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Boundaries with Teens: When to Say Yes, How to Say No
Establish wise and loving limits that make a positive difference in your teen, in the rest of your family, and in you.
The teen years: relationships, peer pressure, school, dating, character. To help teenagers grow into healthy adults, parents and youth workers need to teach them how to take responsibility for their behavior, their values, and their lives.
From bestselling author and counselor Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries with Teens is the expert insight and guidance you need to help your teens take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions and gain a deeper appreciation and respect both for you and for themselves.
With wisdom and empathy, Dr. Townsend applies biblically based principles for the challenging task of guiding your children through the teen years. Using the same principles he used to successfully raise two teens, he shows you how to:
Deal with disrespectful attitudes and impossible behavior in your teen
Set healthy limits and realistic consequences
Be loving and caring while establishing rules
Determine specific strategies to deal with problems both big and small
Discover how boundaries make parenting teens better today!
Plus, check out Boundaries family collection of books dedicated to key areas of life – dating, marriage, raising young kids, and leadership. Workbooks and Spanish editions are also available.
The teen years: relationships, peer pressure, school, dating, character. To help teenagers grow into healthy adults, parents and youth workers need to teach them how to take responsibility for their behavior, their values, and their lives.
From bestselling author and counselor Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries with Teens is the expert insight and guidance you need to help your teens take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions and gain a deeper appreciation and respect both for you and for themselves.
With wisdom and empathy, Dr. Townsend applies biblically based principles for the challenging task of guiding your children through the teen years. Using the same principles he used to successfully raise two teens, he shows you how to:
Deal with disrespectful attitudes and impossible behavior in your teen
Set healthy limits and realistic consequences
Be loving and caring while establishing rules
Determine specific strategies to deal with problems both big and small
Discover how boundaries make parenting teens better today!
Plus, check out Boundaries family collection of books dedicated to key areas of life – dating, marriage, raising young kids, and leadership. Workbooks and Spanish editions are also available.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 20, 2006
709 people are currently reading
1397 people want to read
About the author
John Townsend
472 books254 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Dr. John Townsend is a psychologist, popular speaker, co-host of the nationally broadcast New Life Live! radio program, and a cofounder of the Cloud-Townsend Clinic and Cloud-Townsend Resources. He has written or co-written twenty-seven books, including the bestselling Boundaries, Safe People, and Hiding from Love. He and his wife, Barbi, live in southern California. They have two grown sons.
Dr. John Townsend is a psychologist, popular speaker, co-host of the nationally broadcast New Life Live! radio program, and a cofounder of the Cloud-Townsend Clinic and Cloud-Townsend Resources. He has written or co-written twenty-seven books, including the bestselling Boundaries, Safe People, and Hiding from Love. He and his wife, Barbi, live in southern California. They have two grown sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
May 3, 2020
4 stars
Boundaries with Teens is a very thorough book about dealing with teenagers: dealing with their disrespectful attitudes and irresponsible behaviors, setting healthy limits and realistic consequences, establishing rules, and all the while being a loving, caring, and supporting parent.
Boundaries with Teens is a very thorough book about dealing with teenagers: dealing with their disrespectful attitudes and irresponsible behaviors, setting healthy limits and realistic consequences, establishing rules, and all the while being a loving, caring, and supporting parent.
May 30, 2017
Excellent advice, with specific examples and scenarios. Of course, much of it is easier said than done. I like the different sections of the book- dealing with changes that parents need to make themselves, understanding the teen brain/world with empathy, setting boundaries with the teen, and specific common problems that teens deal with. To me, the most helpful part is understanding what a teen is going through. Teens are frustrating and their behavior is often illogical, but understanding some of the underlying issues, like brain or hormonal changes, natural movement toward independence, and stressors in their lives, definitely puts their behavior into better context and gives me a better perspective on how to relate to them. There are a lot of practical tips and advice in here, about consequences, setting expectations clearly, and getting to the root of the problems. I borrowed this from the library, but I'm thinking I may want to actually buy a copy to keep on hand, as various specific problems pop up over the next few years. The last section deals very specifically with common teen issues, and I didn't read each one this time, I just read the ones relating to the issues I've seen in T, so I think this would be a good reference book to keep on our shelves.
March 28, 2014
I really love the Boundaries books. If you find yourself struggling in relationships, they are full of practical advice. This one on teens is no different. They give some really practical steps in making sure you are setting a good foundation for your teen's adult life. I highly recommend this book for parents of teens, especially if you are struggling with behavior shifts that are catching you off guard. It will make you feel less alone and help you gain insight into what is going on physically, emotionally, and spiritually inside of your teen. It's not a fix-all book, but it does make you stop and think about all the changes that teens face on a daily basis. It also gives you suggestions of ways to handle various negative situations teens might find themselves in.
July 3, 2020
This was a solid book. I found myself nodding along several times even though I have no kids of my own, I teach middle school, and I’ve been teaching those always-interesting 11-to-14-year-olds for a while.
I also, however, found myself disagreeing with sections. Some of the conversation scripts were useful, but others left me wondering whether any real parent would ever speak this way to a kid. It also definitely needs an update to cover smartphones, bullying, social media, academic pressure, and contemporary pornography concerns.
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly glad that I read this book, but I’m satisfied. It’s given me some solid ideas and food for thought. Now to just keep all of this is mind when those kids are back in my care!
I also, however, found myself disagreeing with sections. Some of the conversation scripts were useful, but others left me wondering whether any real parent would ever speak this way to a kid. It also definitely needs an update to cover smartphones, bullying, social media, academic pressure, and contemporary pornography concerns.
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly glad that I read this book, but I’m satisfied. It’s given me some solid ideas and food for thought. Now to just keep all of this is mind when those kids are back in my care!
August 4, 2021
Excellent book with lots of advice and specific examples. It helped me see situations differently and gave me advice on handling things like disrespect, anger, etc. I read a library copy that I passed along to my husband to read. I also plan to buy this book to use as a reference. Highly recommend.
January 3, 2023
This is a 3.5-4. I'd love it if an updated version were available. Lots of practical advice and helpful sections on common topics.
April 17, 2025
If you’re familiar with the “boundaries” series of books there won’t be any surprises in this one. Lots of practical advice for specific challenges and encouragement to focus on connection while maintaining firm boundaries. A good resource to come back to.
July 27, 2025
It was okay, I felt like the consequences they were suggesting were better for younger children. I definitely like Dr. Ken Wilgus book Feeding The Mouth That Bites You better for working with teens.
April 19, 2020
Good book for amateur parents
PART ONE: Be a Parent with Boundaries
1. Revisit your own adolescence (What conflict did you have with your own parents, relational problems, emotional and behavioral issues when you were growing up?)
Give Grace, Love, and Understanding: Get to know your teen
a. Aim to know who your teen is rather than to change your teen.
b. Listen more, lecture less.
c. Ask questions. Begin with questions about facts, move to thoughts, and then to emotions. Your adolescent needs for you to know him at a heart level, not just at an event level.
d. Take off the physical pressure off by taking a walk, throwing a ball, or going out to create a safe space for the teen to feel okay about opening up with you.
