Positive Discipline for Teenagers, Revised 3rd Edition

Empowering Your Teens and Yourself Through Kind and Firm Parenting

By: Jane Nelsen Ed.D., Lynn Lott

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

A Positive Approach To Raising Happy, Healthy and Mature Teenagers

Adolescence can be a time of great stress and turmoil—not only for kids going through it, but for their parents as well. It’s normal for teens to explore a new sense of freedom and to redefine the ways in which they relate to their parents, and that process can sometimes leave parents feeling powerless, alienated, or excluded from their children’s lives. These effects can be magnified even further in this modern age of social networks, cell phones, and constant digital distraction.

This newly revised and updated edition of Positive Discipline for Teenagers shows parents how to build stronger bridges of communication with their children, break the destructive cycles of guilt and blame that occur in parent-teen power struggles, and work toward greater mutual respect with their adolescents. At the core of the Positive Discipline approach is the understanding that teens still need their parents, just in different ways—and by better understanding who their teens really are, parents can learn to encourage both their teens and themselves, and instill good judgment without being judgmental. The methods in this book work to build vital social and life skills through encouragement and empowerment—not punishment. Truly effective parenting is about connection before correction.

Over the years, millions of parents have come to trust Jane Nelsen’s classic Positive Discipline series for its consistent, commonsense approach to raising happy, responsible kids. This new edition is filled with proven, effective methods for coping with such parenting challenges as:

-Fostering truly honest discussions with your teen
-Helping your teen handle the online world
-Turning mistakes into opportunities
-Keeping your sanity while raising your teen—and making sure your own teenage issues aren’t weighing you down
-Teaching your teen how to pursue the goal that make them happy…and a few that make you happy too (like chores)
-Making sure you’re on your teen’s side, and that they know that
-Avoiding the pitfalls of excessive control and excessive permissiveness

*Includes a downloadable PDF of charts from the book

Changed Mindset

I have a 13 year old and a pre-teen (11 year old). I was struggling to figure out how to parent my new teen who changed so much between 6th grade and 7th grade. Now wanting a boyfriend, changing her style every 3 months, no longer wanting to hang out as much with the family and I didn’t know how to handle all the changes. This book shifted my mindset completely and has helped me reconnect with my teen in a way I wouldn’t have known how without the advice from this book. I have talked with my teen about the book to let her know that I am trying to be the best parent for her and her brother as they go from childhood to teen hood. She loves it and has responded so well to the changes. My pre-teen is not quite needing the same parenting as my teen but it is setting me up for the future which gives me confidence. I recommend this to every parent who has a teenager. Your teen will appreciate you trying to understand them better and you will feel more connected as you open up to talking without judgment. My top takeaways: make sure the message of love comes across in all situations, respect your teen’s ideas, feelings, opinions, etc and remember teen years are a time in everyone’s life that we all survived!

so helpful!

This empowered me and helped me become confident in my parenting! it made parenting make sense. positive parenting for young children vs pre teens and teens are two completely different ball games! I was always a "positive parent" and then my kids hit 11/12 years old and I felt like I knew nothing anymore. My boys are almost 12 and 13 and I am so grateful I came across this early on to have the tools to handle parenting teens!

So helpful and encouraging

I have two teenagers and this book is a total game changer! Not only is the philosophy easy to understand the tools help create a close relationship and more cooperation from your teen. Thank you Jane and Lynn! My teens thank you too!