Between leadership and abandonment... Advice on raising teenagers

Do you want to grow as a parent as your teen becomes an adult? The personal stories, surprising insights, and practical tools in this book help you maintain and strengthen the relationship with your developing child, and teach you more about your own role. Puberty is a turbulent and sometimes very difficult time. Not only for teens, but for their parents as well. As young people become more independent, parents often lose touch with them. Misunderstandings, quarrels, and silence accumulate, and the teenager is often blamed for it. But what we often forget is that these clashes may reflect and trigger unresolved experiences from the parents' youth themselves. In Between Leading and Letting Go, Milloy and Jacob show how parenting teens is closely linked to self-awareness and emotional maturity. They share their personal experiences and those of other parents, and connect them with insights from research. This book offers support, understanding, and practical tools for dealing with both everyday and difficult situations: as a teenager who is withdrawing, lying, struggling with a fear of failure, having problems with sex, or suffering from depression. The question comes up again and again: How can you restore connection, create a safe space, and maintain a solid foundation? How can a rebellious or dismissive teen offer insight into old hurts? Each chapter ends with an exercise that helps you recognize and break patterns from your youth. This way, not only does your understanding of your teen grow, but your understanding of yourself also grows!