2. Be a boundary
a. Know who you are, what you want, and what you value.
b. Have a separate sense of self
c. Be honest when they cross the line and don’t say it’s okay when it is not.
d. Be persistent despite the head-butting from teens
3. Get connected to other adults in meaningful relationships
Four characteristics of good connections:
a. Grace. You need people in your life you can give you grace, people who do not have a judging bone in their body, who will be "for" you, no matter what. You also need friends who are "unshockable," who have the capacity to hear anything about your teen and not freak out.
b. Identification. You need to know that others identify with your difficulty, confusion, and frustration. This knowledge provides connection, encouragement, and hope.
c. Guidance. Get connected with mature people who have been down your road.
d. Reality. Get connected with people who will keep you grounded and centered in reality, people who are not black-and-white thinkers and who do not pretend to have an answer for every problem. People who live in reality can live with conflict, failure, and pain.
GET OVER YOUR ESCUSES: I don’t like to burden people. I should be able to do this myself. I am embarrassed by my teen’s situation. I have problems trusting. I’m too busy. I don’t know where I can find the kind of people you are talking about.
4. Face your guilt and fear
a. Guilt is a feeling of self-condemnation over doing something that hurts your child (which is inevitable). When parents are too harsh, let their kid down, or are absent in some way, they will often be harsh and critical with themselves. However, guilt is not a helpful emotion. Guilt is more about the parent, because guilt centers on the parent’s failures and badness rather than on the teen’s difficulty and hurt. Guilt does nothing to help the teen’s situation. If you struggle with guilt and want resolution, learn to experience remorse instead. Remorse, the healthy alternative to guilt, centers on the other person. Remorse is an empathic concern for the pain that your teen feels. It is also solution oriented and repairs the effects. If you feel remorse over something you have done that has hurt your teen, your focus is on helping your teen heal from the damage you have done.
b. Fear of withdrawal of love. This type of emotional blackmail is not healthy for the teen, especially later in life. When your teen withdraws, take the initiative to go after him and try to reconnect. Teens sometimes don’t have the skills to pull themselves back into relationship, so they need their parents to help them. Remember that teens need a certain amount of time and space to pull away from parents–-not totally away, but enough to form their own opinions, identity, and values.
c. Fear of anger. Adolescents get angry a lot. They live in protest mode. Teens that throw tantrums to get out of a limit will have a difficult relational future. Teach him to accept responsibilities and relationships without having outbursts. Learn to experience and normalize anger—your own and others’—as a part of life.
5. Be united (not split) in your parenting
a. Agree that your teen comes first.
b. Defer to each other’s strengths. Maybe one is better with structure and the other is better at listening and understanding at the emotional level your child needs, so get your spouse involved in the conversation.
c. Don’t triangulate your teen and involve them in your conflicts with each other.
d. If the other is resistant, stay balanced. Your teen doesn’t need two crazy parents. At least one of you needs to be integrated.
6. Be an integrated parent—you can only parent to your own level of maturity. Break the cycle of ignoring and then snapping:
a. Get help for yourself. Therapist, friend, pastor, support group.
b. Tell your teen what part of the problem is yours. "I am realizing that I overlooked things with you that I should not, and I stuff it all, then blow up at you out of nowhere. That’s not your fault; it is about me. So while I am holding onto the consequences for your bad behavior, I will work on my problem. I want you to let me know if I do it again.”
c. Get your teen around adults who put love and limits together.
d. Write out the rules and establish accountability.
e. Give your teen connection and consistency. Adolescence must have someone in their life who is strong enough to contain all of their parts–-good and bad–-and still relate to them. This experience enables teens to mature and become integrated. When teens do not experience connection and consistency, they can’t develop a sense of self-control and responsibility. In addition, they are less able to love and accept the good and bad aspects of others. What they cannot accept in themselves, they are often not able to accept in others.
7. Single parent issues
a. Not enough of you. Doing the work of two parents. Get help. Your kid still needs bonding time with you but surround your teen with people who have what you don’t possess.
b. Rescuing your teen from failure out of guilt can be a big mistake.
c. Making your teen the parent. Looking to your teen to meet your emotional needs is called parentifying. The problem is, when your teen’s mind is full of your life, he is too concerned with supporting you to be able to experience and deal with his own struggles and challenges.
d. Exposing your tee to your dates too soon. If you break up with that person, your teen’s life shatters a second time. It’s best not to get your teen involved with that person until it looks like the two of you are likely to get married.
e. Parenting differences with your ex. Agree to put the kids first and come to agreement (as best you can) on parenting values and styles.
8. For stepparents (Great advice in the book)
PART TWO: Understand the teenage world (It’s everything to them)
9. Adolescence: The last step before adulthood. Healthy adolescents:
a. Make connections
b. Are responsible
c. Accept reality
d. Mess up, but not severely
e. Are oriented to the outside
f. Make friends with other good kids.
g. Develop good values
h. Challenge their parents (Question your authority and opinions and want to think for themselves.)
10. A period of tremendous change. Feels more confidence about dislikes (“this sucks”) than about likes. Feels intense and extreme emotions. Is more invested in “today” than “tomorrow.” Develop empathy for your teen
11. Teens think differently. Teens are impulsive, self-centered, and irrational. They have outbursts of anger and disrespect, then in a few minutes, they swing back to love and compliance. Provide your teen with as many experiences (music teachers, sports coaches, Sunday School teachers, youth group and church leaders) involving love, grace, safety, structure, and correction as you can. That kind of environment will positively affect his/her brain.
12. Separating from parents. What is the right way to separate?
a. Within relationship versus outside of relationship. Your teen faces a challenging task. He needs to leave you while staying connected to you. He needs to know that he can talk to you about people, thoughts, events that do not have anything to do with you, because he needs your grounding and support. Your "being there" plays a huge role in helping him have the necessary tools and courage to safely enter adult life. Allow them to explore other things. Do not withdraw and your teen has a negative, angry, or different viewpoint or emotion. This puts the teen in a no-win situation. He must keep himself and lose his parents, or lose himself and keep his parents. It does not have to be either-or.
i. Be a support of your kids extra family world.
ii. Talk to your teen, ask questions, and make them feel like it is okay to have interests outside of you.
iii. Stay connected, even in differences. For example, rather than saying, “I do not want to hear about your friends drinking,” say, “Tell me what you know about who is drinking. I may not agree, but I want to know whatever you’ll let me know."
b. Toward versus away. Accept that your teen is being drawn toward something rather than away from you. However, some adolescents separate from their parents for the sake of getting away. Perhaps they want to escape from a great deal of conflict in the home, or maybe they feel miserable, angry, or constantly hurt because of something going on at home. Separating for these reasons can be developmentally devastating. When teens are more interested in getting away than in finding happiness and a good fit in the world, the risk attaching to the wrong things for the sake of escape. For example, some teens get married at a very early age because their home is so bad that they just want out. Marriage gives them that escape, but since these teens did not live in a loving and safe home, they have difficulty creating what they did not get. Leaving home does not change a miserable person into a happy person. Instead, it creates a miserable person who is on her own.
