Whether you have a teen who is struggling with exam pressure, a young adult who hasn’t settled into university life or you are curious about what lies ahead for your younger child, How to Grow a Grown Up will help you to build your child's confidence and resilience - so they can become a strong, happy and independent adult.

We’re fast approaching the 3rd decade of the 21st century and it’s a very different world from the one in which parents (and teachers) grew up in. Challenging issues have come together – including cyber bullying, ‘always-on’ culture and ever increasing pressure to do well – to create a perfect storm. The result is that teenagers and young adults are now less prepared for a more challenging world – and if they don’t develop the skills they need to help them thrive they can become easy prey to mental health problems.

In this book Dr Dominique Thompson, the UK’s leading GP on student mental health and educational expert Fabienne Vailes, reveal what exactly parents need to do to help teenagers and young adults in this new world – and how to manage problems along the way. It includes:

*An overview of the pressures and problems facing this generation of young people - why are they increasingly stressed, anxious or suffering from mental health issues

*What exactly parents can do to help their teens and young adults become healthily independent, navigate challenges and flourish in preparation for adult life

*How pastoral care at universities and workplaces is changing, and what a parent’s role could and should be

*Ways to recognise the signs of mental health distress and what to do about it, particularly dealing with problems from a distance

This book is for parents and professionals who are guiding adolescents and young adult children with high functioning autism or Asperger's toward employment and independence. Employers are looking for employees who are positive. Employers may list specific "hard" or technical skills that they want an employee to have for a particular job, but surveys show that employers most want to hire people who have positive "soft skills." Employers want to hire someone who can work in harmony with others, someone who can communicate and respond socially to customers, coworkers, and supervisors with positivity. Unfortunately for young people with autism/Asperger's, hard skills may come easily but soft skills are much more difficult to learn and use. This book will help you focus on your child's positivity in their interactions with others, and will help you guide him or her to respond positively to the many challenges he or she faces every day.

In a world fraught with diet-culture and weight stigma, many parents worry about their child's relationship with their body and food. This down-to-earth guide is an invaluable resource allowing parents to take proactive actions in promoting a friendship with food, and preventative actions to minimize the risk factors for the development of eating disorders, particularly when early signs of disordered eating, excessive exercise, or body dissatisfaction have been noticed. It provides clear strategies and tools with a practical focus to gently encourage parents and teens to have a healthy relationship with food and exercise by centralizing joy and health. Coming from a therapist, a dietician, and an adolescent medicine physician, with insightful case studies from an array of young people from different backgrounds, this multidisciplinary author team delivers friendly, strategic guidance based in a wealth of expertise.

From the author of BEING 14 and FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS comes a book that shares what your daughter needs you to know about her shift from child to teenager - how she feels, what she thinks, what worries her and what you can do to help. Science tells us that the shift from childhood to teenager is happening earlier than ever before. Girls are starting puberty well before the age of thirteen. With heightened pressure from what they see in the media, in movies and on TV, girls are leaving childhood behind well before they hit their teens. This shift is an abrupt one and can come as a shock to parents. Not surprisingly, emotions can be heightened and relationships can be fraught. So many parents struggle to understand the pressures their daughters are under and how to deal with their emotional volatility. Journalist and social commentator Madonna King has an extraordinary ability to connect with experts, schools and the girls themselves to deliver the answers parents need and the communication their children want. This is an important book that shows that 10 is the new start of a girl's teenage years. It raises the issues our girls might not be talking about publicly, and guides their parents on how experts believe we should deal with it.

"Why do you always have to be at me about stuff when I'm in the middle of doing something?"

"You don't have to yell at me Everything has to be exactly when you want it I hate this house "

Is there any aspect of parenting more frustrating than when even the simplest conversation with your teenager quickly deteriorates into a take-no-prisoners war? Bestselling author Anthony E. Wolf sympathizes, and in his new book he provides hope, humor, and practical tips for dealing with the everyday challenges of raising teens in the twenty-first century.

