on lived experience and the lives of young people as they are, not as we think they.

Weight: 394g
Dimension: 153 x 232 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399800266