Carl Pickhardt - Surviving Your Childs Adolescence: How to Understand, and Even Enjoy, the Rocky Road to Independence

Table of Contents

Cover image: Joseph O. Holmes/Flickr/Getty Images

Cover design: J. Puda

Copyright 2013 by Carl Pickhardt. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pickhardt, Carl E.

Surviving your childs adolescence : how to understand, and even enjoy, the rocky road to independence / Carl Pickhardt. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-22883-8 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-41934-2 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-42122-2 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-43386-7 (ebk.)

1. Parent and teenager. 2. Parenting. 3. Teenagers. 4. Adolescence. I. Title.

HQ799.15.P53 2013

305.235dc23

2012038559

To all those parents and teenagers who manage to keep their relationship together while adolescence is growing them apart, as it is meant to do

Acknowledgments

I thank Psychology Today for the opportunity to write the weekly blog Surviving (Your Childs) Adolescence, which provided the inspiration for this book. Special thanks need to be given to all the parents at workshops over the years who have taught me so much as I was trying to teach them a little; to my four grown children, who each introduced me to a new path through adolescence; to my agent, Grace Freedson, who keeps managing to find publishers for my parenting books; and of course to Irene, who is a wonderfully supportive writers wife.

About the Author

Carl Pickhardt, PhD, the author of fourteen parenting books as well as works of adult and childrens fiction and of illustrated psychology, is a writer, graphic artist, and psychologist in private counseling and public lecturing practice in Austin, Texas. He received his BA in English and MEd in counseling from Harvard, and his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the American Psychological Association. He has four grown children and one grandchild.

Pickhardt has written newspaper, magazine, and Internet columns about adolescence, family life, and adult relationships. For the past four years he has been writing a weekly parenting blog for Psychology Today, Surviving (Your Childs) Adolescence.

Pickhardt gives frequent public lectures about parenting and adolescence to PTAs, church congregations, and mental health groups, and is often interviewed by print media about diverse aspects of child development, parenting, and family life. More information about all his books can be found on his website: www.carlpickhardt.com.

Authors Note

Unless otherwise attributed, all quotations and case examples used in this book are fictional, created to reflect concerns and to illustrate situations similar in kind but not in actuality to those I have heard from clients over the years.

Introduction