The bestselling author of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy offers a powerful approach for helping troubled teens.

During his decades-long career as a therapist, Dr. William Glasser has often counseled parents and teenagers, healing shattered families and changing lives with his advice. Now, in his first book on the lessons he has learned, he asks parents to reject the “common sense” that tells them to “lay down the law” by grounding teens, or to try to coerce them into changing their behavior. These strategies have never worked, asserts Dr. Glasser, and never will. Instead he offers a different approach based upon Choice Theory.

Glasser spells out the seven deadly habits parents practice, and then shows them how to accomplish goals by changing their own behavior. Most important, however, in Unhappy Teenagers, Dr. Glasser provides a groundbreaking method that all parents can use with confidence and love to keep a strong relationship with their child.

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5 Stars An Essential Resource
If you are the parent of a teen who is having developmental problems of any sort, then you need this book. This book takes the essence of Choice Theory and applies it to the relationship between teens and their parents. The book consists of a number of case studies featuring the stories of typical young adults with all different sorts of problems ranging from anorexia to poor performance in school. As he is relating the story behind each case, the author will frequently turn to a brief discussion of various facets of his Choice Theory and how they apply to the case at hand.

Glasser’s enlightened discussion of the Quality World concept of Choice Theory is central to the book, and how this applies to the teen’s relationship with his/her parents. Coupled with this are discussions of the concepts of control and choice. Relinquishing one’s control over a teen, and gently guiding them toward making better choices is another common theme running through these case studies.

My advice is, if you have a teen, or young adult, and you are experiencing some turbulence (and who does not?), buy this book, read it, underline the passages that strike you as most important (there are many), then keep this book at your side, within reaching distance, as you navigate these years. It is well worth it to be able to reach for this book in times of trouble, when your relationship with your teen or young adult seems to be deteriorating, to open a page at random, and just read. Very often, you will encounter an extremely important insight that can guide you forward.

Thank you Dr. Glasser for helping us parents to understand that the relationship is everything.

5 Stars Unhappy Teenagers
This is a good book that discusses and provides excellent examples of Choice Theory parenting, as well as Choice Theory teaching. For the sake of this review, I am concentrating on the parenting aspects of the book. A few years ago, my son was dating a girl whose parents were very strict. They didn’t allow her to do much independently with her friends that wasn’t associated with school activities–activities that they usually attended as well. This may sound like a good way to keep their daughter safe and free from the distractions and negative behavior that most parents fear. However, what actually happened is that this girl, who really did want to please her parents for the most part, started to rebel. She wasn’t allowed to do many of the things her friends did so she began to lie to her parents to get to do “normal” things. When her friends were having a party that her parents wouldn’t approve of, this girl, call her Sarah, would tell her parents that she was staying at Susie’s house and Susie would tell her parents that she was staying at Sarah’s house and the two girls would be out all night unsupervised and no one knew where they were or what they were doing. This is an incredibly dangerous situation.

I was concerned about Sarah. One day, she saw Unhappy Teenagers: A Way for Parents and Teens to Reach Them on the back seat of my car and asked to borrow it. I let her take it and she loved the book and wanted her mother to read it. She showed her mother the book and her mother was so hurt that she threw the book outside in the yard. She also proclaimed that Dr. Glasser probably never had any children of his own. Well, I wish I could say that this story had a happy ending. The girl’s parents continued to be very strict and the girl continued to lie and do many things she wouldn’t have normally done had she just had some permission to explore the world. All parties survived the girls’ adolescence but it could have been so much easier.

Just so you know, Dr. Glasser did raise children of his own and he has a very empowering method for both parents and children that is outlined in this book. Everyone wins. He is not suggesting that parents throw up their hands in dismay and just let their children do whatever they want to do. He is proposing that there is a way for parents to be empowered and to empower their teens at the same time. Read the book, you won’t be sorry.

5 Stars Excellent. I can’t wait to read more from this brilliant psychiatrist, and talented author
Easy to read, provides a practical approach to a very challenging problem. Offers a workable, actually enjoyable way to improve every kind of relationship, not only those with teenagers. Since reading and discussing it with my family, we hear far less shouting in our house.

5 Stars Excellent for new relationship with your kids
Ignore references to his other works and you’re home free. You have everything you need in this one book. Implementing it is the big challenge because it goes against the grain of what we’ve been taught growing up. If one can do it, it will change your relationship with your teen dramatically.

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