I'd Listen to My Parents if They'd Just Shut Up will help you understand who your teenagers really are under all the attitude, and what new rules apply to successfully communicating with them in today's constantly evolving world of the Internet, electronics, and social media. A book designed to make life with your teenage child a significantly more enjoyable experience, I'd Listen to My Parents if They'd Just Shut Up offers specific scenarios to illustrate which responses will work and which ones are doomed to failure the next time your thirteen-to-nineteen-year-old refuses to listen or won't take "no" for an answer.

Letting It Go-A Bereaving Mother, Delinquent Girls, and the Power of Rehabilitative Poetry Therapy"Anyone who has suffered and cares about our world (that probably includes everyone) will be moved and changed by this book." Elizabeth Lesser, author of the New York Times bestseller Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow Experience the poignant real-life story of how author Sharon Charde was saved by her relationship with incarcerated young women at Touchstone, a residential all-female treatment center in Litchfield, Connecticut. And, learn how these young women-confined for crimes such as using drugs, truancy, assault, prostitution, and running away-were rehabilitated by their poetry teacher. Letting go of grief and loss by writing poetry as therapy. I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent is a book for fans of the acclaimed movie Stand and Deliver. After the death of her child, a grief-stricken psychotherapist, teacher, and writer volunteers as a poetry teacher at a residential treatment facility for "delinquent" girls. Here, their mutual support nourishes and enriches each other, though not without large quantities of drama and recalcitrance. As Sharon and the girls share their losses through weekly writing, they came to realize their unlimited potential and poetic talents. Healing from trauma. Healing can come in surprising ways across age and social class, as it did for both the girls and Sharon. But what happens when Sharon finally grasps that the most challenging experiences are the best teachers? Narrated in five parts, the book also contains poems written by the girls, as well as excerpts from their writing, Sharon's son's writing, and her own. If you have read books such as Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, The Freedom Writers Diary, Between the World and Me, So You Want to Talk about Race, or Reviving Ophelia; you will love I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent.

This book explores the concept of emotional well-being in children and describes the research suggesting how this can be promoted. Emotional well-being is something much greater than simply the absence of problems, and is not something that just develops at home. This book is about strategies to ensure that children maximize their potential and increase the quality of their lives by fostering well-being as a concept inclusive of confidence, empathy, pro-social behaviour, creativity and a sense of achievement, at the same time as preventing emotional and behavioural problems. The various interventions described are seen in relation to the social contexts in which the children and their families operate. Leading researchers, from the fields of health, social care, education and the law, have contributed chapters. The book promises to give all those researching, working or making policy in this field new insights into how to make a psychologically more healthy world for children.

Addressing the growing trend of teenagers whose eating habits keep fast-food restaurants flourishing but do little to keep the kids themselves in shape, this guide presents parents with the tools to ensure the daily health of their children. Providing the latest information on a wide range of food topics, this handbook covers everything from carbohydrates to eating disorders and vitamins, discussing each aspect sensitively and suggesting the ultimate new frontier for busy teens - cooking their meals themselves. This updated edition contains an expanded section on portion distortion, fitness for health, and how to read food labels, while outlining the latest studies, statistics, nutrition guidelines, and health information. New recipes, tips on creating shopping lists, and meal-planning ideas are included and vegetarian and vegan issues for teens are addressed.

Top specialist psychologist delivers new practical, immediate strategies for parents of potentially difficult, rebellious, or irresponsible teenage daughters. Dr Sarah Hughes has modern, helpful advice and tips for every situation, whether your teenage girl is selfish, procrastinating, dieting, on social media, going to parties where there might be drugs and alcohol or just won't get off her mobile phone. Skip the Drama also covers heavy issues such as depression, sex, body confidence and self harm, so caregivers will be equipped to face any problems that come from living with and parenting a stressful teenager. Supported by real-life examples, studies and the latest research into the adolescent brain, Hughes' solutions will help mothers and fathers grow a stubborn, reckless or challenging teenager into a well-adjusted, respectful, and self-sufficient young woman.