Understand that her desire to get away from you is normal. Accept that she is getting tired of your control, rules, and restrictions. Provide her with some positive and happy experiences at home. Work with her on establishing a reasonably happy and functional environment at home. Compromised when you can, love always, and be strict when you need to.
c. Prepared versus unprepared. Adults who successfully meet the demands of life have following qualities:
i. Relational, not alienated.
ii. Responsible, not immature.
iii. Self-controlled, not impulsive.
iv. Values-based, not peer–driven.
v. Autonomous, not dependent.
vi. Focused, not lost.
vii. Spiritual, not separated from God.
13. From earthly to eternal parent. Your teen is in the process of changing parents. He is transferring his dependency and obedience with you, his earthly parent, to God, his eternal parent. Your teen needs to wrestle with God, as the young man Jacob did, and as we all must. But the struggle must be between your teen and God, not between your teen and you. It is easy for your teen to move away from God, because he identifies God with you. But then he only throws the baby out with the bath water. So give your teen room to work out his faith, and keep him around healthy people who will do the same. Have him know that he can leave you without needing to leave God.
14. Understanding the differences between boys and girls.
15. The influence of culture
PART THREE: Set boundaries with your teen
16. Dig beneath your teen's problem. Problems caused by irresponsibility, immaturity, defiance, self-centeredness, and impulsiveness can often be effectively addressed by enforcing consequences. However, the problem might be caused by other concerns, such as emotional detachment, hurt, or discouraged. No amount of boundary setting will work with someone whose heart is downcast. When you beat and exhausted horse to make him run faster, the only thing the beating increases is the horse’s discouragement. The same thing happens when you set limits on a discouraged teen. That teen needs to be lifted up and given grace. He needs drawing out, listening, and acceptance.
17. Use the 4 anchors of boundary setting. Every boundary–setting conversation or situation must make use of four anchoring principles:
a. Love: “I love you and I am on your side.” Always begin with love. When we hear hard truths from someone who cares about us, we need to know that the person is on our side. "I am on your side. I am not doing this because I am mad, or want to punish you. I am doing this because I want your best." Love also help the teen begin to see that her behavior is the problem, not an out-of-control and angry parent. "I want to go over the things I am concerned about and solve some problems. But before I go any further, I want you to know that I really do love you, and I do not want bad things for you. I want a good life for you, and that is why I want help you with these problems."
b. Truth: “I have some rules and requirements for your behavior.” Expectations. Your teen needs to know what the line is, so that he can choose whether or not to cross it. As long as the rules are appropriate for the situation, when you bring them into the relationship, you are helping her child see that structure and responsibility are normal and expected in life. "I need to be clear about this, because I do not think I have been clear in the past, or I have not been very loving about it. But I want there to be no misunderstanding. I will not tolerate ___. It is not is definitely not okay in our house. Whether or not you agree with that, it is the rule in this home."
c. Freedom: “You can choose to respect or reject these rules.” Freedom to choose poorly is necessary to learn to choose well. Of course, freedom has a limit. If the problem is life-threatening or dangerous, you certainly should intervene. "I cannot stop you from ___. I do not want to control you. I would rather you choose the right things. So unless things get dangerous, you are free to follow these house rules or not to. But remember, you may be choosing in a way that causes me to severely restrict many of your privileges.”
d. Reality: “Here is what will happen if you choose to reject these rules.” Consequences. “Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow.”—Galatians 6:9
18. Do not get derailed
a. Accept resistance as normal. Most teens react with manipulation, arguments, anger, or defiance when their parents set limits with them. Move gradually at first. They need to challenge and question you. It prepares your teen to think for himself and to own his own values, feelings, and opinions. Life will test him on these matters. Better for your teen to figure out who he is and what he believes while he is still with you.
b. Do your homework. Make sure your rule and your consequence are reasonable and appropriate. Think it through. Talk to sound–thinking people in your community whom you
PART ONE: Be a Parent with Boundaries
1. Revisit your own adolescence (What conflict did you have with your own parents, relational problems, emotional and behavioral issues when you were growing up?)
Give Grace, Love, and Understanding: Get to know your teen
a. Aim to know who your teen is rather than to change your teen.
b. Listen more, lecture less.
c. Ask questions. Begin with questions about facts, move to thoughts, and then to emotions. Your adolescent needs for you to know him at a heart level, not just at an event level.
d. Take off the physical pressure off by taking a walk, throwing a ball, or going out to create a safe space for the teen to feel okay about opening up with you.
2. Be a boundary
a. Know who you are, what you want, and what you value.
b. Have a separate sense of self
c. Be honest when they cross the line and don’t say it’s okay when it is not.
d. Be persistent despite the head-butting from teens
3. Get connected to other adults in meaningful relationships
Four characteristics of good connections:
a. Grace. You need people in your life you can give you grace, people who do not have a judging bone in their body, who will be "for" you, no matter what. You also need friends who are "unshockable," who have the capacity to hear anything about your teen and not freak out.
b. Identification. You need to know that others identify with your difficulty, confusion, and frustration. This knowledge provides connection, encouragement, and hope.
c. Guidance. Get connected with mature people who have been down your road.
d. Reality. Get connected with people who will keep you grounded and centered in reality, people who are not black-and-white thinkers and who do not pretend to have an answer for every problem. People who live in reality can live with conflict, failure, and pain.
GET OVER YOUR ESCUSES: I don’t like to burden people. I should be able to do this myself. I am embarrassed by my teen’s situation. I have problems trusting. I’m too busy. I don’t know where I can find the kind of people you are talking about.
4. Face your guilt and fear
a. Guilt is a feeling of self-condemnation over doing something that hurts your child (which is inevitable). When parents are too harsh, let their kid down, or are absent in some way, they will often be harsh and critical with themselves. However, guilt is not a helpful emotion. Guilt is more about the parent, because guilt centers on the parent’s failures and badness rather than on the teen’s difficulty and hurt. Guilt does nothing to help the teen’s situation. If you struggle with guilt and want resolution, learn to experience remorse instead. Remorse, the healthy alternative to guilt, centers on the other person. Remorse is an empathic concern for the pain that your teen feels. It is also solution oriented and repairs the effects. If you feel remorse over something you have done that has hurt your teen, your focus is on helping your teen heal from the damage you have done.
b. Fear of withdrawal of love. This type of emotional blackmail is not healthy for the teen, especially later in life. When your teen withdraws, take the initiative to go after him and try to reconnect. Teens sometimes don’t have the skills to pull themselves back into relationship, so they need their parents to help them. Remember that teens need a certain amount of time and space to pull away from parents–-not totally away, but enough to form their own opinions, identity, and values.
c. Fear of anger. Adolescents get angry a lot. They live in protest mode. Teens that throw tantrums to get out of a limit will have a difficult relational future. Teach him to accept responsibilities and relationships without having outbursts. Learn to experience and normalize anger—your own and others’—as a part of life.
