A sensitive, smart guide to raising teens that emphasizes love, respect, trust, admiration, and empathy.
Debut author Kallanian, a longtime counselor and consultant, offers an upbeat, thoughtful and unique approach to understanding and parenting teens.
The author’s premise is that parents can themselves benefit from the process of raising, loving, and instructing their teens, because the teaching process is a two-way street. He explains that in his 16 years of working with teens (including many at risk), he witnessed a repeated pattern of development, for which he coined an acronym: EPIC—Explore, Play, Inspire, and Connect. He describes each of these components in detail and notes that adults can use and apply these same principles in their own lives. “Teens have answers you are looking for, but you must value their existence, respect their opinion, appreciate what they are trying to achieve, and listen to what they have to say,” he writes. This highly readable work provides some gold nuggets of insight; for example, the author asks parents to put aside the stereotype of the teenage “bad” attitude: “If teenagers wrote books on managing their parents’ emotions and actions, imagine how those titles would read!” He asserts that placing one’s trust and faith in a teenager isn’t a mistake; although kids appear to be bumbling and stumbling their ways through many problems and dilemmas, they can also successfully solve them on their own. He says that if parents understand teens’ needs and values, they can better cope with their behavior—or misbehavior—and evolve better communication skills. To that end, the book explores verbal, nonverbal, and “paraverbal” communication, boundaries and consequences, and other specific ways to connect with teenagers. It also includes hypothetical conversations with spot-on teenage dialogue as well as chapter summaries that help to clarify the author’s theories throughout the text.
A sensitive, smart guide to raising teens that emphasizes love, respect, trust, admiration, and empathy.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499205893
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Klaus (Weathering Winter, not reviewed, etc.) retired not long ago from the University of Iowa, where for many years he taught the art and craft of the personal essay and journal writing. No surprise, then, that he presents a diary of his musings about his retirement. At age 65, as the title says, he took retirement (rather than be given it, unasked for, as often happens). It was a difficult transition, despite the comfortable retirement fund. He had old, thin skin, comparing himself to graybeards, geezers, and others in their golden years. Leaving the warm bosom of collegial togetherness did not appeal, and the thought of abandoning the classroom filled him with anxiety. It seemed important to retain his campus office, to retain some vestige of influence, to hang on as some sort of “consultant” (as outplaced professionals are apt to call themselves). The teacher’s identity crisis prompted him to evade a formal farewell dinner—a good move—though he did accept the dedication of a large oak tree—another good move. He was, to put it bluntly, self-absorbed and mighty introspective, finding much angst in the rituals of quotidian domestic affairs. Gardening, health, friends, writing, meditation, and menus were the subjects of his journal entries, which were scrupulously written daily, starting weeks before his last class. Then, one day, the pensioner simply didn’t shave at his accustomed hour. Then he skipped a day and made no entry in his journal. Then another. As the new school year started without the professor emeritus, he and his ever-understanding wife traveled through the Canadian Rockies. And somehow retirement didn’t seem so bad, after all. A life-altering transition is faithfully chronicled in this story of a condition that is new in the history of humanity. With academic and heartland sensibility, it’s an elegy perhaps not as universal as the author envisioned, but quite suitable for more than the Modern Maturity and Elderhostel crowd.
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1999
ISBN: 0-8070-7218-4
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
A good choice for fathers of even one child, with lessons in the yin of pride and the yang of humility—often arising...
An ode to the contradictions of fatherhood, "the perfect oxymoron," in the form of a collection of sometimes rueful, always loving essays and commentaries.
Lewis (literature and Writing/Empire State College, New Paltz) and his wife, Patti, are the parents of seven children, ranging from Elizabeth Bayou-Grace, now 8 years old, to Cael Devin, 27. Lewis begins with reflections on his own father, his Brooklyn Jewish background, and tales of his courtship of Patti, a New Orleans "patrician." Once their passion flared it never died, although it did move from "X"-rated to "G" and back again during the course of Patti's pregnancies. Moreover, as the responsibilities of fatherhood have multiplied, says Lewis, "my inner life has paradoxically become simpler and quieter." Zen-like paradoxes are explored in chapters covering such parental trials as being a Brownie troop leader, giving birthday parties, exercising discipline, and coping with teenagers (male and female). Also examined are more serious topics like birth, children leaving (or not leaving) home, and the challenge of caring for a child with congenital health problems, including a diagnosis of leukemia. The diagnosis, happily, was reversed and the child, Elizabeth, went on to tap dance after undergoing multiple hip surgeries. As well the stresses of parenting seven children ("How can they eat forty-six dollars worth of fruit in an afternoon?"), Lewis must face disapproval from friends and strangers on allowing himself to indulge in such a large family. "More is less is more," is his Zen-like response.
A good choice for fathers of even one child, with lessons in the yin of pride and the yang of humility—often arising at the same time, as any experienced father will attest.Pub Date: June 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-94147-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
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