McKay Matthew - Parenting a troubled teen: manage conflict & deal with intense emotions using acceptance & commitment therapy

Patricia Zurita Ona offers thoughtful guidance and straightforward tools to help parents remain present for their struggling teen while learning to ride the push and pull of their teens emotional tides. However, this book is not just for parents with troubled teens. Every parent will find something useful in this book, for what parent and what teen has not felt the pull of strong emotions?

MichaelA. Tompkins, PhD, ABPP, codirector of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy; assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and coauthor of MyAnxiousMind

As a certified school psychologist working in high schools for many years, I genuinely wish I had ParentingaTroubledTeen to give to the parents and guardians of the students I was helping. Zurita Ona outlines very practical steps for adults who would like to help their teenager thrive during the chaotic times in their lives. Because the book is filled with real-world vignettes and useful exercises, parents and guardians will find ParentingaTroubledTeen to be a valuable resource for fostering stronger and more mature relationships.

D. J. Moran, PhD, BCBA-D, founder of Pickslyde Consulting and the MidAmerican Psychological Institute

As every parent knows, having children brings both joy and pain. But nothing prepares parents for the unique trials and tribulations of a troubled teen. Fortunately, help is at hand. This book is an incredibly practical guide to helping your child reduce suffering, build richer relationships, and become more successful in the face of lifes many challenges. No matter how bad things may have gotten, its never too late to turn the tide; and step-by-step, in a compassionate and respectful way, this book will show you just how to do it.

RussHarris, author of TheHappinessTrap and ACTMadeSimple

Profound and compassionate, ParentingaTroubledTeen affirms real-world tools for caregivers. This book includes important information that offers new possibilities in parentingchallenging assumptions about adolescents while illuminating a fresh perspective on how to forge a meaningful connection that goes beyond fixing.

TimothyGordon, MSW, RSW, social worker, peer-reviewed acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) trainer, and coauthor of TheACTApproach

Parents of teens who struggle with emotion regulation often describe feeling confused and overwhelmed by their teens behavior. Zurita Ona has come to the rescue with her beautifully crafted guide on how to apply acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to the challenges experienced while parenting highly sensitive teens. This book will help parents manage their own intense emotions, and interact more empathically and effectively with their children. I look forward to recommending this book to the parents of my clients!

JamieA. Micco, PhD, ABPP, clinical psychologist in private practice in Concord, MA, and lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School

If youre parenting a troubled teen, you almost certainly feel like a troubled parent who has a troubled parent-child relationship. If this sounds familiar, read this book! Zurita Ona comes to the rescue with this revolutionary guide for breaking unhelpful patterns of interacting with your teen, becoming the parent you truly aspire to be, and having a rich and meaningful relationship despite the emotional challenges.

JillA. Stoddard, PhD, coauthor of TheBigBookofACTMetaphors, and director of The Center for Stress and Anxiety Management in San Diego, CA

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2017 by Patricia E. Zurita Ona

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

The exercise Pure Moments of Purpose is adapted with permission from MINDFULNESS FOR TWO by Kelly Wilson and Troy DuFrene, copyright 2008 by Kelly Wilson and Troy DuFrene. Used by permission of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Cover design by Amy Shoup

Acquired by Ryan Buresh

Edited by Brady Kahn

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

To my uncles Juan and Franklin, my aunt Sofia, and my mom, Patricia: you taught me that life is what we make of it.

To all the parents I worked with: you have been my greatest teachers.

Relationshipsarelivingentitiesthatevolve, morph, and transform, and to be successful, they require attention. No relationship will survive without adjustments, changes, and caring behaviors from the people involved in it. This simple, powerful statement by Patricia Zurita-Ona can dignify even your darkest moments as a parent. This book is written to help you walk that walk and discover the best of yourself, even in the worst moments you will face as a parent. It is a book especially designed for parents of teens with emotion dysregulation problems, those highly sensitive teens who require specialized skills and specialized responses from their parents. Sadly, many parents fail to appreciate this core principle of parenting. Parenting is a process, not an outcome, and success is not determined by heroic, single acts of acceptance or forgiveness, nor by winning a heated argument with a teenager. Parenting is a process that is best thought of as a long journey that, unbelievably enough, will bring you to your knees at one juncture and into contact with the best of who you are at another. And this process will go on and on as you and your child travel the path of life together. The journey requires that you persist in being guided by your values as a parent, even as the emotions of the moment tempt you to stop.

Here is another truth from this wonderfully written book: Youcannotchoosewhatshowsupunderyourskin; you cannot choose how your teen feels, thinks, or behaves. But you can choose how to respond in that moment. In this book, Zurita-Ona is really laying out a serenity prayer for parents. Knowwhatyoucanchange (i.e., your behavior in this moment); knowwhatyoumustaccept (i.e., your own emotional reactions to your child, memories of your upbringing, self-doubts about your adequacy as a parent, and what your teen says and does to stimulate these things inside of you). And, finally, she offers you a way to self-knowledge: Youpossessthewisdomtoknowthedifference. Part of this self-knowledge is learning the different types of thoughts that create roadblocks to being true to your values as a parent. The book is written with a format that helps parents to look at their own behaviors that might be driven by either being fused with their internal mind noise or avoiding those uncomfortable emotions themselves. The second part of the book, Being Real, taps into how the mind comes up with rules, future and past thoughts, stories, and evaluations that only derail parents from having a real relationship with their teen; it teaches parents multiple defusion skills for dealing with each one of those thoughts, images, and memories that show up in their mind.