WE NEVER HAD ANY TROUBLE BEFORE: A Handbook for Parents. . .

This is an attractive, low-keyed, sensible approach to the problems of teen-agers by a graduate of Yale Divinity School and director of youth counseling services. What's ""normal"" about adolescence is what has always been--loneliness, insecurity, boy/gift problems, parent hassles, etc.--but as Paine paraphrases Dylan, ""the times keep right on a-changin'."" No parent can ignore the major differences from life in the '50's: the Pill, drags, the ""experience gap"" (most parents know what to do if the kid is drunk, but not if he's stoned), the language, appearance, hitchhiking, growing up ""too fast."" Concerning the latter, Paine advises that if your young teenager has something close to an adult mind and body, treat him more like an adult. He isn't too young to learn about freedom with responsibility. Paine proceeds with his observations in a leisurely, anecdotal fashion with plenty of case histories. Together with his discussions of special problems like drugs, sex, ""discipline"" (lots of room for mistakes and few mistakes do any real damage), running away, etc., Paine takes on such tricky matters as ethics and values (with ten actual cases to which he applies three common moral philosophies and some very practical solutions) as well as such flammable religious movements as the Jesus Freaks, for example, with its Good News and Bad. A friendly, lively guide, which adolescents, as Paine hopes, may also read.