5. Be united (not split) in your parenting
a. Agree that your teen comes first.
b. Defer to each other’s strengths. Maybe one is better with structure and the other is better at listening and understanding at the emotional level your child needs, so get your spouse involved in the conversation.
c. Don’t triangulate your teen and involve them in your conflicts with each other.
d. If the other is resistant, stay balanced. Your teen doesn’t need two crazy parents. At least one of you needs to be integrated.
6. Be an integrated parent—you can only parent to your own level of maturity. Break the cycle of ignoring and then snapping:
a. Get help for yourself. Therapist, friend, pastor, support group.
b. Tell your teen what part of the problem is yours. "I am realizing that I overlooked things with you that I should not, and I stuff it all, then blow up at you out of nowhere. That’s not your fault; it is about me. So while I am holding onto the consequences for your bad behavior, I will work on my problem. I want you to let me know if I do it again.”
c. Get your teen around adults who put love and limits together.
d. Write out the rules and establish accountability.
e. Give your teen connection and consistency. Adolescence must have someone in their life who is strong enough to contain all of their parts–-good and bad–-and still relate to them. This experience enables teens to mature and become integrated. When teens do not experience connection and consistency, they can’t develop a sense of self-control and responsibility. In addition, they are less able to love and accept the good and bad aspects of others. What they cannot accept in themselves, they are often not able to accept in others.
7. Single parent issues
a. Not enough of you. Doing the work of two parents. Get help. Your kid still needs bonding time with you but surround your teen with people who have what you don’t possess.
b. Rescuing your teen from failure out of guilt can be a big mistake.
c. Making your teen the parent. Looking to your teen to meet your emotional needs is called parentifying. The problem is, when your teen’s mind is full of your life, he is too concerned with supporting you to be able to experience and deal with his own struggles and challenges.
d. Exposing your tee to your dates too soon. If you break up with that person, your teen’s life shatters a second time. It’s best not to get your teen involved with that person until it looks like the two of you are likely to get married.
e. Parenting differences with your ex. Agree to put the kids first and come to agreement (as best you can) on parenting values and styles.
8. For stepparents (Great advice in the book)
PART TWO: Understand the teenage world (It’s everything to them)
9. Adolescence: The last step before adulthood. Healthy adolescents:
a. Make connections
b. Are responsible
c. Accept reality
d. Mess up, but not severely
e. Are oriented to the outside
f. Make friends with other good kids.
g. Develop good values
h. Challenge their parents (Question your authority and opinions and want to think for themselves.)
10. A period of tremendous change. Feels more confidence about dislikes (“this sucks”) than about likes. Feels intense and extreme emotions. Is more invested in “today” than “tomorrow.” Develop empathy for your teen
11. Teens think differently. Teens are impulsive, self-centered, and irrational. They have outbursts of anger and disrespect, then in a few minutes, they swing back to love and compliance. Provide your teen with as many experiences (music teachers, sports coaches, Sunday School teachers, youth group and church leaders) involving love, grace, safety, structure, and correction as you can. That kind of environment will positively affect his/her brain.
12. Separating from parents. What is the right way to separate?
a. Within relationship versus outside of relationship. Your teen faces a challenging task. He needs to leave you while staying connected to you. He needs to know that he can talk to you about people, thoughts, events that do not have anything to do with you, because he needs your grounding and support. Your "being there" plays a huge role in helping him have the necessary tools and courage to safely enter adult life. Allow them to explore other things. Do not withdraw and your teen has a negative, angry, or different viewpoint or emotion. This puts the teen in a no-win situation. He must keep himself and lose his parents, or lose himself and keep his parents. It does not have to be either-or.
i. Be a support of your kids extra family world.
ii. Talk to your teen, ask questions, and make them feel like it is okay to have interests outside of you.
iii. Stay connected, even in differences. For example, rather than saying, “I do not want to hear about your friends drinking,” say, “Tell me what you know about who is drinking. I may not agree, but I want to know whatever you’ll let me know."
b. Toward versus away. Accept that your teen is being drawn toward something rather than away from you. However, some adolescents separate from their parents for the sake of getting away. Perhaps they want to escape from a great deal of conflict in the home, or maybe they feel miserable, angry, or constantly hurt because of something going on at home. Separating for these reasons can be developmentally devastating. When teens are more interested in getting away than in finding happiness and a good fit in the world, the risk attaching to the wrong things for the sake of escape. For example, some teens get married at a very early age because their home is so bad that they just want out. Marriage gives them that escape, but since these teens did not live in a loving and safe home, they have difficulty creating what they did not get. Leaving home does not change a miserable person into a happy person. Instead, it creates a miserable person who is on her own.
Understand that her desire to get away from you is normal. Accept that she is getting tired of your control, rules, and restrictions. Provide her with some positive and happy experiences at home. Work with her on establishing a reasonably happy and functional environment at home. Compromised when you can, love always, and be strict when you need to.
c. Prepared versus unprepared. Adults who successfully meet the demands of life have following qualities:
i. Relational, not alienated.
ii. Responsible, not immature.
iii. Self-controlled, not impulsive.
iv. Values-based, not peer–driven.
v. Autonomous, not dependent.
vi. Focused, not lost.
vii. Spiritual, not separated from God.
13. From earthly to eternal parent. Your teen is in the process of changing parents. He is transferring his dependency and obedience with you, his earthly parent, to God, his eternal parent. Your teen needs to wrestle with God, as the young man Jacob did, and as we all must. But the struggle must be between your teen and God, not between your teen and you. It is easy for your teen to move away from God, because he identifies God with you. But then he only throws the baby out with the bath water. So give your teen room to work out his faith, and keep him around healthy people who will do the same. Have him know that he can leave you without needing to leave God.
14. Understanding the differences between boys and girls.
15. The influence of culture
PART THREE: Set boundaries with your teen
16. Dig beneath your teen's problem. Problems caused by irresponsibility, immaturity, defiance, self-centeredness, and impulsiveness can often be effectively addressed by enforcing consequences. However, the problem might be caused by other concerns, such as emotional detachment, hurt, or discouraged. No amount of boundary setting will work with someone whose heart is downcast. When you beat and exhausted horse to make him run faster, the only thing the beating increases is the horse’s discouragement. The same thing happens when you set limits on a discouraged teen. That teen needs to be lifted up and given grace. He needs drawing out, listening, and acceptance.
