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When Kids Hurt: Help for Adults Navigating the Adolescent Maze
Chap Clark's groundbreaking Inside the World of Today's Teenagers revealed the hard truth about contemporary societal changes and systemic abandonment have left teenagers struggling to navigate the ever lengthening and ever more difficult transition to adulthood without caring adults.
When Kids Hurt offers these challenging insights to youth workers and parents in a more accessible form, with greater focus on how adults should respond. Practical sidebars and application sections, contributed by other youth experts, provide additional insights into youth culture and how adults can better guide adolescents into adulthood. This book will be an important resource for youth workers, parents, counselors, and others who work with youth.
When Kids Hurt offers these challenging insights to youth workers and parents in a more accessible form, with greater focus on how adults should respond. Practical sidebars and application sections, contributed by other youth experts, provide additional insights into youth culture and how adults can better guide adolescents into adulthood. This book will be an important resource for youth workers, parents, counselors, and others who work with youth.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
4 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Chap Clark
48 books22 followersChap Clark (PhD, University of Denver) is professor and chair of the youth, family, and culture department at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he also directs the Student Leadership Project and is coordinator of Fuller Studio. He is on the teaching team at Harbor Christian Center church in Gig Harbor, Washington, is president of ParenTeen, and works closely with Young Life. Clark has authored or coauthored numerous books including Hurt 2.0 and Sticky Faith. Follow him on Twitter @chapclark.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 1, 2017
This came highly recommended to me from professors at my grad school. I'm going to be working with teens and middle schoolers in the fall, so I was hoping for a book that provided a framework and foundation for understanding feelings of adolescent abandonment.
While this book touches on these themes briefly, it serves more as an advertisement for the author's prior book. It is heavily Christian-motivated, something I did not realize before picking it up. While I understand Christianity can be a powerful force of good in people's lives, it was not what I was looking for.
The author seems shocked that teens, filled with hormones, would be interested in exploring their sexuality. The author tilts the languages towards blaming the parents, which inevitably comes across as blaming the mother. (During one section, he takes a cross-list of the most stressful life events in teens. If you look at the entire list online, there is a wide range of variety from academics, sports, and family life. The author chooses to focus instead on divorce and single mothers.) In the 2000's, I thought we would be over that, but apparently not.
I was hoping for "help for adults navigating the adolescent maze" to mean something else. I was hoping for advice on how to connect with teens. I was hoping for advice on how to connect with teens when working through issues of safety and risky behavior at a level that is developmentally appropriate. I was hoping for ways to start meaningful dialogues.
It's not that this book is bad. If you're a youth minister, worker, or other person working in a Christian faith-based setting, you will likely find this book very helpful. It will reassure you and validate your position and help guide you through the challenges of providing loving, Christ-like support for a age range that is difficult to work with.
If you're a counselor or therapist of a non-Christian faith, you'll probably be flipping through the pages looking for applied developmental psychology and feeling that it is lacking.
While this book touches on these themes briefly, it serves more as an advertisement for the author's prior book. It is heavily Christian-motivated, something I did not realize before picking it up. While I understand Christianity can be a powerful force of good in people's lives, it was not what I was looking for.
The author seems shocked that teens, filled with hormones, would be interested in exploring their sexuality. The author tilts the languages towards blaming the parents, which inevitably comes across as blaming the mother. (During one section, he takes a cross-list of the most stressful life events in teens. If you look at the entire list online, there is a wide range of variety from academics, sports, and family life. The author chooses to focus instead on divorce and single mothers.) In the 2000's, I thought we would be over that, but apparently not.
I was hoping for "help for adults navigating the adolescent maze" to mean something else. I was hoping for advice on how to connect with teens. I was hoping for advice on how to connect with teens when working through issues of safety and risky behavior at a level that is developmentally appropriate. I was hoping for ways to start meaningful dialogues.
It's not that this book is bad. If you're a youth minister, worker, or other person working in a Christian faith-based setting, you will likely find this book very helpful. It will reassure you and validate your position and help guide you through the challenges of providing loving, Christ-like support for a age range that is difficult to work with.
