Best-selling author and parenting expert Tanith Carey (LEH 1978-1980) reveals just how to do that in her timely new book – What’s My Teenager Thinking? – which is published tomorrow (14 May 2020).
 
In it, she asks, are your child’s teenage years more challenging than you ever imagined? Do you struggle to know how to respond when your child says: ‘I hate you!’, ‘Get out of my room!’, ‘My life is over if I don't get these grades’ or ‘Do I look fat in this?’
 
Despite your best efforts to say the right thing, do you often find that your suggestions are seen by your teens as 'criticism' and your concerns about their well-being are viewed as ‘controlling’?
 
What’s My Teenager Thinking? by parenting author Tanith Carey and clinical child psychologist Dr Angharad Rudkin takes a unique approach.
 
* It uses the best child and development psychology to translate adolescent behaviour in more than 100 everyday scenarios.
* It looks at how the teenage brain and thinking evolves through the early, mid and later teenage years.
* As well as seeing the situation through the eyes of teens, it also looks at situations from the point of view of adults to help them to help calm potential flash-points.
* Drawing on the best research in child psychology, development and neuroscience, each scenario offers practical, easy-to-access solutions parents can use, both in the moment, and the long-term.
 
Designed for parents of teens from age 13 to 18, What’s My Teenager Thinking includes what to say when your teen says:
·      I am revising
·      Stop following me on social media
·      Everyone else plays this computer game
·      You never listen
·      You swear. Why can't I?
·      I’ll tidy my room in a minute
·      I’m going anyway
·      Can my boyfriend sleep over?
 
What’s my Teenager Thinking? tackles real-world concerns including online safety, exam pressures, eating disorders, depression, alcohol, drugs, and sex and doesn’t shy away from hard-hitting themes such as porn, self-harm and suicide.
 
The book approaches parenting with the idea that if you understand how your child’s brain is developing - as well as your own trigger points and emotions – it's easier to interact more positively - and connect more deeply - with your child. The guide is designed to help open up a two-way dialogue with adolescents, and is also useful as a handbook for educators and counsellors.
 
Tanith Carey returned to LEH last November, to deliver a popular Remarkable Women Lecture called The Secret To A Fulfilled Life.
 
 About Tanith Carey
Tanith Carey is a parenting author who writes on the most pressing challenges facing today’s parents. Her 11 books include ‘Taming the Tiger Parent’, 'Girls, Uninterrupted, and ‘The Friendship Maze’. Tanith also writes on parenting, psychology and social trends for publications all over the world, and has appeared on TV and radio programmes, such as NBC Today in the US, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and You and Yours, ITV’s This Morning, the Lorraine show, and Good Morning Britain. Tanith has two teenage daughters.
 
About Dr Angharad Rudkin
Dr Angharad Rudkin is a Clinical Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has worked with children, adolescents, and families for over 15 years. Angharad has an independent therapy practice and teaches Clinical Child Psychology at the University of Southampton. She regularly contributes to articles on child and family wellbeing for national newspaper and magazines, and is a relationship expert for London’s Metro daily newspaper. Angharad appears on TV and radio regularly as an expert on child and family issues.