17. Use the 4 anchors of boundary setting. Every boundary–setting conversation or situation must make use of four anchoring principles:
a. Love: “I love you and I am on your side.” Always begin with love. When we hear hard truths from someone who cares about us, we need to know that the person is on our side. "I am on your side. I am not doing this because I am mad, or want to punish you. I am doing this because I want your best." Love also help the teen begin to see that her behavior is the problem, not an out-of-control and angry parent. "I want to go over the things I am concerned about and solve some problems. But before I go any further, I want you to know that I really do love you, and I do not want bad things for you. I want a good life for you, and that is why I want help you with these problems."
b. Truth: “I have some rules and requirements for your behavior.” Expectations. Your teen needs to know what the line is, so that he can choose whether or not to cross it. As long as the rules are appropriate for the situation, when you bring them into the relationship, you are helping her child see that structure and responsibility are normal and expected in life. "I need to be clear about this, because I do not think I have been clear in the past, or I have not been very loving about it. But I want there to be no misunderstanding. I will not tolerate ___. It is not is definitely not okay in our house. Whether or not you agree with that, it is the rule in this home."
c. Freedom: “You can choose to respect or reject these rules.” Freedom to choose poorly is necessary to learn to choose well. Of course, freedom has a limit. If the problem is life-threatening or dangerous, you certainly should intervene. "I cannot stop you from ___. I do not want to control you. I would rather you choose the right things. So unless things get dangerous, you are free to follow these house rules or not to. But remember, you may be choosing in a way that causes me to severely restrict many of your privileges.”
d. Reality: “Here is what will happen if you choose to reject these rules.” Consequences. “Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow.”—Galatians 6:9
18. Do not get derailed
a. Accept resistance as normal. Most teens react with manipulation, arguments, anger, or defiance when their parents set limits with them. Move gradually at first. They need to challenge and question you. It prepares your teen to think for himself and to own his own values, feelings, and opinions. Life will test him on these matters. Better for your teen to figure out who he is and what he believes while he is still with you.
b. Do your homework. Make sure your rule and your consequence are reasonable and appropriate. Think it through. Talk to sound–thinking people in your community whom you
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2021
Solid and actionable advice. I liked how it also addressed ways in which parents can adapt and grow in this journey.
October 19, 2021
Without a doubt this will be a valuable resource for the next decade.
January 31, 2023
This is a good resource book. I chose to listen to it all the way through and purchased the physical book to use as a reference later. Later chapters are broken down by specific issues, like phones, grades, or dating. I do love that the author continues to encourage parents to hold the line with their kids by saying “you can do this“. I feel like he understands how exhausting it is to have somebody pushing back against you on almost everything, you want for them! I suggested to my husband that we break the book down into sections and have a discussion about implementing some of the ideas into our parenting to be more successful as our kids are all getting to the age where we need to help with these areas.
January 3, 2021
Knyga padėsianti suprasti paauglius bei kaip tėvams padėti savo paaugliams suvokti save, ugdyti savikontrolę bei atsakomybę nustatant ribas, bet tuo pačiu rodant meilę ir galvojant apie vaiko ateitį. Iš ties vertinga knyga.
Knyga puikiai struktūrizuota, kiekviename skyriuje yra: problema, patarimai, kaip spręsti ir trumpa viso skyriaus apžvalga. Tad knygą galima skaityti ne nuo pradžių, o atitinkamai, kuri tema tuo metu aktuali.
Rekomenduoju paauglių tėvams, norintiems geriau suprasti savo paauglius ir padėti jiems bei kurių neblaško knygose esantys sakiniai Dievo tematika(nebuvo jų daug).
Keletas minčių, kurias pasižymėjau:
💞Paaugliams reikia tėvų, kurie juos myli, palaiko, išklauso, užjaučia, supranta, dalyvauja jų gyvenime, sukuria struktūrą, nustato ir laikosi ribų, rodydami savo pavyzdį, bet neprisiima atsakomybės už savo vaikų jausmus, suteikia laisvės, leidžia jiems klysti ir mokytis iš savo klaidų.
🌐 Paauglių vidiniam pasauliui trūksta struktūros, jis šiek tiek chaotiškas ir vis dar formuojasi. Todėl jiems reikia, kad išorinis pasaulis (jūs ir jų namai) būtų saugūs ir stabilūs. Pavyzdžiui, reguliariai valgykite, palaikykite tvarką namie ir nustatykite paaugliui tinkamą miego grafiką. Šio tipo išorinės struktūros ir tvarka padės jam perimti struktūrą, kurios neturi, kad ji taptų jo paties dalimi.
🧸Tėvai turi padėti vaikams suprasti savo jausmus. Klausiant: pradėkite nuo klausimų apie įvykius, pereikite prie minčių, o tada prie emocijų.
🧮 Jei paauglys nesilaiko ribų, numatyti padarinius: pridėti, ko paauglys nenori, arba atimti ka nors, ko jis nori (atėmimas labiau veikia ir lengvesnis būdas).
🎁 Užuot apdovanoję paauglius už tai, ką jie ir taip turi daryti, pagirkite juos. Tačiau palikite atlygį už ką nors ypatinga, pvz., neeilinius rezultatus ar papildomą pastangą.
Knyga puikiai struktūrizuota, kiekviename skyriuje yra: problema, patarimai, kaip spręsti ir trumpa viso skyriaus apžvalga. Tad knygą galima skaityti ne nuo pradžių, o atitinkamai, kuri tema tuo metu aktuali.
Rekomenduoju paauglių tėvams, norintiems geriau suprasti savo paauglius ir padėti jiems bei kurių neblaško knygose esantys sakiniai Dievo tematika(nebuvo jų daug).
Keletas minčių, kurias pasižymėjau:
💞Paaugliams reikia tėvų, kurie juos myli, palaiko, išklauso, užjaučia, supranta, dalyvauja jų gyvenime, sukuria struktūrą, nustato ir laikosi ribų, rodydami savo pavyzdį, bet neprisiima atsakomybės už savo vaikų jausmus, suteikia laisvės, leidžia jiems klysti ir mokytis iš savo klaidų.
🌐 Paauglių vidiniam pasauliui trūksta struktūros, jis šiek tiek chaotiškas ir vis dar formuojasi. Todėl jiems reikia, kad išorinis pasaulis (jūs ir jų namai) būtų saugūs ir stabilūs. Pavyzdžiui, reguliariai valgykite, palaikykite tvarką namie ir nustatykite paaugliui tinkamą miego grafiką. Šio tipo išorinės struktūros ir tvarka padės jam perimti struktūrą, kurios neturi, kad ji taptų jo paties dalimi.
🧸Tėvai turi padėti vaikams suprasti savo jausmus. Klausiant: pradėkite nuo klausimų apie įvykius, pereikite prie minčių, o tada prie emocijų.
🧮 Jei paauglys nesilaiko ribų, numatyti padarinius: pridėti, ko paauglys nenori, arba atimti ka nors, ko jis nori (atėmimas labiau veikia ir lengvesnis būdas).
🎁 Užuot apdovanoję paauglius už tai, ką jie ir taip turi daryti, pagirkite juos. Tačiau palikite atlygį už ką nors ypatinga, pvz., neeilinius rezultatus ar papildomą pastangą.
November 4, 2019
I’m going to preface this review with two statements.
1. I’m not a practicing Christian so I knew some of this book may not align with my personal spiritual guidelines.
2. I was warned that the book may not align with my spiritual guidelines.
I will also admit that there was a significant amount of helpful info that I will continue to refer to throughout these next few years. Suggestions for different types of consequences and starting off with smaller punishments allows for the ability to grow the consequence in relation to the infraction.