If you're a counselor or therapist of a non-Christian faith, you'll probably be flipping through the pages looking for applied developmental psychology and feeling that it is lacking.
September 8, 2009
Interesting book geared for parents of adolescents (and soon-to-be adolescents). Much of the "advice" isn't rocket science, so to speak. It's pretty practical stuff, about not over-booking your kids so they are busy and exhausted. And making sure you spend plenty of time with your kids. The author talks about how kids feel abandoned by parents who are too busy (or too selfish) to spend time with them.
The book does have some interesting sections about how teens view topics such as sex and partying, though again, it wasn't stuff that was too surprising.
The book reinforces that kids are looking for purpose, and being part of a community. All of that can be found in a caring church community, and with God as part of their lives. I like the fact that the author emphasizes the fact that the reason kids are hurting is because they aren't connected with a caring church community filled with lots of caring adults (not just peers), and they have parents who are too busy, parents who selfishly put their own interests above their children, and parents who let their kids get way too busy with too many activities.
My favorite part of the book were the many short real-life illustrations from guest authors, who talk about how they are making a difference in the lives of young people.
It's easy reading, but again, I didn't really learn too much I didn't already know. But for parents who feel they are really struggling to figure out their adolescent kids, this may be a good starting point for something to read.
The book does have some interesting sections about how teens view topics such as sex and partying, though again, it wasn't stuff that was too surprising.
The book reinforces that kids are looking for purpose, and being part of a community. All of that can be found in a caring church community, and with God as part of their lives. I like the fact that the author emphasizes the fact that the reason kids are hurting is because they aren't connected with a caring church community filled with lots of caring adults (not just peers), and they have parents who are too busy, parents who selfishly put their own interests above their children, and parents who let their kids get way too busy with too many activities.
My favorite part of the book were the many short real-life illustrations from guest authors, who talk about how they are making a difference in the lives of young people.
It's easy reading, but again, I didn't really learn too much I didn't already know. But for parents who feel they are really struggling to figure out their adolescent kids, this may be a good starting point for something to read.
July 14, 2014
I found this book to be a little uneven. During the first section, I kept thinking "Yes. Just yes - this is so right on!" In the following two sections there were a few points like that, but it was less consistent. Perhaps this was because I work with high school kids. Some of the facts would maybe be shocking/surprising to people who don't work with high school students. However, I wasn't really surprised by many of the facts. I also found the solution section to be a bit conflicting - or maybe overwhelming? At one point, the author(s) suggested picking a kid or two to invest in, get to know, etc to reverse the feeling of abandonment that is so firmly established in the beginning of the book. However, the author also says one adult isn't enough and that systemic changes are needed. I really liked this book, though I'd prefer to give it a 3.5 instead of a 4.
February 8, 2012
An immensely helpful book to anyone who is priveleged to be working with today's troubled and abandoned teens. I am the mother of two teenagers and am a volunteer leader in our youth group at church. Many of our teens are suffering from abandonment. Reading this book has helped me to understand and reach out to these kids who so need to have loving , caring adults to be there for them. This book offers observations, insights and guidance to those who choose to serve and care for teens.
April 7, 2010
A must read for anyone working with youth. Chap talks more about some the the issues he raised in the book HURT. Provides a look into the hidden world of teen culture. This book also shares things that we can do to stem the the tide of systemic abandonment that has been affecting our teens for decades.
May 2, 2010
Clark did not convince me that the methods by which today's teens deal with life and school is all that different from my experience 30+ years ago. There has evidently been an exponential moral decline in behavior. But just applying the new term "cluster" doesn't make it all that different from the cliques and circles that we grew up with.
April 15, 2011
I thought it gave good advice for adult leaders, but did not necessarily agree with everything mentioned. It does contain stats that will need to be updated in a few years, but a good start for seeing what is important in students' lives and common challenges they face.
March 10, 2016
Having a "tween" this has opened my eyes to some of the difficulties, that girls my daughter invites to church, may be going through. It explains some reactions and behaviors. Good book for me in interpreting their "Q's" and what I can do to help... Not only for her friends but my daughter also.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews