LEAVING HOME

In their third advice book for teens, Richards and Willis talk about the feelings involved in leaving home (chiefly for college) and in transferring emotional attachments from parents to boyfriends or girlfriends. They also point out, through the shrewd use of examples, how relationships with parents affect one's ability to make it on one's own in school or work. There's a chapter on the temptations, satisfactions, and dangers of returning home, and a chapter on ""Wheels,"" which views the seemingly simple matter of buying or not buying a car as indicative of all sorts of complicated feelings about parents on the one hand, and independence on the other. As the authors see it, ""leaving home means separating from your mother,"" a task that is harder for girls than for boys. They counsel that ""to be an independent person you need to act neither to please your parents nor to rebel against them."" Obvious--but then they give several examples of the varied behavior that is unconsciously prompted by one or another of these motives. As usual, this psychologist/educator pair are sensible, and they avoid being simplistic as they make feelings and behavior patterns easy to understand. Still, leaving home is usually an issue faced at age 18 or so, whereas this could be read by a ten-year-old and would seem inappropriately simple in writing style and rather gentle in presentation for anyone over 14.