HOWEVER, this book was extremely dated in it’s view of abstinence only education! I was actually appalled that the only discussion about sex with teens including masturbation was related 100% to abstaining and delaying gratification and staying pure for one’s future spouse. I am sorry but I know plenty of Christians who have come away from the abstinence only model because it just doesn’t work!!!!! I respect others beliefs but found this chapter and other pepperings of dated gender based, traditional marriage ideas and it makes me wonder if I can trust the other information I found useful in light of this. I’m still desperately searching for a manual on how to help my teen without making him be held to unattainable unrealistic standards. I am not advocating for teen sex but I need something else as a solution then just waiting for the right person and training your brain to think “clean” thoughts. Nope. Nope. Nope.
1. I’m not a practicing Christian so I knew some of this book may not align with my personal spiritual guidelines.
2. I was warned that the book may not align with my spiritual guidelines.
I will also admit that there was a significant amount of helpful info that I will continue to refer to throughout these next few years. Suggestions for different types of consequences and starting off with smaller punishments allows for the ability to grow the consequence in relation to the infraction.
HOWEVER, this book was extremely dated in it’s view of abstinence only education! I was actually appalled that the only discussion about sex with teens including masturbation was related 100% to abstaining and delaying gratification and staying pure for one’s future spouse. I am sorry but I know plenty of Christians who have come away from the abstinence only model because it just doesn’t work!!!!! I respect others beliefs but found this chapter and other pepperings of dated gender based, traditional marriage ideas and it makes me wonder if I can trust the other information I found useful in light of this. I’m still desperately searching for a manual on how to help my teen without making him be held to unattainable unrealistic standards. I am not advocating for teen sex but I need something else as a solution then just waiting for the right person and training your brain to think “clean” thoughts. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Read
November 14, 2014Great book for how to have a good relationship with your teen and still train them.
August 31, 2016
For me this was / is a good reminder book of the things I have read in other books. The big things are empathy, talking, and sticking to your word. Make the boundaries clear.
March 17, 2023
Have no idea what’s going on with your teen? Read this!
March 28, 2025
This book builds off the foundation of Boundaries and the ten laws from Boundaries with Kids. It does a good job of showing how to establish and enforce boundaries with adolescents whose job is to start separating from their parents to prepare for venturing out into the world as an adult. I do think it serves the reader to already have read the original Boundaries book, since the general details of boundaries is given only about 30 pages out of the books' 270 pages.
The book is divided into four parts:
Part two works to establish what is unique about a teenager versus a child or adult. This is where the book dives into the notion that it's the teen's job to separate from their parents. If offers advice to parents for how to support that separation effectively. There's plenty of exhortations to not hide your head in the sand and wait for it all to blow over, since that will result in a maladjusted adult. Teens are capable of more independence than children, but still must be taught proper responsibility and consequences to prepare them for the real world. There's also the added side benefit of having an adult child that still wants to be around you without needing to be around you.
Part three, as previously mentioned, goes over the basics of establishing boundaries. The biggest addition here is digging beneath our teen's problems. Similar to more modern books like Good Inside, Boundaries with Teens constantly reminds the parent that there are underlying causes for most teen problems. If a teen is being silent, they might be afraid to express emotions they don't understand. If a teen is abusing drugs or alcohol, they might be trying to numb some other pain. An argumentative teen is testing your boundaries. Don't leave your teen alone with negative emotions, remain warm and supportive as your teen goes through a world of wild changes.
Part four is the longest part and goes over 26 common problems. This part could be read as those problem arise, but reading it as part of the book helps plant all those seeds to be better prepared. Not all chapters will apply to all families. One chapter is about "God and Spirituality", which will be different based on your family's religion or spirituality, especially if that differs from the author's obvious Christianity. The chapter on "Sexual Involvement" was a little more candid than I expected given the author's penchant for Bible quotes, and doesn't necessarily boil down to just "no sex until marriage" (although that's in there, too). And the "Phone" chapter is laughable nowadays given the book is from 2006 so there's no mention at all of smart phones. Even the internet is treated as something people use only on occasion, and the closest reference to social media is "social networking sites." There are clearly more up to date books to read about these topics, if you want more information.
Overall another good entry in the Boundaries book series. This one is the most limited in its appeal, since the lessons aren't as widely applicable outside of parenting a teenager. But that still encompasses a huge swath of people that will be aided by reading this book and raise teenagers who become responsible, respectful adults.
The book is divided into four parts:
Part One: Be a Parent with BoundariesIt's notable that the first part is devoted to the parent working on themselves. This is a critical part of boundaries, since you have to understand inside yourself before you can set up boundaries outside of yourself. It's especially important given how often the author reminds the reader that their teenagers will dislike their parents at times (and if not, then the parents are doing something wrong!). If you don't have a strong sense of your own self and your emotions, then a teen's rebellion is going to strike you too personally. There's also useful advice for parenting with a partner, without a partner, and as stepparents.
Part Two: Understand the Teenage World
Part Three: Set Boundaries with Your Teen
Part Four: Address Common Problems
Part two works to establish what is unique about a teenager versus a child or adult. This is where the book dives into the notion that it's the teen's job to separate from their parents. If offers advice to parents for how to support that separation effectively. There's plenty of exhortations to not hide your head in the sand and wait for it all to blow over, since that will result in a maladjusted adult. Teens are capable of more independence than children, but still must be taught proper responsibility and consequences to prepare them for the real world. There's also the added side benefit of having an adult child that still wants to be around you without needing to be around you.
Part three, as previously mentioned, goes over the basics of establishing boundaries. The biggest addition here is digging beneath our teen's problems. Similar to more modern books like Good Inside, Boundaries with Teens constantly reminds the parent that there are underlying causes for most teen problems. If a teen is being silent, they might be afraid to express emotions they don't understand. If a teen is abusing drugs or alcohol, they might be trying to numb some other pain. An argumentative teen is testing your boundaries. Don't leave your teen alone with negative emotions, remain warm and supportive as your teen goes through a world of wild changes.
Part four is the longest part and goes over 26 common problems. This part could be read as those problem arise, but reading it as part of the book helps plant all those seeds to be better prepared. Not all chapters will apply to all families. One chapter is about "God and Spirituality", which will be different based on your family's religion or spirituality, especially if that differs from the author's obvious Christianity. The chapter on "Sexual Involvement" was a little more candid than I expected given the author's penchant for Bible quotes, and doesn't necessarily boil down to just "no sex until marriage" (although that's in there, too). And the "Phone" chapter is laughable nowadays given the book is from 2006 so there's no mention at all of smart phones. Even the internet is treated as something people use only on occasion, and the closest reference to social media is "social networking sites." There are clearly more up to date books to read about these topics, if you want more information.
Overall another good entry in the Boundaries book series. This one is the most limited in its appeal, since the lessons aren't as widely applicable outside of parenting a teenager. But that still encompasses a huge swath of people that will be aided by reading this book and raise teenagers who become responsible, respectful adults.
September 25, 2023
Very good book for parenting through the teen years. Here are some helpful things I gleaned from the book:
Don’t forget about your teen years. You were not perfect, had attitudes, and probably messed up.
Get to know your teen instead of just trying to fix them.
Listen more and lecture less.
Your teen needs to know that you care for him at a heart level.
