Field Guide To The American Teenager: A Survival Guide For Parents

This book was written in an effort to share our combined knowledge of teens gained both as mental health professionals and as parents. We wanted to put together something that parents could understand short and to the point with as little psychological jargon as possible and most importantly something that would be useful. Our planning began with a look at the various aspects of the teenage experience that regularly impact upon parenting. We decided to include information on development communication schools peer relationships families sexuality religion drugs and alcohol and mental health problems and to attempt to frame everything around these subjects. Throughout the book we have brought our different perspectives into play. Dr. Vergamini a child and adolescent psychiatrist has for several decades consulted to many child and adolescent evaluation and/or treatment programs (inpatient outpatient mental health substance abuse etc.) and operated a private medical practice (in Oregon). Dr. Miskimins a clinical psychologist draws from his experiences directing an inner-city program for youth in Colorado serving as Clinical Director (then as Executive Director) of an adolescent residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed teens in Oregon and maintaining a long-term private practice. In addition both of us are family men still married to the same women we started out with and each has three children now grown. And each of us has had a child with special needs. The purpose of this book is to give some basic information on the most important topics relating to parenting teenagers. We also have tried to provide some resources to help parents when it is needed beyond the scope of this book. The Field Guide cannot be an encyclopedia but can be a starting place to begin knowing more about teens and to try to bridge the gap between parents own memories of what that was like and the changing times. We will try to give examples where we can. We will attempt to anticipate questions but we know there may be gaps. For this reason in our last chapter we will discuss some means to get some help with some of your questions which we may have not answered in this book. We would like you to keep this in mind as you read and to jot down questions that you may have or information that you seek so that we or others can address those issues for you. As you read on the questions may be answered or they may raise further questions. Adolescence is an intriguing time. For some reasons that we may not always understand adults may tend to treat teens as mysterious creatures a group of people that are difficult to fathom. Maybe it is because of how they band together or their peculiar use of language or their strange dress codes or the seemingly constant protesting or their tendency to test limits but it might be because adults have developed some amnesia for the trials and tribulations of that time in their own lives. If you cant remember what being a teenager trying to grow up in this society was like then you are likely to see the current crop of adolescents as creatures that cant be understood and therefore to be feared. It is much like some of us fear spiders because they have eight legs and move fast and we dont know much about them except that a few are dangerous.Understanding and remembering is the reason that we write this book. We hope to inform adults enough about the teenagers around them that they do not have to be uneasy or fearful when they deal with them. We want parents to enjoy them laugh with them revel in their successes and help them through their failures. We want adults to appreciate their pains and their joys and comfortably relate to their kids through both. Ultimately we want them to grow up survive and be good citizens. ​