When it comes to parenting, who you are carries much more weight than what you say.
Be careful of knee-jerk reactions.
Do not try to match your teens anger; you are the adult.
Your teen needs your empathy even when you are the target of their rage.
You must be charm-proof. Many times there is a charm between a dad and his daughter, or a mom and her son, that causes the parent to overlook the bad behavior of the teen.
Your teen needs the safety of structure.
Require your teen’s respect.
Schedule family time with your teens. Walking together is much better than a movie.
Disrespect is a sign of deeper issues.
Help your teen learn to be responsible by paying for things on their own.
Allow your teen to question faith to learn what they believe. Help them think instead of giving a quick answer that only helps you as the parent.
Help your teen to control their impulses, specifically when it comes to internet. Help them avoid harmful content, harmful people, and harmful over-involvement.
Establish that Internet as a privilege, not a need.
As a parent, you have a lot of influence when it comes to your children’s attitude towards money.
Be the grown-up; don’t engage in fighting with your teen.
Don’t get caught up in the crisis of today. Your teen needs you to pull them out of the crisis and know there is a tomorrow.
As you grow in your own life, so grows your parenting. Work on your own character issues because your teen needs your help.
You need God’s help. God can give you wisdom and insight.
Don’t forget about your teen years. You were not perfect, had attitudes, and probably messed up.
Get to know your teen instead of just trying to fix them.
Listen more and lecture less.
Your teen needs to know that you care for him at a heart level.
When it comes to parenting, who you are carries much more weight than what you say.
Be careful of knee-jerk reactions.
Do not try to match your teens anger; you are the adult.
Your teen needs your empathy even when you are the target of their rage.
You must be charm-proof. Many times there is a charm between a dad and his daughter, or a mom and her son, that causes the parent to overlook the bad behavior of the teen.
Your teen needs the safety of structure.
Require your teen’s respect.
Schedule family time with your teens. Walking together is much better than a movie.
Disrespect is a sign of deeper issues.
Help your teen learn to be responsible by paying for things on their own.
Allow your teen to question faith to learn what they believe. Help them think instead of giving a quick answer that only helps you as the parent.
Help your teen to control their impulses, specifically when it comes to internet. Help them avoid harmful content, harmful people, and harmful over-involvement.
Establish that Internet as a privilege, not a need.
As a parent, you have a lot of influence when it comes to your children’s attitude towards money.
Be the grown-up; don’t engage in fighting with your teen.
Don’t get caught up in the crisis of today. Your teen needs you to pull them out of the crisis and know there is a tomorrow.
As you grow in your own life, so grows your parenting. Work on your own character issues because your teen needs your help.
You need God’s help. God can give you wisdom and insight.
October 17, 2023
I understand where Dr. Townsend is coming from, though I think the book's content is a little dated by 2023 standards. I feel there isn't enough material on parents' own vulnerability, flaws, and weaknesses. Just there same I feel what's missing is a mindset for the parents to have a warm non-authoritarian connection with their teens early, to foster an honest two-way communication, before more serious behavioral problems occur. The book seems to assume a middle-class Protestant audience, and that's fair, although it does not cover a large part of the current culture. The book emphasizes some serious problems that teens can get in to, and sets equally serious consequences for those transgressions: like sending the teen to military school, a boarding school, or to work with qualified counselors in an out-of-home setting. I felt that there was no analysis done in the book on how these serious problems can be prevented early before they occur. It felt like the book tried to treat the symptom (and harshly at that) rather than the root cause. I suspect that to dig up the root causes, the book would have to force the parents to look at themselves more closely and to admit their flaws, weaknesses, desires, and issues. Something like this, 20 years ago, might have been unthinkable in some Protestant circles, as it might raise the parents' state of salvation into question, I fear - that's why it was mostly avoided in the book. To be fair though, Dr. Townsend does suggest these things if you read more between the lines. As with anything, I recommend taking the material presented in this book and evaluating it alongside other materials written on this subject, and coming up with what works best in one's own situation. This is definitely not easy reading nor there are clear-cut solutions to all problems. Some of those are certainly going to be tough calls.
January 19, 2021
If nothing more, this book was an encouragement that I am not crazy, as I parent a crazy teen. 😏 There were many times when I was shaking my head in agreement, and having "Yes! You too?" moments while reading, which, especially in the midst of hard times, is sometimes all you need as a parent. But it also had some practical suggestions, that even though some of them sounded stupid on paper, when I found myself in situations where I could try applying them...it actually changed the tone of conversations and made me look differently at the way she was reacting in the moment. I could let it roll off a little bit easier.
Bottom line: it's a good book for parents of teens to read, if for no other reason than to help you know what behavior is normal to many teens, especially if you--like me--were a totally different type of teen than the one you find yourself raising. I even gave my first copy to a friend, halfway through the book, when her daughter was caught making poor choices with friends. That mom needed the encouragement even more than I did!
The only thing I would change would be for the authors to update it. It was written in 2006, and a LOT has changed in the last 15 years, including the invention of social media and the prevalence of smart phones. It would be really helpful to have a chapter on both of those.
Bottom line: it's a good book for parents of teens to read, if for no other reason than to help you know what behavior is normal to many teens, especially if you--like me--were a totally different type of teen than the one you find yourself raising. I even gave my first copy to a friend, halfway through the book, when her daughter was caught making poor choices with friends. That mom needed the encouragement even more than I did!
The only thing I would change would be for the authors to update it. It was written in 2006, and a LOT has changed in the last 15 years, including the invention of social media and the prevalence of smart phones. It would be really helpful to have a chapter on both of those.
January 23, 2018
Dr. Townsend gives a great deal of practical advice from his years of clinical experience with teens and their parents. I appreciated his emphasis on communication and building relationships with your children. He also speaks to the importance of establishing boundaries in our own lives so that we are better equipped emotionally to deal with the challenges our kids are facing.
I’m not sure what Dr. Townsend’s background is, but I thought it was interesting that he never addressed the whole premise of adolescence. He seems to unquestioningly accept an 8 or so year span between childhood and adulthood when adolescents should be seen and treated differently. I couldn’t help but think of verses like “Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.” (Proverbs 20:11) and “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)
While I certainly want to encourage my children to take time to think and wrestle through ideas and beliefs for themselves, I also want to continually cast a vision for them of being young people of godliness and excellence who are living for something more than this world has to offer and Someone greater than themselves.
I’m not sure what Dr. Townsend’s background is, but I thought it was interesting that he never addressed the whole premise of adolescence. He seems to unquestioningly accept an 8 or so year span between childhood and adulthood when adolescents should be seen and treated differently. I couldn’t help but think of verses like “Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.” (Proverbs 20:11) and “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)
While I certainly want to encourage my children to take time to think and wrestle through ideas and beliefs for themselves, I also want to continually cast a vision for them of being young people of godliness and excellence who are living for something more than this world has to offer and Someone greater than themselves.
January 25, 2019
This is a great book for parents of teenagers. It does have a Christian presence for those that are, but I would urge even non-Christian individuals to give it a go. The content and principles are still applicable. There are some slight contradictions in the book but I think it was because each teen and circumstance is different and ultimately you are the final decision-maker as the parent. I have a young teenager who is starting to explore his boundaries. He is a GOOD kid, but still a teenager and trying to figure himself out just as much as I am. This has some great reminders of how to work through difficult behaviors and confrontations. As always, if you have an extreme case, this book advises seeking professional help. Be prepared to acknowledge weakness in yourself as well as your teen. This book will help give you the tools to grow individually as well as together. I plan to keep a physical copy of the book to refer to certain chapters frequently.
A note about the audio version: I found the narration to be a good fit. The only thing that bugged me was the “you can do it” line which popped up at the end of each segment. The first time or two it was okay but after a few of them it started to feel condescending.
A note about the audio version: I found the narration to be a good fit. The only thing that bugged me was the “you can do it” line which popped up at the end of each segment. The first time or two it was okay but after a few of them it started to feel condescending.
February 20, 2019
"God made parents to be the guard rails on the twisting road of life. You need to be strong enough for kids to crash into over and over and over again."
"Far better for her if you help empower her to deal safely with cultural influences while she is still with you rather than later, when she is on her own."
This book came highly recommended but I really struggled with it. We've tried (imperfectly) to be consistent in what we say v/s what we do as parents, so that our now-teenagers know there are consequences to their behaviors. We've also tried to parent to their hearts (re: Shepherding a Child's Heart). Big chunks of this book felt heavy-handed to me. Also, fully half of the book addresses specific rebellious behaviors and how to manage them. Honestly, I didn't read all these.
That being said, there are some good takeaways. In particular, a list of mature qualities to nurture as our teens grow, such as "values-based, not peer-driven" (pg. 88 in my copy). I also appreciate the general affirmation that having rules and expecting adherence is the better choice in parenting.
For involved, mindful parents, this one works better as a reference book than a how-to guide.
"Far better for her if you help empower her to deal safely with cultural influences while she is still with you rather than later, when she is on her own."
This book came highly recommended but I really struggled with it. We've tried (imperfectly) to be consistent in what we say v/s what we do as parents, so that our now-teenagers know there are consequences to their behaviors. We've also tried to parent to their hearts (re: Shepherding a Child's Heart). Big chunks of this book felt heavy-handed to me. Also, fully half of the book addresses specific rebellious behaviors and how to manage them. Honestly, I didn't read all these.
That being said, there are some good takeaways. In particular, a list of mature qualities to nurture as our teens grow, such as "values-based, not peer-driven" (pg. 88 in my copy). I also appreciate the general affirmation that having rules and expecting adherence is the better choice in parenting.
For involved, mindful parents, this one works better as a reference book than a how-to guide.
March 22, 2017
I read Boundaries in Marriage many years ago, and loved it. It helped me to identify the abuse I was experiencing in my marriage and I will never forget some of the lessons it taught me. Maybe it's because of that that I found this book to be only so-so. I found that the advice was pretty common sense, and not really helpful in my situation. Unfortunately, my daughter has inherited a lot of her father's traits/disorders and so dealing with her is a lot trickier than I think this book expects most teens to be. I did appreciate the one lesson, given early on in the book, to not just give up and wait til they move out, but to try to keep in mind that the lessons and discipline/boundaries you try to instill now will some day be of more benefit to them than giving up and doing nothing would be. I've recently been recommended another book, Stop Walking on Eggshells, which I think might be better suited to our situation.
February 14, 2023
This book was recommended by other parents and how to deal well with our teenage son and daughters. I have been reading this for a long time, but wanted to finish it up as I am cleaning up my reading backlog.
The book has a ton of good, proactive advice on parenting teens. I think the most important insight is how much you need to be actively engaged rather than passively responsive to teenagers. This is a lot more work, but it is essential work. The second half of the book is topical on different problem behaviors. It is a bit long to read through end to end, but it is a great guide to have handy when addressing specific problems.
I think this is a good handbook for parenting without any significant flaws. My wife and I could certainly do better and reading this book and implementing some of the practices is helping us.
The book has a ton of good, proactive advice on parenting teens. I think the most important insight is how much you need to be actively engaged rather than passively responsive to teenagers. This is a lot more work, but it is essential work. The second half of the book is topical on different problem behaviors. It is a bit long to read through end to end, but it is a great guide to have handy when addressing specific problems.
I think this is a good handbook for parenting without any significant flaws. My wife and I could certainly do better and reading this book and implementing some of the practices is helping us.
February 9, 2019
I sort of knew going into it that it wasn't going to work for me because of my reaction to the original Boundaries book, but it was recommended to us and our teen absolutely needs some boundaries so I was willing to try. I didn't disagree with the information, it was just too superficial to be helpful to me. Almost all the suggestions we have already tried, so it is more like a book for beginners. Not like we're some kind of "advanced" parents, just that our kid has already checked the boxes on all the risky behaviors and teenage shenanigans so we've already had to deal with it (and actually it was validating to know that generally we did ok), and we need next steps. It could come across self-righteous and condescending in tone but the advice is pretty solid.
September 30, 2019
I like this book. I just didn’t love it. I felt like it was repetitive a lot but maybe because those were the important things that I really needed to listen to. I’m really excited to get back on my standards and soapbox and help my kids grow. I’m not into the teens yet but I’m super nervous about that stage of life. And always have been. I liked how the author kept saying you can do it. You were the best chance your child has.Also talked about consequences. You don’t want to say you’re grounded for a whole year and that caused most kids to act out more. Also it’s more about the behavior and the disrespect in about what clothes they wear. It’s the point of growing up when you choose your own clothes.
April 30, 2020
An insightful read
Format issue for The kindle links in this addition. I read a lot of kindle books... On my iPad Pro the voiceover option reads the chapter link, then passes over the first page because of where the link is placed in this book. The chapter link should be separated from the main text it is going to introduce, so I the reader don’t have to pause the voiceover option to go back and manually read that section then reengage the voiceover option again. The book for me covered the importance of being patient in youth development. My biases, and opinions have their place in my encounters with young people. I realized after reading this 3 times that you really have to be patient as others go through their own process of self awareness and development.
Format issue for The kindle links in this addition. I read a lot of kindle books... On my iPad Pro the voiceover option reads the chapter link, then passes over the first page because of where the link is placed in this book. The chapter link should be separated from the main text it is going to introduce, so I the reader don’t have to pause the voiceover option to go back and manually read that section then reengage the voiceover option again. The book for me covered the importance of being patient in youth development. My biases, and opinions have their place in my encounters with young people. I realized after reading this 3 times that you really have to be patient as others go through their own process of self awareness and development.
September 2, 2020
This was a really great book with a lot of useful advice and information. The author talked a lot about how important and normal it is for teens to start pulling away from the family and wanting to spend more time with friends, and as long as they do this in healthy ways, it should be encouraged. It's necessary for them to spread their wings and grow as individuals, but they still need boundaries. The teenage brain continues to develop until they're 25, so although they think they have life all figured out, it's really up to the parent to guide and instruct them. Boundaries and mutual respect will go along way in navigating the teen years.
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